Surprisingly Good Mpg On Motorway Run.

[ganzoom]

So have had the IS now for 2 weeks, me and the wife are literally fighting for the keys every day!

Today was the first time I've had the chance to drive the car on a long motorway stint, and test out the dynamic cruise control/ lane departure warning etc. With it been 7-8 degrees outside, and engine still new I didn't expect it to deliver any mind blowing mpg figures, especially since hybrids are best in town...

So I set off, cruise control set at 70mph and dynamic mode. My trip me down the M1 and than North Circular around north London. Quite a lot of traffic (max speed possible was about 75mph), and quite a few 50/60 mph segments (which helped with mpg readings)

The cruise control was fantastic, I only had to touch the throttle/brake a handful of times in 80 miles of busy M way traffic. Never had a car with dynamic cruise control before, but the system in the IS300H is fab, doesn't brake too harshly, picks up speed quickly enough for overtaking when changing lanes.

After 90 miles on the motorway

Than came 10 miles of been stuck in standstill traffic in North London, and the IS300Hs party trick (Full EV mode) saw the mpg IMPROVE

Overall mpg is improving with every trip, come the summer, and the engine loosened up I wouldnt be surprised if itll hit 60mpg regularly :)

Also found the most unless featureGoogle Street view on the sat nav screen, I thought it was cool, my wife said whats wrong with just looking out of the window':whistling:

Overall, after 2 weeks, I'm loving the IS300H more than ever!!

Infact I've even thought about selling my BMW 335i for either a GS450H or a Infinti Q50....I really thought, I would never get to the point where I would want to swap my BMW for a slower car, but the refinement of the hybrid technology is so convincing. I'm not sure I'm patient enough to wait another 2 years for Tesla to announce an affordable pure EV car

[DJP]

How does the dynamic cruise work? Does it sense slower traffic in front and then adjusts speed accordingly? And then speed up when the gap extends?

I thought the Street View was to give you a image of the destination set in the sat nav, not what was out of the window?

Sent from my iPad using Lexus OC

[ganzoom]

You set the cruise speed with the normal way, and the car will simply speed up/slow down depending on whats in front. I presume when it slows, the brakes lights come on to warn the car behind....You can also select how close/far you want to be from the car in front, which is useful depending on speed. That plus 'lane departure' detection warning means, and blind spot monitoring means I've just had the most relaxed motorway drive ever :)

[ColinBarber]

I presume when it slows, the brakes lights come on to warn the car behind

Why? People pressing the brake pedal rather than just coming off the throttle is the biggest cause of congestion on the motorway.

The system will use the brakes if it needs to slow down that quickly, such as somebody pulling into your lane, and will bring on the lights.

[DJP]

Sounds pretty good. Another step closer to driverless motoring.

Sent from my iPad using Lexus OC

[michaelH]

your 59.6 is probably about 56 in reality, but pretty good for the time of year.

[Steve44]

That is excellent mpg - is your Premier on 18's or the optional 17's?

Glad to hear the active cruise works well, I was disappointed you couldn't specify it with any other trim level when I did mine, maybe next time.

[ganzoom]

That is excellent mpg - is your Premier on 18's or the optional 17's?

Glad to hear the active cruise works well, I was disappointed you couldn't specify it with any other trim level when I did mine, maybe next time.

We went for 17inch wheels because I perfer the look of them, didn't realise they would give better mpg too :)

The trim levels are odd, I read somethere is Lexus way of making people buy the Premier spec...Well it worked, we were happy with the Luxury spec, but I really wanted the 'safety pack', and since we'll be keeping this car 5-10years, I thought why not!!

On the trip back home, I pick up the speed a bit...maybe was even tempted to run close to three figuers at one stage when the traffic disappered (memory hazy though, and pretty sure I don't remeber seeing the speedo go over the 70mph ;))....Still managed to return 54mpg. The best I ever got out of the Civic was 57mpg, and that was doing about 60mph, summers days + drafting lorries. So very very impressed by the Lexus so far...Sadly today my wife has taken it to work, so I was stuck driving the BMW!!

[ColinBarber]

It would have been a big surprise if you managed that mpg on the 18" wheels and OEM tyres.

[Steve44]

Yep. I did same trip down M1 today and got 52.2mpg on the trip comp, so roughly 10% less on 18's, which is the brochure difference too.

[ColinBarber]

I currently have a courtesy vehicle, a Premier on 18s, and my journey home which normally provides very consistent mpg figures was around 3 or 4 mpg better.

Not sure what that tells me but it could be:

• It isn't just the larger wheels that makes the F Sport economy worse than the other models
• Lexus have improved the mpg of the IS300h over its short lifetime
• There is quite a large manufacturing tolerance in these vehicles which affects economy
• Having only cover 3,000 miles the IS300h engine doesn't need running in - people seeing improvement all the way up to 8,000 miles are probably just getting use to driving the hybrid system more economically.

[Deadloak]

I did a mixed test drive of an IS F-Sport, prior to ordering.

This was on ECO mode and got 60.4mpg. Although I've not ever owned one, I've driven a CVT for 10 years. So the mode of driving is a very similar mechanic to what I'm used to. I did a bit of out of character driving, which gave 53mpg, which surprised me.

The demo car was a Mar '15 with 6k on the clock, so would be fairly loosened up by now.

Looking forward for the delivery :)

[splatty]

I ignore the MPG from the car as everyone knows it's not too accurate.

What I do know, is that I generally got 350-400 miles out of a tank of unleaded in the A5 and I got 641 miles out of the last tank in the Is F-Sport.

well impressed