Ordered By New Is 300H

[daylight1]

Evening everyone

I've recently joined the Lexus Owners Club, although I've been driving Lexus since 2005 when I bought my first IS 250 SE. My current car is an IS 250 SE-L but last weekend I placed an order with Lexus Nottingham for a new IS 300h Luxury with the free Premium Navigation upgrade in Arctic Pearl and black leather. It should be available around the 18th of March and I can't wait.

I really like the car and had a test drive in the Luxury, F Sport and Premium before finally deciding on the Luxury with the option of electric leather heated and ventilated seats. I do a fair annual mileage (around 18,000) so the fuel saving and road fund licence reduction makes a really big saving on running costs. It will be my first hybrid, so I'm sure the drive will take a little while to adjust to, but based on the test drives it won't take long.

I must admit I hadn't really read many postings on the IS 300h forum before deciding to buy and the large number of people who seem to be having problems with the Phone, sat nav and infotainment system has made me wonder what mine is going to turn out like

I'd had a silly problem with my IS 250 SE-L with the car losing my phone contacts and speed dials from time to time. In light of this and the concerns expressed by some unlucky customers I've spoken to Lexus Nottingham who have assured me their master technician, (who apparently is the infotainment specialist), is going to check all aspects of the system as part of the Pre-Delivery Inspection process, i.e. before I take delivery. Hopefully this should avoid me having problems but we'll see.

Anyway, just thought I'd say hello and say how much I am looking forward to getting my new IS 300h.

Cheers for now - Robert

[DJP]

Welcome Robert, I'm sure you won't be disappointed with your choice. It won't take long to get used to the hybrid, the whine that you read about, particularly from the journo's is something and nothing. The nav problems seem to be sporadic and some affected more than others. These forums tend to attract those with issues, that's the nature of the beast.

Post some pics when you've taken delivery!

[daylight1]

Hello David and thanks for the reply.

Yes I'm sure I'll adapt very quickly and when I took the cars out to test drive I found the whine you refer to (which is the brake regeneration system I believe) is really only noticeable if you brake hard. If you allow the engine to assist braking and use the brake pedal less I got to the point where my wife said she couldn't hear it at all.

Thanks for the reassurance on the nav issue too - I must admit I had no problems on the IS 300h which I had for 24 hours when my own car was in for service so I'll keep my fingers crossed.

Looking forward to becoming a regular contributor and will post pictures of my new car when it arrives - can't wait! :)

Robert

[Ian J. Parsley]

Robert,

Welcome to the club!

I do have the odd gremlin in the software, but frankly it's nothing compared to the overall brilliance of the car. You'll not regret it!

[BarneyTT]

Hi Robert and welcome.

This weeks 5th Gear on Discovery had a feature on the IS300H, looked lovely, enjoy.

[daylight1]

Thanks DJP, Ian and Barney for the comments - I'm really counting the hours until next Wednesday and will try and post some pictures as soon as I can as it seems like these are appreciated by fellow members.

Robert

[daylight1]

Finally the wait is over - I picked up my new IS 300h from Lexus Nottingham this afternoon and am delighted with it. They were able to get hold of the very latest version of the infotainment system software and upgraded it before I picked the car up. I was pleased / relieved to see the car recognise my Iphone 5 running iOS 7.1 straight away and downloaded all of my contacts without any problems.

I'm a newcomer to the forum but have worked out how to post a picture as this seems to be appreciated when a member gets their new car. I've attached one to this post.

My initial opinion is that it is every bit as quiet, plush, smooth and relaxing to drive as my previous IS 250SE-L and I find the Remote Touch system very responsive and easy to use. This might sound sad, but I'm also delighted to report that after only some 40 miles of driving I'm already averaging 50mpg. I do around 17,000 miles a year so this is clearly going to generate me a big saving on fuel costs.

It may seem like a strange thing to say, but I'm really looking forward to the commute to work tomorrow! :)

[DJP]

Congratulations, glad to hear infotainment and Iphone pairing working as they should. Fingers crossed the gremlins are ironed out.

Remember to have the 'show notifications' enabled via the phone Bluetooth otherwise text messages won't appear on the screen.

Nothing strange about wanting to drive to work in the morning either!

[daylight1]

Hello David

Yes everything is working as it should so hopefully that will remain the case. Thanks for the advice about having 'show notifications' enabled via the phone Bluetooth, I'll check that as it would be very useful to receive text messages on screen. I guess care would be needed on this though as it could be a distraction whilst driving. Have you found this to be the case?

Robert

[DJP]

No not really, it can be quite amusing listening to the computers attempt at translating text talk to real language. Of course you can't reply either, and you need to watch it if you have passengers in case the text is inappropriate! It'll come up on the screen that you have a message and then you choose to have it read or to ignore. Unfortunately the Iphone doesn't support e mails which I would personally find more useful.

[Ian J. Parsley]

Yes, you need "Show Notifications" and "Personal Hotspot" turned ON.

You may by now have signed up to Lexus Portal. This enables you to design trips off Google (even filling in destinations merely by name - say "Newton Social Club, Newton") and send them to the car; and to look up destinations online from the car (useful, say, for newly renamed restaurants or such).

The text messages are no problem because they're read out to you.

[DJP]

Ian, you don't need the hotspot on to receive text messages.

[Ian J. Parsley]

No, but you do for all the Connected Services. (Conversely, you don't need "Show Notifications" for the Connected Services.)

[DJP]

Yep. Straightforward isn't it lol!