New owner questions!

[wharfhouse]

13 hours ago, Stever750 said:

Thought I'd give an update after 2 weeks of so of ownership. I've done a mostly motorway journey, and a cross country journey this weekend just gone. 

Mpg for latter trip was 47.9, I've decided I leave it in standard, and flick into sport when I plan to overtake traffic in front, which I did multiple times, so that's an impressive return. I'm the fuelio app, and the first brim to brim was within 0.2mpg of the display, so that's good news. I'm also quite impressed with the handling, I had to fit koni uprated dampers to my superb to stop it wallowing around like a boat at sea, and the lexus had comparable body control. Grip is surprisingly high, and the RWD means turn in and front wheel grip is good too. It's not a sports car, and won't make you grin much, but you can lean on it and it's predictable. However, the steering is pretty dire, the on-centre feel is pretty poor. At high speed it feels like it's wandering slightly, as if it's following ruts in the road. Maybe I was spoiled by German designs that are set up for high speed autobahn driving. 

I think I found the climate control issue, it seems in the settings that the aircon is always on, so I've deactivated that to manual control. 

Biggest gripe so far is that DAB radio is dead radio. I've tried it in multiple locations between south Wales and the Midlands and all I get is no signal. No amount of fiddling in the menu has woken it up, so welcome any trouble shooting suggestions. 

Otherwise I'm pretty contented with it, it's quiet, comfortable and a relaxing drive for long distances. The only thing left to evaluate is whether there is a benefit to using 99RON instead of E10. I got a net benefit of using it with the Skoda, and the Facebook IS300h users group thinks it does. It's not a stressed engine, no turbo so in theory it's not going to be so sensitive. 

Thanks for the update and good that you are finding the car a relaxing ride. On your points:

Your mpg is very similar to mine. I leave mine in Eco especially on motorways as it makes the CVT less inclined to rev the engine so readily and the cruise control isn't so aggressive on resuming and so I find it a more relaxing drive. Flicking over to Sport is quick enough if I want some extra urge. 

I always leave the air con in Auto mode with all vents open (but normally directed away from my body) and let it switch the air con and air outlets as it sees fit. I haven't found any issues Auto mode but I know some people are more sensitive to this - my wife often feels the need to change the settings. 

I don't feel any wandering in the steering - it's always rock solid and straight as an arrow on motorways. I would check tyre pressures (if you haven't already) and make sure they are at or even slightly above recommended pressure. Also could be alignment - may be worth having that checked. Otherwise tyres can play a part too (some threads on this forum about this) - mine is 17" wheels and I keep replacing with OEM Yokohama BluEarth E51A. 

On E10 vs E5 I have many tens of thousands of miles where I have been able to compare this like for like journeys and conditions. My conclusion is that E5 is well over 5% (approaching 10% at times) more fuel efficient than E10. Also the car runs more smoothly / quieter on E5. Now, most of my fuel is from Costco and previously Sainsbury's. The better fuel economy means at worst it costs be no more to use their E5 over E10 and in fact saves me a small amount of money. However, their price difference is only about 7p a litre between E5 and E10. Branded (Shell, BP etc) is around 20p a litre difference in price between E5 and E10 and so on that basis using E5 will cost more to run, ignoring the other benefits of E5. 

On the DAB - if you've followed the instructions for finding DAB stations and been unsuccessful sounds like it may be a visit to the dealer as a possible warranty issue? 

[Stever750]

Mine has some cheapo tyres fitted, plus the steering wheel is slightly off centre at the straight ahead, so I've already planned to have the tracking checked; that said i can definitely feel the motor cogging effects. I used to work for a steering system manufacturer, so probably far ore sensitised to this than the average owner. 

Will be filling up with Tesco E5 later this week. DAB definitely a job for the dealer when I get a chance to call by next week.

[Mr_Groundhog]

32 minutes ago, Stever750 said:

Mine has some cheapo tyres fitted, plus the steering wheel is slightly off centre at the straight ahead, so I've already planned to have the tracking checked; that said i can definitely feel the motor cogging effects. I used to work for a steering system manufacturer, so probably far ore sensitised to this than the average owner. 

Will be filling up with Tesco E5 later this week. DAB definitely a job for the dealer when I get a chance to call by next week.

investing in good alignment by someone who knows pays off.... then if you feel uneasy about the steering after that you can replace the front arm bushings with those of the lexus GS-F (compatible) and will make it feel better (i did)

[wharfhouse]

32 minutes ago, Stever750 said:

Mine has some cheapo tyres fitted, plus the steering wheel is slightly off centre at the straight ahead, so I've already planned to have the tracking checked; that said i can definitely feel the motor cogging effects. I used to work for a steering system manufacturer, so probably far ore sensitised to this than the average owner. 

Will be filling up with Tesco E5 later this week. DAB definitely a job for the dealer when I get a chance to call by next week.

I would definitely get some decent tyres on the car (btw, perhaps surprisingly, my Lexus dealer is always cheaper than the local tyre fitters and so worth getting a quote from yours), make sure tyre pressures are all spot on, and then get the alignment properly checked at a place that has good equipment and knows how to use it - steering wheel off centre is of course a sure sign of something not quite to spec. I came from having quite a few BMWs to the IS and although the steering in the IS a bit lighter than the BMWs (although it firms up a bit in Sport mode) I found the IS steering in a straight line as good as or better than the BMWs I had (definitely not so much tramlining as the last BMW I had). On the E5, the comparison should be with Tesco E10 for any meaningful comparison. Run one tankful of E5 through first and then see how the second tankful performs for mpg as in the past I have found you can't always reliably measure the difference for the first couple of hundred miles. Like me, it sounds like you do a lot of mileage over the same roads and so you should be able to make an informed comparison over a few thousand miles that removes any "placebo" effect.

[Stever750]

10 minutes ago, Mr_Groundhog said:

investing in good alignment by someone who knows pays off.... then if you feel uneasy about the steering after that you can replace the front arm bushings with those of the lexus GS-F (compatible) and will make it feel better (i did)

Ah, the eternal challenge.....I have a few stories about that, and in practice very very few understand the physics involved sufficiently well enough to get it right, very few of them even understand how the instrumentation even works.

[Stever750]

58 minutes ago, wharfhouse said:

Otherwise tyres can play a part too (some threads on this forum about this) - mine is 17" wheels and I keep replacing with OEM Yokohama BluEarth E51A. 

Just looked at black circles, these are one of the cheapest options at £86 per tyre fitted. I was thinking of Bridgestone Turanza, had them on my Superb and were OK for handling and grip and around 2-3 mpg better than the Rainsports that replaced them back in November.

The Yokohamas are rated B for eco, same as the Turanza, so seems like a good choice. I have a mixed pair at the rear, a Bridgestone and a Falken, both with lots of tread depth left, so I may just changed the fronts that have a name that I have never heard of.

[wharfhouse]

6 minutes ago, Stever750 said:

Ah, the eternal challenge.....I have a few stories about that, and in practice very very few understand the physics involved sufficiently well enough to get it right, very few of them even understand how the instrumentation even works.

Too true! I've had my share of poor alignments done over the years and the car has ended up worse than when it went in! Only ever found one place where I live that did the right job - corrected a couple of bad alignments I'd had done by other places, and that was after giving those places a second chance to get it right!!! The place was also used by some main dealers too.

[Thackeray]

2 hours ago, Mr_Groundhog said:

higher octanes are for engines with a compression ratio above 12 to 1, and this Lexus has 13 to 1, so I have always given her the slightly more expensive E5 for peace of mind.

A long time ago there was a discussion about whether the compression ratio was really 13 to 1. I know Colin Barber explained the setup but as I can't find the thread I'll relate what I remember and hope that someone will correct me if I've got it wrong.

The engine uses the Atkinson cycle for improved economy. What this means is that the exhaust stroke is effectively longer than the compression stroke because of the timing of the valves opening and closing. This is aimed at making best use of exploding fuel before it's extracted from the engine. As I remember the discussion, it was concluded that the exhaust stroke is indeed 13 to 1. But the compression stroke after the valves close is actually less than this because of the Atkinson cycle. I got the impression that it's therefore not strictly true to say that it has a compression of 13 to 1, when it's actually the exhaust stroke which is 13 to 1.

[Thackeray]

16 hours ago, Stever750 said:

Biggest gripe so far is that DAB radio is dead radio. I've tried it in multiple locations between south Wales and the Midlands and all I get is no signal. No amount of fiddling in the menu has woken it up, so welcome any trouble shooting suggestions.

Most owners seem to struggle to get the DAB to work. I imagine most just give up and stick to FM. But in case you feel like persisting, I'll add a link to a discussion from three or four years ago. This may or not be helpful as your car may have a newer system. But just in case it helps, here's an explanation of how I got DAB working on my 2014 car.

[wharfhouse]

36 minutes ago, Thackeray said:

Most owners seem to struggle to get the DAB to work. I imagine most just give up and stick to FM. But in case you feel like persisting, I'll add a link to a discussion from three or four years ago. This may or not be helpful as your car may have a newer system. But just in case it helps, here's an explanation of how I got DAB working on my 2014 car.

@Stever750 that's a good thread from @Thackeray - it's certainly not the most intuitive system on the planet...!!! I worked it all out after a while when I got my IS and then stored the the BBC stations (from the National Ensemble) I wanted to the DAB presets, and more recently Greatest Hits Radio. The BBC presets work all over the country (and revert automatically to FM if the DAB signal is poor) but Greatest Hits Radio is on local Ensembles - as I travel between home and the south coast a lot I therefore had to use two presets (there are only 6 presets available for DAB channels) - one for each area and switch between them about half way through my journey. If I want a station other than the BBC ones elsewhere in the country I then have to get back to the Ensembles list, find the Ensemble that contains the station I want and then select that to listen to it.

So the upshot is for travelling around the country if you want the BBC stations, once preset, they work well with no further hassle all over the country. Any other stations though will require locating in the local area ensembles as you move around the country and can take a bit of digging out so not that practical unless you are staying a while in one area, though I have got quite used to it now.

[Thackeray]

2 minutes ago, wharfhouse said:

The BBC presets work all over the country (and revert automatically to FM if the DAB signal is poor)

I didn't know that. I've never noticed it happening on my car. How can you tell if the station has been switched to FM? Is this something you have to set up in advance and if so do you know how it's done?

[Stever750]

22 minutes ago, wharfhouse said:

 

So the upshot is for travelling around the country if you want the BBC stations, once preset, they work well with no further hassle all over the country. Any other stations though will require locating in the local area ensembles as you move around the country and can take a bit of digging out so not that practical unless you are staying a while in one area, though I have got quite used to it now.

I used DAB in my last two cars, and agree it works seamlessly. The sound quality is also very good as you'd expect.

[wharfhouse]

1 hour ago, Thackeray said:

I didn't know that. I've never noticed it happening on my car. How can you tell if the station has been switched to FM? Is this something you have to set up in advance and if so do you know how it's done?

First in Audio Settings / DAB Settings / DAB Alternative Frequency - set this to ON

Then when the DAB signal is too low for good reception, the radio automatically switches to the matching FM station (I think it only works for DAB national stations with a matching FM station - it works well for Radio 2 that I listen to mostly).

A better explanation from a Toyota radio manual is: «DAB alternative Frequency» also known as "Network following" is a feature that, when available, will automatically switch to the strongest channel for a certain station. It is recommended to have this feature enabled. Enabling «DAB alternative Frequency» will also activate the «FMlink» feature. «FMLink» is a feature that will switch from DAB radio to FM radio (given the tuned DAB station has an exact FM alternative) when the DAB reception deteriorates. When the DAB-signal improves «FMLink» can again switch back from FM to DAB

You know it's switched over as in the display in the centre console (when it's showing radio stations) you will see FM-Link pop up - also you will hear a change in the quality - DAB has a better quality than FM - there is no pause, just a change in the quality. When the DAB reception improves again it will seamlessly switch back to DAB and the FM-Link will pop-up will be gone and the quality will improve again. Much better than losing the DAB signal all together when reception is poor. It's very useful when driving around hilly areas as FM will keep working when the DAB signal is intermittent.

[Thackeray]

37 minutes ago, wharfhouse said:

First in Audio Settings / DAB Settings / DAB Alternative Frequency - set this to ON

Then when the DAB signal is too low for good reception, the radio automatically switches to the matching FM station (I think it only works for DAB national stations with a matching FM station - it works well for Radio 2 that I listen to mostly).

Many thanks for this. After having had the car for so long, it's a surprise to keep discovering new features that I knew nothing about! I'll check this when I'm next in the car. Of course, it might be turned on anway and I've simply never noticed.

[Stever750]

7 hours ago, Thackeray said:

Most owners seem to struggle to get the DAB to work. I imagine most just give up and stick to FM. But in case you feel like persisting, I'll add a link to a discussion from three or four years ago. This may or not be helpful as your car may have a newer system. But just in case it helps, here's an explanation of how I got DAB working on my 2014 car.

Thank you! It worked. 

I cannot imagine how difficult it was for the Toyota engineers to have designed such a ridiculously unintuitive UI. Im still unsure how you navigate between ensembles, having to use the cd player shuffle buttons is a master stroke. I found BBC so that's all good, though I haven't found R6 yet, I daren't look in case I lose the whole lot! 

[wharfhouse]

1 minute ago, Stever750 said:

Thank you! It worked. 

I cannot imagine how difficult it was for the Toyota engineers to have designed such a ridiculously unintuitive UI. Im still unsure how you navigate between ensembles, having to use the cd player shuffle buttons is a master stroke. I found BBC so that's all good, though I haven't found R6 yet, I daren't look in case I lose the whole lot! 

Good to hear you've got DAB working - once you have worked it out and used it a bit it's not so bad to find stations, if rather laborious - but the first time through to get some presets in place is certainly a challenge...

BTW if you haven't worked it out yet each audio source you cycle through (DAB, FM, USB, Bluetooth etc.) can have different tone settings - I found setting eg DAB different to USB to Bluetooth etc was very beneficial in getting all sources to have a similar tone response (so bass, mid, treble) - if all are made to be the same I found the one I set originally was fine but others then didn't sound too good - so worth tweaking each that you use one by one. 

[Stever750]

Yes I found that. 

Tyres next, fronts are OK sumitomo, but I have mixed brands at the rear. Two new Yokohamas won't hurt. 

[wharfhouse]

3 hours ago, Stever750 said:

Yes I found that. 

Tyres next, fronts are OK sumitomo, but I have mixed brands at the rear. Two new Yokohamas won't hurt. 

I didn't know of Sumitomo but as it appears they own Dunlop so probably not too bad. In that case I think I'd go for a full 4 wheel alignment - especially as the steering wheel is off centre so looks like something has been done previously and maybe not correctly. Then start and replace tyres as budget allows to get same brand on all four corners. 

[Stever750]

Just filled up for the 3rd time and this is concerning. The trip comp showed 45.5mpg. 

I double checked the data and couldn't spot an error, either the trip is way out or I didn't actually brim it properly the time before. The fuel gauge looked full though so I don't think that was the problem. 

[ColinBarber]

Trip computer can be up to 3 mpg out in my experience. 

[Stever750]

Thing is, it was within 0.2 the previous fill up. 

Guess time will tell. 

[Stever750]

Sorry, one more question and one unlikely answered in another thread without huge amounts of searching. 

What the max length of flat pack you can fit in with the rear seats down? The item I need to collect is 1.5m in length. 

[wharfhouse]

17 minutes ago, Stever750 said:

Sorry, one more question and one unlikely answered in another thread without huge amounts of searching. 

What the max length of flat pack you can fit in with the rear seats down? The item I need to collect is 1.5m in length. 

I've just picked up one of there from IKEA in my IS 300h - https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/p/kallax-shelving-unit-white-80275887/

With packing this would have been 1.5m long. Backs seats down and my normal driving position (I'm nearly 6ft tall) and there was still a good 10cm to spare. 

[Stever750]

5 minutes ago, wharfhouse said:

I've just picked up one of there from IKEA in my IS 300h - https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/p/kallax-shelving-unit-white-80275887/

With packing this would have been 1.5m long. Backs seats down and my normal driving position (I'm nearly 6ft tall) and there was still a good 10cm to spare. 

Brilliant thanks! It's the homebase version of kallax that my wife wants. 

[Stever750]

It fitted, just!