Steve44

Well, my F-sport was free for the first year...............not that I was paying for it, but still! It is remarkable though.

Tinka - the login and password are case sensitive. mine updated to Version E today. Nothing appears to have changed that I can see. Same issues remain.

Well, first experience of Lexus service wasn't spectacular, but they recovered. I called into Lexus Leics on Sunday to see if anyone could answer my question about the Nav/Voice/Ipod. Saleswoman on shift couldn't but she took my details and said someone in technical team would call me Monday. No call. I called back in today and got it sorted out though, with Carl the tech team manager being extremely helpful and getting me onto Version E of the software there and then - about 15 mins total to do the update. Early days, but it doesn't appear to have fixed any of my issues though, with the "Play Music" command still greyed out, the voice system generally not much better and the pop-up sat nav in the dash display still conspicuous by its absence. The system did seem a bit quicker, less lag though. Carl has taken some photo's of the issue and has said he will look at some other cars and see if they are the same. He says he is compiling issues from owners and sending them to Lexus HQ every week. He expects a version F and G to appear as well.

+1! I thought the Japanese were good at electronics and Hifi etc.

....and if Android, either setup a personal wifi hotspot, or make sure the Bluetooth has tethering enabled so the car can share the phone data connection.

just reading the AutoExpress article on this and putting it into context - year to date BMW sold nearly 23k 3-series models so far in the UK! UK's 10th best selling car of 2014!

:( yes, saw a record 7 IS's today, Red/Blue/White/Sonic Titanium/Grey F-sports and 2 Black Lux's - on my trip from Leics to Liverpool today!

Not so, there is an option to use iPod album art or the gracenote database or just turn it off.

They don't need to be IT experts, just know their own products. It is one of the things that really annoys me at car dealerships, the salesmen/women who don't know the features of the things they are selling. I went by Lexus Leics this afternoon, the saleswomen intially said she didn't know you can use voice to play music, until I showed her in the manual. Then she started asking if I had setup voice tags.............when I said that wasn't mentioned in the manual and i couldn't find an option anywhere in the system for it, she backed away saying the tech team would ring me in the morning. Surely sitting reading the manual inside out, playing with the cars features in the showroom is a better use of their free time than surfing the internet and reading the paper?!?

Ultra Blue - excellent choice - I did consider a Superman coloured Blue/Red one, but I was overruled by SWMBO! Despite my adventures with the Nav/Phone/Stereo in mine, I have found if you just keep pressing the phone button on the steering wheel, it will first take you to the phone screen, then to the call history and finally if you press it again, it will dial the last number at the top of the list. Voice control............... all I can say is good luck! Yep Eco mode around town is so relaxing, stop/start traffic is no longer a chore anymore. Sport mode with ASC at max and manual shift is the business, the car is pretty quick when it needs to be.

Thought I'd update this thread with my experiences so far. First off, my car, which was a factory order apparently, has arrived with VC3101D software version and SatNav Micro SD card with version 53240 ?!? The SatNav screen Map Data option shows it as date 2013-04-07. Can anyone else confirm the dates on this version and the 53241 version pls? I'll be onto the dealer about this, though there is a FAQ on the portal webpage saying there is no obligation for Toyota/Lexus to provide latest map guarantee to new car owners !! My current issues are mostly related to the Voice Recognition, or lack there-of. It basically is bolloxed. The Ipod/USB music intergation with Voice just doesn't work. Tried it using a 160GB Ipod Classic brand new and a 4th Gen Nano, have tried resetting it and the ipods, changing the amount of music etc and the option in the menu's remains stubbornly greyed out. With a USB stick containing approx 2GB/300 files, the Voice system displays and speaks a message about reinitialising and to try later......................it never changes until I pull out the USB stick. The music plays fine using normal buttons etc. If I try to ask the car to "Go Home", or "Call Wife", or "Go Back", or "Cancel" - basic commands - I get a hit rate of approx 1 in 10. The other 9 times it just does something else randomly and nothing like I have just said. Useless! I haven't even tried to say an address or dial a number. The only thing I can think of is the data/software is corrupted somehow. Anyway, I'll be speaking to the dealer tomorrow to see what they say. Otherwise, most other things work, expect the pop-up Nav options in the dash display, which appear randomly on setting a route, but I can't figure out if there is a pattern to making them work or not, I suspect it is another bug. The autoZoom setting in the settings makes no difference to operation and the manual says pop-ups should only work if autozoom is off. It doesn't make any difference. I get txt messages and call contacts/history etc over bluetooth from my Galaxy S3 and the call quality is pretty good. The internet traffic/parking/google searches/streetview etc all work OK. You can tell it is very much a work in progress. Some of the menu/interface design is different between screens inexplicably - USB2, the settings button is right of the corner next to the random button, but only on this screen! The Connected Services setting page iN the Setup/Nav menu, inexplicably has a Save button to save the changes, despite every other page not having this. I can't believe with all the development they do in a new car, they can't get these basic and pretty simple issues resolved before release. I'll keep updating if I get anywhere with Lexus Leicester - my local dealer.

I don't get it either. I re-read the manual last night and it refers to the voice control only being available on Ipod and USB drive, not CD/Radio etc, so that explains why the CD player didn't work with Voice. It specifically says on pg 278 A USB memory or iPod must be connected to enable track searching and playback. (P.220, 225)  When a USB memory or iPod is connected, recognition data is created so tracks can be searched using speech commands.  Recognition data is updated under the following conditions: •When the USB memory or iPod data has changed. •When the voice recognition language is changed. (P.73)  While the recognition data is being created or being updated, a track search cannot be performed using a speech command.  When “Play music” is dimmed in the “Shortcuts” screen, it is not possible to search for a track using a speech command. In this situation, reduce the amount of music data in the USB memory or iPod and update the recognition data to enable searching by speech command. I've never seen it showing any message about recognition data, only about "getting data from Ipod....." when trying to change tracks sometimes. To be fair it is a bit hit and miss on this, sometimes I press to change tracks, it displays that message, then nothing happens until I press again. I've got my Wife's Ipod Nano 4th Gen to try and see if it is specific to the Ipod I have. It is a new (3mths old) 7th? Gen Ipod 160Gb Classic, on the latest firmware according to itunes. I'm also going to load up a usb stick with music and try that. I might try a complete reset of the Ipod too. I've already tried the Lexus system reset (power off button hold), but that didn't do much.

We seem to have gone a bit Off Topic, but needless to say, I agree with comments about Vodafone, 3G, Data etc. BT mobile is moving to be a MVNO with EE, so we are either moving to that, or changing to another provider. we were with O2 before BT and to be fair, they had coverage and bandwidth/contention issues too. I'm not sure there is a provider in the UK that gives good coverage virtually everywhere. Anyhoooooo....... I thought this the other day too, the numerical readout below goes up to 99.9. Starting to get the hang of this Hydrid driving thing, but it is very counter-intuitive, accelerating briskly to speed, then letting off completely the throttle and then re-applying gently to keep in EV mode as long as possible, but the proof is in the pudding, 50+mpg around town this morning! Halved the amount of songs on the ipod to 4000 and the voice control is still greyed out for the Play Music command. Disconnected it and put in a CD I bought, which works great BTW, with Gracenote filling in track listing and cover art............ but still no voice control. :(

but at least they can listen to their DAB radio without it cutting in and out all the time ;) not had any issues with mine, even some of the germanobiles with Sharkfins still have DAB/FM aerials in the back window. I've seen the US IS's appear to have sharkfins, but I assume this is due to them having Sirius XM satellite radio.

Great result! There is a setting in the mini-display, which allows you to set whether the Tacho is displayed regardless of mode. Someone has set it to show tacho, you need to reset it back to auto. It confused me whan I saw it with Eco-mode and a tacho!

Yep, it is pretty weak, but if you go read the Audi/Merc/BMW forums and see some of the quirks and issues with their premium systems, there are similar issues everywhere. I think mine is on version D, I'll try and find out a bit more about version E. Refilled the car with fuel this morning, tank to tank was 43.4 mpg on first tank, quite happy with that. Need to check tyre pressures. Have experimented with eco mode and normal on motorway, I've come to the conclusion if it is possible to cruise with cruise control on, then Eco mode is best, if you need to regulate your own speed, then normal mode is better. The relationship between Eco mode and throttle pedal/power output is just too weird for me and I find myself hunting up and down in speed, especially as there is no reference of engine noise/speed to set your brain too, it is just visual, seeing the rev counter moving up and down as the car climbs hills etc with the speed not changing is just plain odd! This is worse on the F-Sport as you only get a digital readout for speed. It might have been good to have an option of the speedo to select. re. BT mobile is a MVNO on Vodafone, it gets the bit of signal that's left over, which combined with their general network coverage isn't a lot. We are moving to EE hopefully, here's hoping its better!

well 2 days and 490 miles later, all is well sort of............ 46mpg on the trip comp, can't complain, could have been more but I couldn't resist Sport+ and manual gears! Couple of gremlins/head scratchers with the electrics though. 1. Try as I might, the Sat Nav continues to autozoom into junctions at will, despite me turning off the option in the menu's. The pop-up satnav instructions in the little display next to the clocks appear intermittently and apparently randomly. Can't figure it out at all. 2. Samsung GS3 connected via bluetooth and all looks ok, including transferring approx 500 contacts, some with emails, addresses and other stuff in the phone, without a problem. I can also transfer text msgs and i actually rcvd one yesterday and it pinged up on the display and then read it out. Today I rcvd one, but nothing happened, though i could transfer and read it manually. Not sure what is going on here, but its a novelty really. 3. Sat Nav instructions - appears all or nothing. If you turn off the Voices in all modes, if you have the audio screen showing, it doesn't speak at all. If you have Voices in all modes on, it talks over everything, all the time - phone calls, ipod, radio........ annoying. 4. Traffic updates via phone didn't seem to work at first, then seem to have burst into life and work great, though i may turn down the auto update frequency, as I get a lot of "download cannot be completed" msgs, which I guess are because of crappy BT Mobile signal. 5. Voice commands appear to be a work in progress............ or maybe my accent is wrong. 6. Ipod use is OK, search ability is good, but had a couple of strange hangs and tracks changing on their own etc. I'll maybe try removing some of my wife's choices. 7. Car portal online integration thing, have successfully transferred a route from laptop to car via the portal, works quite well. Will do more investigating of this. Biggest disaster of all though is that I've kerbed the front passenger alloy already and some gulls with diaorhea used the car as a toilet in Carlisle last night. :megaangry: Oh well.

the Autoexpress article is online now - http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/lexus/is/87230/long-term-test-review-lexus-is-300h

Mmmmmm. Nearly 8000 at current count. Doh!

How are you doing the voice commands with an IPod BBlue? I've got my IPod Classic 160gb connected by USB and Play Music voice command is greyed out. I tried speaking it and the voice prompt came back saying it couldnt do it as no music was recognised on the device ?!?

Surely it is Lexi? I think that's what mine is going to be called!

Well after 5mth wait, and about a year after I first had a test drive of a 3rd gen IS300h, the car finally arrived today on the back of a transporter from RRG Bradford via Lex Autolease. 15miles on the clock, 1/4 tank of fuel, 2 sets of floor mats (1 x Lex in boot, 1 x Lexus in car!) and a warning triangle/hi vis safety kit thing in a bag! Car looks the bees knees in Mercury Grey and Dark Rose, very pleased with the colour combination. Full spec is IS300h F-Sport, with Premium Nav, Dark Rose leather and Adaptive Suspension. Done about 12 miles in it so far and loving every minute, especially how far it is possible to run on EV, with the mpg gauge ticking up! Also the elec seats and mirrors, love how both the mirrors dip on reverse to where you want them! Need more running to see what the AVS difference will bring, its subtle so far, though do get a Sport S+ mode now, which is even more aggressive. Just sorting out the Nav, portal acct etc now. Appears SW version is V3101D, not sure on map version just yet, but will look. Will link it up to the Phone (Samsung GS3), Ipod and the portal and let you all know how I get on. Couple of photo's, (red looks more pink using the phone camera than in real life)

Yep - read it in the local supermarket yesterday. Another article showing how changing your driving style to suit the hybrid drivetrain can improve mpg by 10%, as they got their Premier model (18", wide wheels) up from 45 to 53mpg. Tips offered were - greater anticipation, leave bigger gaps, let the car slow naturally, don't stamp on the brakes and put it in Eco mode! Not rocket science. There was also a comment about road noise too.

Well all confirmed for Tues delivery, only 2 more sleeps! Appears mine is coming from same dealer as Blisteringblue, RRG Bradford. Tried every trick to get it this wkend, but couldn't as it isn't officially register till Tues apparently. I hope they don't drive it too me, but this is probably the method of delivery apparently. So at least 100m on clock before I get it. :-( And Tues wiped out as a day of work! Will be sorry to see the trusty Astra go, 102k and still going like a train. That feeling will probably last till about 5mins after delivery..........

Hi Joe, great choice don't think you'd be disappointed, but get a test drive. Don't believe the journo's on the CVT or noise but it sure is different to a normal diesel. Black headlining is AFAIK an FSport only feature and not an option on other models. The std satnav loses the rear camera and the connected services (google search, street view, parking, online traffic, link to the customer portal etc etc) but I think sticks with the circular knob rather than the mouse. The mouse isn't bad and the sensitivity can be adjusted which sorts out most of the issues reported in the mags - do these journalists ever read the manuals? I think the basic Nav is the same as the one in the CT model. IPod control is full from either the mouse/controller or some functions from the steering wheel. An executive is basically a luxury model with leather and Nav, so test drive a Lux and it will be identical. However the FSport, whilst it uses the same drivetrain, the implementation is very different. Its worth a test drive. Have fun.