Regular Unleaded for the ES350
 

I saw this in an article over on the Car Chat Forum outlining the changes for 2011:

2011 Lexus ES350
Priced from: $35,525

The front-wheel-drive Lexus ES 350 gets just one change for 2011, but it could mean a lot to potential buyers: instead of requiring premium 91-octane fuel, Lexus has re-rated the car to use regular 87-octane gasoline. The change results in a slight drop in horsepower and torque, down to 268 horsepower and 248 pound-feet from last year's 272-horsepower and 254 pound-feet, but the switch to regular fuel should pay dividends at the pump.


There has always been a lot discussion on the regular vs. premium gas topic...

That is interesting. I wonder if they did anything to the car other that "re-rate" it for regular unleaded. Our cars run fine on regular unleaded just with with slightly lower performance. I wonder if the new cars will have any performance gain from using premium unleaded. It is a good marketing move though, a lot of people don't like being told to use premium gas.

Dave Mac

My guess is that it's being "re-rated" only. As has been discussed, all of the Toyota vehicles using this 3.5 engine (about 6 of them) have always recommended regular with similar HP and torque ratings.

I recall reading when the current gen ES came out that the premium recommendation/requirement was in order to acheive the advertised HP rating.

looks like the 07 body/style /engine is still in demand and little needs to be changed. IT IS A REVOLUTIONARY JUMP from the previous model. as the saying goes. " what aint broke, dont need no fixin!"

I wonder if the EPA mileage ratings will remain the same as when Premium was recommended.

That's a good question. The new 2011 Avalon with the same engine and trans is rated at 20/29 on regular and and 2010 ES is 19/27 on premium.

LexBob2 - did you see anything else about any changes for 2011. I wouln't expect much at all for 2011.

Dave Mac

The article said this was the only change. This is good for 2010 owners.:)

Well, I guess that ends the discussion for the "premium or it will break" folks.

It has the same fuel:air compression ratio as the Camry. Typically you only get knocking at the higher compression ratios used in the other Lexus models. The ES350 is the only Lexus model that uses the same compression ratio as Toyota models.

You should take advantage of that. We run regular in the ES350 and it feels the same. If you put regular in our Infiniti EX35 or GS460 you notice some roughness. ES350 is smooth on regular.

Camry ratings.

Running regular in our engines has always been the way to go.

2007-2010 Camry and ES350 both have engine compression of 10.8:1

All other Lexus (including ISF but excluding LF-A): 11.8:1
LF-A: 12:1

Higher the compression ratio, the higher the octane requirement. Cars running on race fuel typically run 14:1

I wonder what took them so long to finally "re-rate" the ES350 for regular gas? Other manufacturers with similar output V6's have been doing it all along. When the Genesis 3.8 V6 came out Hyundai showed the hp and torque ratings using both premium and regular unleaded.

My guess is that they thought of premium gas as a signaler to some luxury car buyers that a car is a luxury car. It is one of many differentiators between the ES and the Camry.

When they launched the car they probably thought they were competing against other cars which used premium like the Acura TL, Mercedes C-Class and BMW 3 series. Plus they were bought by a lot of Camry buyers looking to step up and who may have looked for engine performance differentiation.

More recently I think the competition has evolved to other cars sharing low cost platforms like the Buick LaCrosse and Lincoln MKZ which claim that running on regular gasoline is one of their value advantages.

I think they must have done some up to date market research and found the premium thing is now hurting rather than helping them in the buying decision.

I'd say your assessment is pretty accurate.:)