Zotto

I have a Hybrid GS300h now, but I still remember how my former GS 450h was a rocket!

Compliments for the purchase and let we know your experience with RX

If you consider the average price of Lexus cars, not much to be surprised that young people does not drive a Lexus. :)

If no warning red light appears on dash, nothing to be worried. About beep, if it did not happen before try to read if there is any warning message like lights on or boot not closed.

My only suggestion is to be careful about jump starters, they are NOT to be used with Hybrid vehicles with Toyota eCVT, if for some reason the 12V battery goes discharged, it has to be just charged for some minutes and then try to restart engine, as during starting of it the energy is given by HV battery, 12V is needed only for ECUs and services.

Besides, confronting ML in this gen GS and former one, I found slightly better the 2nd ; probably they use different class amplifiers, paying more care to energy sparing to nowadays version or may be it's a matter of digital audio treatment.

I had a GS 450h and I was really satisfied of it. About ML audio, remember to set treble-mid- bass separately for each audio source.

It's a frequent question people make about hybrid cars, you can find in forum many answers, usually HV battery lasts lifetime of car, but it may break like other not critical components of any car. How long a transmission lasts?

No need for a larger electric engine, if you need faster response, go in SPORT mode and expect less mpg :)

About rear seats, I agree they are suitable for 2, in center there is the armrest, with several commands in Luxury version.

Just an hypothesis, be sure to set air recirculation off, to diminish CO2 concentration.

About steering, I found differences between my former 2008 GS 450h and my GS 300h that , in my opinion , is better. My 450h had variable ratio steer, so when I drove in normal mode the ratio requested too many rounds to do on steering wheel, to have a better ratio I needed to switch to sport mode, but at this point it needed more effort to rotate steering wheel: with GS 300h that has NOT variable ratio steering, the ratio is just right in normal mode, requesting more effort switching to sport+ while adaptive suspension get stiffer too, and I prefer this way, so to have a steering ratio I like also when driving in normal mode.

Being a owner of GS 300h with 19" wheels , I can say that while in sport mode the change is mainly in throttle response, when in sport+ the difference is very noticeable also in rigidity and precision.

A recent release of DVD already contains updated firmware (for dvd based systems).

It is noticeable that GS , not in base version has Sport and sport+ settings, with the difference of standard and variable suspension, without speaking of rear steering wheels and adaptive steering of GS 450 FSport. So, I suspect that who wrote to have a better feeling with IS tested the lowest version of GS.

The big mistake is that CVT in Lexus-Toyota hybrids is NOT the old CVT with belts, it's a system to cope thermal and electric engines in a completely different way, so thinking to it like a DAF transmission is misleading. They should have called it with a different name instead of eCVT.

For what I know, auto mode works except for the setting you modify manually.

After setting AC in AUTO mode, you can change fan speed or send any other command and this will override Auto setting only for that specific feature, and auto is still on for all other settings.

Giving a try to hybrid driving could make you to valuate better the difference from a "traditional" vehicle.

A simpler solution is to use a fake audio cassette with input from BT dongle; nothing to solder or cut, even if probably a worse audio.

... and don't forget great difference in mpg.

Already discussed topic, they should last for car life, but they can break like any other component after years of work.

With my 2008 GS I connected a BT receiver to AUX input with good results, better and easier (if your GS has it).

If you need space, RX is the right choice. Besides, Lexus does not make hatchback cars.

I traded my gen. 3 GS 450h for a gen4 GS 300h, and 300h is better in all , except on acceleration of course. A friend of mine bought a new 450h, and while performance is the same, compared my former 450h mpg are better, gaining about 3 mpg (you can see difference looking on spritmonitor or fuelly different figures selecting before and after 2012 models). Best improvements had been made in electronics , active cruise control is that one I like more.