29 MPG in a 220D?

[MarkChrisian]

Hey beautiful people. Another question from a fresh new Lex owner.

I'm getting 32MPG average and 29.5 MPG on each tank. Now comparing to other diesel cars (like my friends Honda CRV 2.2d BMW 320d Accord 2.2d) it's not very economical. How is it? I'm driving normally. Got 5 mile's in town and 30 on motorway each day. I usually don't drive casually on short distances. Can other diesel users tell me their experience. I work with Japanese car's and those 3 liter V6 Vans have a 35 MPG. Don't get it. Thank you for answers.

[Linas.P]

Little bit on the low side, but not really surprising or exceptional. IS220d should be pushing around 55MPG on motorway and ~30MPG in town. So your average should be in high-30s, 36-38MPG maybe, considering that you doing more motorway driving than town. But again it kind of depends, what kind of motorway it is, how busy it is, how heavy is your feet. If you set cruise control and drive for 30 miles at steady 70MPH, without ever touching accelerator, nor brakes, and if the road is level and smooth, then yes you will get 55MPG. But if motorway is busy, outside lane is constantly hogged, you doing 80MPH and you often have to slow down to wait for retards to move over doing 60MPH in outside lane, or get cut-off by people not checking mirrors and you basically constantly slowing down and accelerating (which is my experience on British motorways)... then it could be as bad as city driving and that would explain your 32MPG. So... yes you missing few MPG, but not a lot 4-6MPG maybe, I would not expect anything touching 40MPG in IS220d, unless you doing motorways all the time.

Or it may be literally dozens of issues that are plaguing IS220d. Common one which will destroy your MPG are leaky injectors or 5th injector, which is very common on IS220d. If somebody messed with EGR/DPF (by which I mean deleted/blocked/mapped out) then this would be another big reason of bad MPG. 

[Shahpor]

I used to average late 30's mpg in my 220d with a mix of town and motorway driving.  Saw 40's a couple of times but that was with me being careful and driving slower (closer to 60mph).

As Linas says, there are many factors in why yours is a little low, so it is difficult to say what can be done.  One thing I can say is that the gearing on it is terrible, so don't try and hold 70mph as it is too low for 6th and too high for 5th.  For me, it used to be 65ish mph in 5th or 75ish (indicated) in 6th.

[MarkChrisian]

So I have to accept the fact that this piece of kaku of a car is the worst diesel in comparison to others and I should expect to have a better fuel economy than a V6 petrol. Who build this car? Morons? And what all of the users accept this fact? I don't get it. Why even bother to buy a diesel then? Can't believe that I just bought it and I already want to get rid of it.

[Spacewagon52]

9 minutes ago, MarkChrisian said:

So I have to accept the fact that this piece of kaku of a car is the worst diesel in comparison to others and I should expect to have a better fuel economy than a V6 petrol. Who build this car? Morons? And what all of the users accept this fact? I don't get it. Why even bother to buy a diesel then? Can't believe that I just bought it and I already want to get rid of it.

Sadly Marek, you have bought the one Lexus model (the diesel) that few people on this forum would recommend. I believe it is the most unreliable car Lexus have made. Some IS220D owners on the forum will disagree with this statement. Lexus cars are hard to beat - many owners who change their Lexus for another brand often come back. Unfortunately you have picked the wrong one.

This will probably put you off the brand, which is a shame.

[Linas.P]

That is why if you would have asked before buying it on here everyone would have told you categorically - DO NOT BUY IT.

Fuel economy to be honest is last of your worries. If it would be at least reliable, then slightly lower MPG compared to competitors would be fine, as the rest of the car is much better, interior is nicer, better quipped, but it isn't reliable either and that would be my biggest worry.

I think you little bit overstating the MPG other similar diesels achieve, this is not Golf 1.9TDi, it is much larger car which weights 1500kg, so expect the consumption to be in line with what you have. I think if you compare it to say BMW 320d, then average fuel consumption will be very similar - say 38MPG vs. 42MPG, now counterintuitively BMW 330d and 530d will have better fuel consumption, because those are better engines which are less stressed in large and heavy cars. 2L diesels are not economical and never been economical, because they are too small and too stressed. But that is why it would cost extra £4000 to upgrade from 320d to 330d when the cars were new. 2L diesels are cheap for a reason and what you save on purchasing the car you then lose on MPG. So in fair comparison with equivalent car like BMW 320d, the Lexus IS220d will be fairly comparable.

As well I think you overstate what 3L V6 petrols can achieve. Yes they get 35MPG on motorway, that is true, but what is their average?! 24MPG maybe. So you comparing your average with their maximum, that again is not fair comparison. That said IS220d is not a great car by any metric, that is why anyone on here would advise you to pick IS250 instead, similar MPG around town (26 maybe), still decent MPG on motorway (up-to 48), but it is much more powerful and smoother engine, automatic gearbox is smooth, car is reliable and even sounds good. So if we compare IS220d vs IS250, then you have say 38MPG vs. 30MPG average. Similar diesels like BMW 320d will be 42MPG vs 38MPG. Now you achieving 32MPG is not great for diesel nor it is great for IS220d, but it is not so low that it would be out of ordinary. As said above - it could be your driving conditions and habits, or it might be a fault with the car... too many variables to consider. As well 2 tanks of fuel is too early to judge, so don't jump to premature conclusions. 30 miles as well are not really far enough for diesel, if you not driving at least 100 miles per trip I would not advise owning diesel at all. So perhaps when opportunity comes take a longer trip and see what actual MPG you get. And by longer I mean 300-400 miles... if you can't get at least high 40s (46-48) in long motorway run then I would start looking for problems.

My goal is not to say IS220d is a good car - it isn't. My goal is to put it in correct perspective and compare it like for like.

[H3XME]

Short answer, sell it.

I do 63 miles commute 4x week. 4-5 miles on regular roads and the rest on the motorway. I average 35-36mpg in my IS250 manual. Went to Ponterfact on Saturday, it's 198 mile round trip for me. Came back with 41.1mpg average. That's with a little bit of crawling on the A38 going towards Burton and some town driving before I reached the main road / motorway so..

[Mike Jacobs]

I get 30 lots of urban driving. And around 35 combined. It's quite normal from what I saw. I own the car for a year now.