First Impressions

[Haf]

So, got my ultra blue 300H Fsport on monday and thought i'd post some initial impressions

Firstly stunning car and better than i remembered when i did a test drive in Dec.

Blue looks phenomenal in the sunshine

I had the standard sports seats as prefereed to spend my 2k on the Nav option. No regrets as the seats are mostly leather and full electric so not really missing out.

The keyless stuff is brilliant, even though i keep getting into the drivers seat with the keys in my hand.

Visibility is good (versus my E220 Coupe) and the reversing camera is just so good and parking is now dead easy.

The electric motor and engine are both really quite and I find there is less noise than my merc

The cruise control is taking a bit of getting used to as its on the opposite side to my Merc and it doesn't seem to allow you to go up/down in 5mph increments as far as i can work out

Not yet fully played around with the SatNav yet but the basics all seem good. I am trying to get the traffic feature enabled via the website at the moment so that will help.

I found various options around wireless but not sure what I am supposed to do with that at the moment.

Onto the hot topic of 'phone integration'. My samsung S3 paired easily and the contacts got transferre but it seemed to only pickup one number per contact rather than the mutiple numbers in the phone. I'll have to look into this.

The SMS stuff is brilliant and am impressed with the voice readouts

I was wondering why there were so many compmaints about the phone until I got into the car for a journey and found it simply wouldn't find or connect with my phone and froze when i tried to 'add a phone'. This was very annoying as I was on the move and just couldn't get the phone working so I did a stop/start of the engine at some traffic lights and this fixed eveything so I was OK for the rest of the journey. Not really acceptable and I am going to have to look at all the stuff about Updates in the other thread.

Fule Economy. I have done about 250miles of which 200 was motorway and 50 inner-city including crawiling around central london. I have been driving extra cautiously and not speeding etc and have achieved 52mpg including a lot of electric only driving. Very impressed but expect it to come down as I drive a bit more 'aggressively'.

A few minor gripes..

Aircon.. I'm not a big user of air con in summer or winter and noticed that it seems impossible to shut it off without actually closing the vent. If the vent is open then whether its on low speed or switched off, i can still feel the air coming in... Not sure why this is the case but it is bothering me so will have to play around a bit more as i'd rather not have to open/close vents.

Glove box is tiny and has zero space once you put the handbook etc in it so need to find somewhere to store my junk.

The cup holders are a bit inconvienient as they seem to be behind me as i have the seat in a very forward position.

All in all I am extremely happy with the car and my decision..

ps i get more people admiring the car than ever before...

[DJP]

Thanks for the report Haf, always interesting to read others experiences. The phone contacts issue may be make/model phone specific, my Iphone has brought all contacts details through. Although maybe there is something in the set up menu's - there's enough of them it's easy to miss something.

The traffic feature supposedly uses internet data to plot traffic/incidents etc, I have no idea how it does it and tbh I'm not sure it's added anything to the updates that I get "normally".

Most of my driving is around town and with 9,000 on the clock my computer shows 41.5 MPG. 90% in "Normal" mode 10% "Sport".

I agree with you about the glovebox and cupholders but nothing's perfect.

Enjoy learning more about the car!

[Haf]

So, 1 week and 1000 miles done.

I have been very light footed and my average so far is 52mpg. This includes 4 long trips and 4 shorty + town centre trips.

No complaints so far and am getting used to the differences in this car versus my merc.

Can't get the online stuff working (traffic etc) as I keep getting an erro after i select 'bluetooth' or 'wirelss' to get these features. I probbaly need to read the manual. Phone works fine though does occasionally fail to connect with car so a stop/restart is needed. can be annoying. I did do the s/w update to latest level on mylexus

Other than that its all good

[Haf]

ps whjere is the digital clock as i have been looking for it everywhere...

[DJP]

I believe it's in the nav settings somewhere. It doesn't display anywhere as far as I know, I think it's for time or arrival info etc.

[Steve44]

Haf, on the Galaxy S3, if you connect it to the car with Bluetooth you need it to transmit data over Bluetooth too, you need to enable that setting on the phone. Its called Bluetooth tethering and is in Settings/Connections/More Networks/Tethering and Portable hotspots on mine - I'm on the latest Android 4.3 official firmware for the phone and I had it working on the demo F-Sport I had.

My brother joked about the analogue clock in the Lexus when I had my demo one. He said that after all the high tech stuff in it, its as if the janitor came into the design lab, tried to find the time, couldn't, then the designers realised they had missed out a clock and added a cheap one onto the dash. :D I couldn't find a digital time display anywhere in the car. And the analogue clock doesn't auto correct. After everything else the car can do, you'd think they could have made that work eh?

[Haf]

Haf, on the Galaxy S3, if you connect it to the car with Bluetooth you need it to transmit data over bluetooth too, you need to enable that setting on the phone. Its called Bluetooth tethering and is in Settings/Connections/More Networks/Tethering and Portable hotspots on mine - I'm on the latest Android 4.3 official firmware for the phone and I had it working on the demo F-Sport I had.

Thanks, I have switched this setting On and will test it today when I get in the car

[Haf]

Another dumb question...

Where is the trip computer showing miles travelled etc. I can see all the mpg figures and the total odometer but the counter for simply how many miles you have travelled on a particular journey seems elusive

[DJP]

Another dumb question...

Where is the trip computer showing miles travelled etc. I can see all the mpg figures and the total odometer but the counter for simply how many miles you have travelled on a particular journey seems elusive

If you press the ODO button just under the dash is has the option of per trip recording. "A" and "B" I think, from memory. Hopefully this is what you mean!