Trip to Disneyland Paris

[tHomBleached]

Morning all,

returned last night from a round trip to Disneyland Paris and thought I'd share my findings as I've only had the car a couple of weeks (f sport).

we drove down to Dover from Burton via duxford to go to the imperial war museum on Thursday. Mix of Eco and normal mode but easily managed 50mpg with a fully loaded car - 2 adults, 2 children and a baby, also a jam-packed boot. I was pleasantly surprised I managed 50mpg, my only rule was to keep to the speed limit, so 70mph max. 50mpg was equally surprising as driving out of roundabouts I allowed the odd bit of sport mode to get her going (Eco mode + fully loaded car was problematic approaching motorway junctions).

decided on that basis to fill up in Dover and see if we could make the round trip to Paris and back on one tank, which I'm pleased to say we did with around 90 miles range on the clock. 

MPG was averaging 45 in France though as the speed limit is 130km/h on the tolls (85 ish). That was also exclusively normal mode, again with the use of sport to get her going now and again. 

I was really really pleased with that performance on a fully weighted car :)

the road network in France really is superb and made be realise what nonsense we have to put up with in the uk! Oh and the only lane-hogging -tailgating behaviour I saw was from GB plate audis. Made me embarrassed to share the same nationality. 

Everyone was comfy in the car, even my eldest son who was squished in the middle the whole way.

[bluenose1940]

Sounds good Thom.  I have two longish trips coming up. This weekend will be Exmouth to Lincoln and the next one will be Exmouth to Norwich.  It will be interesting to see what sort of return I will get on those journeys.  In addition to the mpg returns, it will be interesting to see how the comfort element stacks up on 5 and 6 hour plus journeys.

[tHomBleached]

If you've got kids with you, the only annoyance will be the dropping of crumbs :)

My V5 arrived while I was away so I'm going to wash/valet with the plates off and put my shiny new plates on. I've been looking forward to washing it since Thursday!

In hindsight I think motorway driving is probably best suited to normal rather than Eco as you really do need better throttle response when lorrys pull out without warning and the time it takes to get back up to speed in Eco probably doesn't give you better economy IMO. 

Played about with the artificial engine noise dial and it's quite satisfying sticking it in sport and turning the dial up when your joining a motorway from the services. Bit of a faff but I enjoy it :)

[tHomBleached]

I realised I've got one complaint. That's the boot hinges. I've had an IS200 and a 250 I the past.

the is200 had no casing for the boot hinges so if you packed the boot you had to compensate for the space needed the for hinges when closed.

Along came my 250 and problem solved, Lexus had kindly fitted casings for the hinges so you can pack as tightly as you want without fear of the hinges catching on something.

Now on the IS300h and Lexus have decided to go backward for some reason. I needed to pack the car with space either side of the hinges to make sure they didn't catch on anything. Slightly frustrating but bearable.