Continue To Be Impressed By The Is300H.

[ganzoom]

Had to take a trip down to London this week. Initially was going by train but at the last minute changed my mind and took the Lexus. Haven’t really driven the Lexus since the Leaf arrived so I thought I remind my self how good the Lexus is overall.

So ended up covering some 270 miles round trip, involving 200 miles of Motorways and the rest spent trudging around the car park that is the A406/A12 etc (essentially most of London road). Intotal spent nearly 7hrs in the car over the last couple of days.

Have to say the Lexus performed exceptionally well, things that I really really love:

1: Active cruise control - Never had this in a car before, but now that I’ve used it on a few M trips it’s a feature I definitely want in my next car (The Lexus is technically the wife’s). You have to be quite brave to stamp on the brake when someone cuts you up, but the car will auto-brake quite hard all the way down to below 30mph I think.

2: Memory seats/'Live' traffic data/Blind spot monitoring - Again, all features I’ve never had, but on this trip they were all really helpful, and all things I want in my next car :).

3: The ride quality - I went for the Premier spec with smaller wheels and I cannot fault the suspension set-up and ride quality.

5: Finally the fuel economy…I left home with half a tank of petrol, my wife was convinced I would need to fill up at some point on the trip. But about 1/2 way through the trip I realised the car was actually able match/better the official mpg, so I put my self into ‘relaxing cruising’ mode, and in the end the car is reporting an average 65mpg, with still nearly 1/4 of petrol left. Given the type of journey I had just done, and the refinement I’m truly shocked at how economical this car can be!!

I’ve only ever saw 57mpg from our old diesel Civic when driven really slowly on the M-ways, any hint of traffic jam (e.g. London traffic), and your luck to see 40mpg. So for a 2.5l NA Petrol to return this kind of mpg is frankly amazing, and despite me having decided to go with a fully electric car for the future, with a potential tank range of approaching 800-900 miles (assuming 60-65mpg and 14.5 gallon tank) the Lexus will definitely be in the family for a long!! Cannot see any kind of Battery or hydrogen car offering that kind of range for the forceable future .

[steveledzep]

What was the fourth thing that you really, really loved ? :D

[Steve44]

So what sort of cruising speed were you doing on the non-restricted parts of the M1? Were you in eco mode the whole way?

It is a great MPG there. I came back the M1 from Wembley to Leicester last week, having refilled in Wembley and had quite a bit of stationary traffic on the M1 around Luton. The speed restricted parts from the M25 to Milton Keynes helped a lot as did the 50mph roadworks section from J14 to J19. I was in a bit of hurry between, but still averaged 53mpg overall, which I was quite chuffed at. This was in normal mode.

[ganzoom]

So what sort of cruising speed were you doing on the non-restricted parts of the M1? Were you in eco mode the whole way?

It is a great MPG there. I came back the M1 from Wembley to Leicester last week, having refilled in Wembley and had quite a bit of stationary traffic on the M1 around Luton. The speed restricted parts from the M25 to Milton Keynes helped a lot as did the 50mph roadworks section from J14 to J19. I was in a bit of hurry between, but still averaged 53mpg overall, which I was quite chuffed at. This was in normal mode.

Set the cruise control to 65mph, and stayed in the inner two lanes. When I realised I could possibly make the return trip without filling up started to draft lorries...The adaptive cruise control made it really easy, I think from joining the M25 till I came off the M1 I didn't have to touch the brake once. Did have to accelerate a few time to clear slower traffic (yes they were people driving slower than me!!)

The IS300H lost some browny points...Had to go and fill-up with petrol....Forgotten what a chore it is, drive 5 minutes to the petrol station, than que up for another 5 minutes, than get out and mess around with fuel pumps, and to top it all off, had to pay £50 in one go . So much more hassle compared to just plugging in the Leaf at home, I think the next time it needs filling up I'm going to send my wife to do it herself, that way she may be persuaded to ditch the Lexus for a proper EV car :)