Thackeray

Reviving this old topic, I have a related question. Can anyone help? My car had an intermediate service a year ago, its third service. So it's now due a service in the next week or so. But it's some way off four years old and has a couple of thousand miles to go before it reaches 40,000. Which service is due? Intermediate, normal full service or 40,000?

Many thanks for checking when the indicator cancels on your car. Sounds as though it's just the same as on mine. Thanks for taking the trouble to find out. I'd be interested to hear from owners of other makes of car to see if I'm right in thinking that indicator cancellation works properly on other makes.

My guess would be that much of the Lexus development was aimed at the American market, where until recently I believe they had hardly any roundabouts. So no-one would have noticed the indicators cancelling too soon as you went round the roundabout. Maybe the same is true of Japan. If other owners can confirm that this is an oddity unique to Lexus, maybe I could start a new thread to campaign for Toyota/Lexus to fix the problem. I know it's only an irritation but there's no need for the irritation to be there at all. It's just bad design.

3 minutes ago, Mr Vlad said:

I'l make a mental note to notice what mine does. But I'd suggest there may be a fault within the steering wheel/shaft causing that.

You could be right that there's a fault. It would be good to know what other people's cars do. If they're different I'll then know to ask for it to be fixed at the next service.

4 hours ago, Mr Vlad said:

As for the indicators going off after you've turned your wheel. It's supposed to happen like that otherwise they'd never cancel till you did it.

What happens on most other cars is that if you're indicating right and you turn the wheel from centre to the left (like when you enter a roundabout) it doesn't cancel. You often hear a mechanical click as you turn the wheel past some cog. Then when you actually make the right turn, turning the wheels to the right, the indicator is cancelled when you turn the wheels back from pointing to the right to pointing straight ahead. I can't remember any other car that doesn't do that.

What I find irritating is that when I'm indicating right, the indicators are cancelled before I've even turned the wheel a fraction to the right - they cancel when I turn the wheel from straight ahead to the left, which is not the way you want them to work. Obviously, the car computer can tell that I haven't made the right turn yet.

6 minutes ago, NemesisUK said:

I've noticed the same in my RC, so I just keep my finger on the stalk

I do, too. It's irritating!

While on the topic of indicators, I wonder if there's any way of getting rid of one of the very few niggles I have about the IS300h. The problem is that the indicators turn off when going round a roundabout before I've completed the manoeuvre. 

Here's what happens. I'm approaching a roundabout where four roads join. I want to leave at the third exit, effectively turning right. As I approach the roundabout I turn on the right indicator to show I'm going all the way round to the third exit. But as I enter the roundabout and turn the front wheels to the left to enter the roundabout, the indicators cancel. If I want the indicators to continue as I go all the way round the roundabout I have to turn them on again. 

When I get past the second exit, I switch to the left indicators. But my wheels are now pointing to the right as I drive round the roundabout. If I'm lucky the indicators won't turn off but I have a feeling that in some circumstances, the left indicators are cancelled a second time by the rightward turned front wheels.

This is irritating. I don't think I've encountered it on mechanically operated indicator cancellation on other cars.

Is there any way it can be adjusted?

It'll be interesting to hear what difference you find if you have climate control set to auto before pressing Demist. Hope it makes a difference.

One other point to bear in mind is that the manual says: 

"Operation of the air conditioning system in Eco drive mode
In Eco drive mode, the air conditioning system is controlled as follows to prioritize fuel
efficiency:
● Engine speed and compressor operation controlled to restrict heating/cooling capacity
● Fan speed restricted when automatic mode is selected".

So, as well as auto climate control, check that the car isn't in Eco mode - ie switch to Normal or Sport - before pressing the Demist button. 

14 hours ago, Mr Vlad said:

Oh and don' reply with there is one button to clear the windscreen. I press that. Then I press the fan speed to max then I slide the temp to max

Sounds odd that you need to do that. If my climate control is on auto, when I press the demist button the air is directed to the windscreen and the fan speeds up automatically. The windscreen demists quickly. I wonder why your fan doesn't speed up automatically. Is it because you've changed the fan speed from the auto setting? Or is the air conditioning turned off?

Or maybe the fan speed only increases when the engine has warmed up a bit. But that seems unlikely from what the RAC website says (mentioned in a link above) as even cold air will help.

Another factor of course is that the screen should be clean. In days gone by, before air conditioning, people would wipe the windscreen to get rid of mist. But that just made it worse by putting specks of dust on the windscreen that the mist would stick to.

Might be worth checking the air conditioning is working properly.My experience is that the whole car mists up if the air conditioning is turned off in wet or cold weather.

17 hours ago, dutchie01 said:

i have mine on all time this season it seems it is just not powerful enough!

I noticed mine also doesn't seem to be as powerful as on some other cars I've driven. Maybe it's an economy measure. Does the rear screen stay misted if you have the air conditioning on, too?

Over the last few months during the summer weather, my dashboard display showed an average of 50 mpg. The real mpg calculated from petrol bought and miles covered was just over 45 mpg. I'm quite happy with that as it's just above the average for the IS300h of around 44 mpg on spritmonitor.de. (You have to sign in to change the display from litres/100km to mpg.)

But since I last filled up, my mpg display since refuelling has plummeted to around 33 mpg (so that's probably around a real 29 mpg). I was wondering why this had happened so looked into it a bit more. First of all, I've been only doing journeys of 4 miles, in stop-start traffic, at an average around 12 mph, in temperatures around freezing. No fast driving at all since refuelling.

So I thought I would look at the display that shows fuel consumption minute by minute - I hadn't really looked at it closely before. The interesting thing was that for around the first five minutes of driving the car was doing around 20 mpg. When it was really cold, it might have been for the first seven minutes. Then when the engine had warmed up, it suddenly switched to above 40 mpg and even 60 mpg for some of the minutes. And after less than 20 minutes the journey was over, giving an average for that time of around 33 mpg. I'm not unhappy with that as I can see where the problem lies - I'm driving the car when the engine is cold with headlights, air conditioning, wipers, rear screen demister and heating all turned on .

But I'd be interested to hear of other people's experience in cold weather. Is there someone whose typical journey takes them straight from a cold start onto a fast road? In those conditions, how long does it take for the engine to warm up? Is it quicker than the five minutes I'm seeing before the mpg gets back to a more normal range? How does the mpg compare in those first few minutes?

Here's a discussion on battery charge levels. If you scroll down to the post by m.wynn, there's a graphic which I think represents the state of charge for each of the bars on the Prius Battery meter. It shows a full range of 40-80% and bar 6 is 55-66%. 

Whether this is the same on the IS300h, I don't know. I don't actually know how many bars there are on the IS300h Battery meter. Does anyone know if it's also eight? My frequent stop-start heavy traffic slow driving usually leaves the car with around three bars when I get back home. In other places, driving at higher speeds often shows a higher reading when the car stops.

My instinct when I first got the car was to want to see the Battery meter full. Instinctively I was probably looking at it like the petrol gauge where "full" is reassuring but "low" is worrying (in case you run out). But actually, as a friend pointed out to me, you need the Battery not to be full if the car is to make the most of regenerative braking. If the Battery is full, any electricity generated from braking is just thrown away. Imagine driving down a long hill with the Battery full - all the electricity generated from using the brakes on the downward slope is lost.

By contrast, when you're accelerating, if the Battery is full, any spare electricity generated from the engine driving the generator (MG1) can be routed to the main motor (MG2), so none of the electricity is lost.

So I realised that the best reading for the Battery meter is probably around half-full or less, giving plenty of space for generated electricity when you're on a long downward slope.

In any case, I've read on a Prius forum that the meter doesn't give an accurate reading of the actual state of the Battery. The Battery is kept between around 40% and 80% charge. So when the Battery meter says empty (I've never seen this) the Battery still has a 40% charge; and when it says full the Battery has an 80% charge. This is done to extend the working life of the Battery as overcharging the Battery can shorten its life.

4 minutes ago, Comedian said:

I will try and find out this weekend and screen shot it for you.

That would be great. The website also lists a number of beeps and bongs that you can control but I wasn't sure if there was one that covered your situation. Presumably it bongs when the door is open plus something else, like the engine is on or the windows are open or something else, rather than just the door open without any other conditions.

1 hour ago, Comedian said:

My mirrors do move down in reverse but did not see an option to turn it off.

Thanks, that's helpful. When I look at the Carista website it shows a list of sample functions that can be customised. This list is different for different makes and models. But it does say they are "sample" customisations, so I was wondering if this was an accurate list or just examples of the kinds of things you could do. For the RC-F it lists dipping mirrors in reverse but if you can't see that as an option on your RC-F then the lists are presumably not accurate but just examples, as they seem to be suggesting.

On 05/12/2017 at 9:21 AM, S88HON said:

I am using the Carista App to unlock a few features that the dealer promised he would but didn't (Global window open and close)

This sounds interesting. I hadn't heard of Carista before. Looking at its website, it seems to suggest that (among many other features) it would be possible to turn on automatic dipping of the passenger mirror when you go into reverse. Does that seem possible? It's a feature I'd find very useful.

If you haven't got a tin box, you can also turn off the key's wireless transmission. The manual describes this as a Battery saving function but as it disables the wireless transmission from the key you also can't open the car doors by holding the door handle. Instead you have to press the unlock button on the key. As far as I understand it, this would make it impossible for a thief to steal the car by amplifying the key's signal - there's no longer any signal to amplify.

To disable the key, hold the lock button down while you double-press the unlock button. The red light on the key will flash four times to confirm the wireless transmission is turned off. You can also check this has worked by attempting to open the car by holding a door handle. The doors won't open when the key is turned off.

On 26/10/2017 at 5:43 PM, Mr Vlad said:

the CVT is lovely  (mind you the car in between was an auto box so perhaps I got trained in to CVT)

Interesting point. I'd often wondered if the car journalists who criticise the transmission were usually drivers of manual gearbox cars and weren't very familiar with driving automatics. I've had automatics for decades and didn't find much difference in the IS300h, except that the CVT is smoother. 

I've always found that driving an automatic needs a slightly different approach compared with manual gearboxes. With a manual, you're constantly doing a dance between the clutch and the accelerator, a lot of the time pressing one while releasing the other and vice versa. Double declutching requires even more pressing and releasing of both pedals. But my approach to driving automatics, including the IS300h, (and maybe I'm not typical) is first to press the accelerator to a point that gives me the acceleration I want. And then I keep the accelerator still as the gearbox shifts through the gears until I've reached the speed I want. Then I ease off on the accelerator to a point that will maintain the speed I want and then I keep it still again until I need to speed up or slow down. If you expect a lot of pressing and releasing of the accelerator like on a manual box, the results may be less than ideal.

With years of operating with this habit, driving the IS300h was no different. The only difference was that there was no sound of gearchanges and no lurching as the car shifted through the gears. ( I noticed earlier in the year how odd it looked as I was pulling away from lights alongside cars in the adjacent lane. Whereas the IS300h maintained a steady rate of acceleration, the cars alongside would edge ahead and then drop back as they changed gear; then edge ahead and then drop back; and so on. I decided I preferred the smooth approach without the gearchange jolting.)

On 19/10/2017 at 10:04 PM, parkman said:

I still prefer the idea of a reindeer under the bonnet.

Even a large sheep would be OK.

Parkman.

I don't think sheep have the required acceleration for this market segment.

19 hours ago, Ala Larj said:

However, the most amazing thing is finding out that I have a reindeer under the bonnet!

You had me puzzled for a while! I think I've worked it out now, though. Is it ring-gear?

By the way, the transmission version is identified on the VIN sticker on the door pillar.  The IS300h has the L210, which I think is the rear-wheel drive version of the front-wheel drive P410. I might be wrong but I think the GS300h also has the L210 transmission, as does the RC300h.

One of my favourite features of the power-split device is that when cruising at 50 mph, the engine is turning at around 1200-1500 rpm. At 70 mph it's still doing 1200-1500 rpm; even at 80 (cruising at 130 kph on French motorways) it's still doing 1200-1500 rpm. This helps to make the car so quiet, even at motorway speeds.

My first automatic car did 3000 rpm at 70mph; the next did 2600 rpm, and my previous automatic did 2400 rpm at 70 mph. With this transmission, the engine is turning at half the rate at cruising speeds. I think this is a really great feature.

Actually, the transmission was probably one of the main things that persuaded me to get an IS300h. It just seemed such an elegant engineering solution to the problems of the petrol engine.

I've read of conventional automatic gearboxes that have around 370 moving parts. By contrast, I think I've read that the hybrid drive on the first Prius had only 22 moving parts. (Don't quote me but the numbers are something like that.) Having few moving parts seemed like an ideal way to avoid breakdowns, which the Prius reliability record seems to have confirmed.

 Here's a random example of  what an automatic gearbox looks like when it's taken apart. It's only a three-speed, from a Pontiac TransAm but it shows how many parts there are. Most people won't want to watch more than a minute or two but jump ahead to around 23 minutes in  and you can see all the clutch bands. All these parts are potential areas for wear or breakdown.

By contrast, here's a demonstration of the hybrid drive used on Toyotas and Lexuses. A very simple and elegant solution, where the electric motors take the place of the clutch bands in the automatic gearbox. (This lecturer explains things really well but as he talks very slowly I generally increase the youtube playback speed to 1.5 or double speed.)

Here's a graphic display of the hybrid drive power split device. It's been mentioned elsewhere on this forum but it's really useful in helping to understand how the transmission works. Scroll down to the bottom and drag the sliders to control the speed of the gear wheels.