JGard18

The marketing mumbo-jumbo I've been told about this car is that in Sport+ mode the car will do a better job with shifting and gear prediction (due to g-force sensor) than any driver will do if controlling the gears manually.

I will do a track day in this thing eventually, and I will definitely test out that theory.

bhvrdr

Yeah, I was hearing the same thing about the 8 speed and i'll be interested to see how it performs too. I'll definitely try it out in automatic mode. When I was in manual mode and requesting double downshifts, the delay was way too long to be very useful.

Mike

Im2bz2p345

Since when is having a discussion on the shifting behavior of the car considered arguing?

I just feel in "manual" mode - the car should behave closer to a true manual car than what a lot of you would like. I would rather be able to control the shift point myself and stay in a gear if I want. For example: if the car is in 3rd gear and the car is approaching redline (going past the 6k rpm range) as I approach a turn. Let's say I press the throttle slightly and the car auto-upshifts into 4th for you (automatically). I am now entering the corner at 4th, I brake during the turn and have to slow down considerably. Now as I brake, approach the apex, and then leave the apex/accelerate out of the corner - I want to be in the POWER band of 2nd gear. Since the car does not auto downshift for you, I would be stuck in 4th and would have to downshift twice to get into the proper gear and power range.

If the car was a true manual and I was full in control myself, I would keep the car in 3rd even if its getting closer or is slightly in the "redline" area that so many people are scared of. I would then quickly shift into 2nd as I braked, hit the apex, and left the corner.

Thank you for posting - someone that actually understands what I'm talking about when I mentioned the car not being able to hold a gear close to redline and how this can be a problem.

People that actually track their cars will understand this frustration.

Will be great to hear a followup after your track day, especially in terms of the car holding a gear as you turn (utilizing the g-force sensor as JGard18 mentioned and that you can also see at 8:08 in the video that Slust posted).

By the way, is your Boxster a manual or does it have the dual clutch PDK transmission? I would love to hear some comparisons on the time it takes to shift between gears between the IS and the Boxster.

~ Im2bz2p345

bhvrdr

Hello there,

The Boxster happens to be a manual.

I have a G37S as well and that car will allow you to bounce off the limiter all day long in manual mode. It's the only car i've driven that will do that including the SMG and DSG cars from BMW (M3) and Audi (A3) that I have driven.

Mike

TheShaddix

Ok, now that you've mentioned a reasonable need for this, and I have to agree, it is useful in that one instance where you'd go over redline just slightly and it would annoyingly upshift for you. I have experienced the same thing too and felt annoyed when I would be in 2nd (for example) going into 3rd, I'm near redline and pull the paddle, but the car has already shifted by itself, so now I'm in 4th because I shifted twice...That does drive me crazy but is easily avoidable by just remembering what the car is about. It's not the ultimate track car to do it all. In fact I've never had a car which would not upshift, and I doubt they exist. It's just a safety net for the manufacturer. I was just understanding you wrong, or you were so obsessed with the revs, that the entire point was being missed. However, with this being said, we are talking about a few people here who would find this useful, and that's about 1% of the IS (or lexus in general) customer. The other 99% would destroy the car given a chance... Imagine someone who doesn't know anything about cars getting a new IS (typical scenario), then accidentally putting it into manual and not knowing exactly what that does, driving in 1st gear, overrevving the crap out of it, then that's just abuse... Some people are like that...lexus knows that, we know that, and that's whom we gotta thank for the auto upshifts...There is a reason for everything we dislike in this car. Like, why they still use the old V6 and don't go FI. Why the car is so quiet. One thing I cannot understand is though, why are there so many rattles!!! My driver side sounds like a cheap civic. It's insane. But strangely enough, I'm not as bothered by it. In my old 335i a simple roof squeak drove me nuts, i wanted to get rid of the car just for that.

JGard18

You want rattles? My last car was a 2009 WRX. Go drive one of those for a year or two then try to complain about rattles in a Lexus haha

TheShaddix

Yeah but that's a rally car, you'd expect rattles in that with its plastic door covers. In a lexus you expect 0 rattles, that's why it's so strange.

dizlex

You have a gen 3 IS with rattle problems???

TheShaddix

Rattle problems is putting it mildly, man. Yeah, a 3IS. So far all the rattles are coming from the left side air vent area and the door/window seal.

Slust

Well first the car redlines from 6600 to 7000 so you are only talking about 400 RPMs of "wasted" bandwidth. It looks larger than what it is on the IS since they increased the fidelity of the Tachometer in the higher RPM range. I personally like that fidelity even if it does make the redline zone seem far larger than what it really is.

Second the scenario you bring up is exactly what I linked in my previous post. The problem with downshifting when you are in the redzone is that you shift into the upper end of the lower gear putting you past most of the power in that gear. The goal should be to maximize the power of each gear, not completely tap it out. The other problem is if you are bumping against the rev limiter than you just lost time. So the objection to your point isn't that everyone is afraid of bumping the redzone, it's just not the optimal way to drive. If that's your style fine, but saying an automatic car fails because it doesn't cater to this behavior just seems silly to me. Matt Farah likes to smoke his tires in his reviews, but he also doesn't ding a car that isn't built to support that behavior.

While I don't drive in Manual that much nor have much opportunity to punch it to redline (they're strict on base) while in 3rd or 4th gear I will say I've bumped the rev limiter in 3rd and 4th gear before. I only recall the car upshifting on 1st and 2nd and it's probably because it reaches redline fairly quickly in those gears. So I could be wrong that the upshifts are limited to 1st and 2nd but I really do not recall it upshifting for me on the later gears. I do recall getting very annoyed with the car when it upshifted from 2nd just as I was shifting (just like Shaddix's example) and going straight into 4th gear. While in motion you will find more power in 3rd gear with this car than 2nd anyways, though I have dropped it into 2nd to power through turns and the car did hold gear until I was out of the turn. But you have to know the car and not downshift into 2nd before the turn.


I will agree the Lexus IS isn't a track star. It's the car you take mountain passes on and canyon roads. It's built for your favorite road, not the raceway.

bhvrdr

Hey there,

I think you are misunderstanding a very important principal and a main reason for downshifting when setting up for a turn:

Gear Torque

Keep in mind whether in the meat of the power band or not, the lower gear is almost always more powerful than the higher gear. This is because of the gear ratio.

You are not getting full power in higher gears because your torque (power) is always multiplied by whatever the gear ratio you are in.

Example:

2014 IS350 Gear Ratios
Transmission ratios (x:1) I = 4.60; II = 2.72; III = 1.86; IV = 1.46; V = 1.23; VI = 1.00; VII = 0.82; VIII = 0.69

You can see you get progressively less power as you go up in the gears.

This is why you can smoke the tires in first gear and not second or why you can drop it down from cruising at 3000rpm in 4th down to 4500rpm in 3rd (just an example) and the car will accelerate much faster.

Mike

AdvanSLF

This thing literally pisses the F---- out of me!!!! Whats the point in putting in manual mode if it still f---ing upshifts automatically by itself... isn't the the whole point of paddle shifters to you to have control?!?!?!?!

Im2bz2p345

Hi Slust,

Thanks for your follow-up. So I think that you may be confused on what I stated. What you quoted in bold above is something that I never once said.

You may be referencing what I stated here:
"If the car was a true manual and I was full in control myself, I would keep the car in 3rd even if its getting closer or is slightly in the "redline" area that so many people are scared of. I would then quickly shift into 2nd as I braked, hit the apex, and left the corner."

So let me clarify a bit: If you're near redline in 3rd gear and you are approaching a turn, you would start slowing down (via brakes). Once the car slows down enough (therefore dropping your rpm's significatly as well - so you are no longer even close to redline at all), you then downshift into 2nd and use the engine's rpm to slow you down further (this is referred to as "engine braking"), you then use the power of the lower gear (2nd gear in this case) to carry you around the apex & to unleash immediate power as you exit the apex.

It would be quite stupid if someone who is approaching redline tried to downshift into a lower gear without reducing their rpm (via braking) first. If you were to do that, you're just asking for trouble and could potentially damage your clutch/tranny. Most automatic cars (even if they have a "manual" mode with paddle shifters) won't allow you to do this.

This is a very false claim and goes against all logic. I would reach out to a Lexus master technician if feel that your car has more power in 3rd than it does in 2nd.

The most strain on an engine comes when you have to move a heavy object from a dead spot. Once you are in motion, an engine has to work LESS to either keep you moving OR make you accelerate further. If you don't believe this, try thinking of a full loaded semi (18-wheeler) or a train - the amount of power that is needed to just to get them moving in crazy. This is when the engine has to push the hardest.

Maximum torque (to the wheels) is achieved using lower gears. Shifting to lower gears in the transmission requires more turns of the engine to provide a single turn of the drive wheels, producing more torque at the drive wheels.

~ Im2bz2p345

Im2bz2p345

Boom! That's all I'm asking for as well - let the driver decide on when he/she wants to upshift.

This is why I constantly refer to this mode in quotes like this: "manual" mode. It's not really "manual" if the car is automatically upshifting for you.

When I test drove both the IS350 and the IS350 F-Sport, I faced a similar situation to what others mentioned in that when the car was getting closer to redline.. the car would auto upshift and I would also upshift using the paddles shifters also. This was annoying because the car would move up 2 gears (instead of one if I have complete control) and this would cause me to be out of power band.

I mean if I wanted the car to automatically upshift for me, I would have just let it stay in normal drive mode instead of "manual" mode.

On the reverse side (from Lexus' standpoint), I can see that maybe for reliability reasons and if unexperience drivers were constantly redlining (for no apparent reason), it would be a problem. I fully understand this point as well and others in the thread mentioned it. So maybe that's why Lexus decided to go with what they did.

~ Im2bz2p345

dizlex

Like I said, it's still better than most autos or dual-clutches with manual modes. At least it doesn't downshift when you stomp the gas. That's the REAL "WTF I thought I was in manual mode" bummer.