Driving in Normal mode vs Sports mode?

 

Sport mode typically might result in more aggressive driving which would reduce mileage. In stop and go traffic, or where your speed is varying pretty often, Sport mode will downshift more aggressively and hold the gear longer, so that could result in lower mpg as well. Otherwise cruising at 60 mph is going to use the same amount of fuel in Normal mode as it does in Sport mode.

 

In theory yes. As stated above, it holds the gears to a higher RPM before shifting, it downshifts more often, and throttle response is different.

 

Some cars (such as my BMW) will not shift to 8th gear in sport mode, even cruising down the freeway. I think the Lexus will shift to 8th though.

 

Thank you all !!!

 

Yes, you're correct. My cousins Audi S6 was that way too.

 

Also note that Eco mode won't do you any favors on the highway. Normal is preferred. Eco is for stop and go traffic (highway congestion) or around town driving. It cuts the AC down a notch, retards acceleration (you can literally switch from normal to Eco and feel the gas pedal move) and shifts early to get you to a higher gear quicker.

So in town = Eco, highway = Normal, Frequent passing and hard braking followed by hard acceleration = Sport, canyon carving = Sport S+.

 

Humm, feel the gas pedal move? This sounded fishy so I tested it on the freeway this morning. The gas pedal doesn't move a millimeter, and if it moves less than a mm there is almost no way I'd feel it through my shoes. What you're feeling is a change in the engine, I believe the changes to the throttle response includes adjusting the volume of gas entering the combustion chamber. So without moving the gas pedal more or less gas based on the mode selected.

Moving to ECO I felt like the engine slowed ever so slightly without seeing an immediate change in RPM.

Moving to Sport I felt like the engine speed up slightly, again without an immediate change to RPM

Then I got the impression under ECO the RPM would very slowly drop, while under Sport it would ever so slowly increase, but to be fair I'm not sure that wasn't because I subconsciously adding or subtracting pressure to the gas pedal.

Otherwise you're right about the AC and retarded acceleration

 

Now that would be interesting for Lexus to incorporate. The elimination of 7th and 8th gears while in Sport S+ mode. This way, for those of you who want 8 gears, can have it while driving in "Normal or Eco" modes, and those of us who like 6 gears can do that too.

 

Thats one of the best ideas ive herd in a long time. Thats ingenious! Lexus need to employ you as the lead tranmission programmer.

 

Back in the day you could just hit a button and turn off OD (overdrive) ... This was back when 4 speed transmissions was all we had.

 

Just floor the 8speed more often and keep it in Sport or Sport + mode, that ought to do the trick Or just stick in manual mode because the shifting is so much faster in M verses D even with sport+ turned on.