markneups

36 is fantastic. Is that combo of city and highway. I have not driven any length of time highway yet. Only city. But I am holding steady near 28 mpg. The only car that got about 36 mpg was a 2007 Camry Hybrid. But -- that was a 4 banger hybrid with 140 hp. Not almost 300 like the 450h.

Aptosuser

Well, at least you didn't gamble on your car choice.

nparmelee

We'll have had our 2010 450h for 1 week tomorrow. 2008 350 was getting about 20 on my commute, 450h is giving me 29 for this first week. Even though in Texas, we are in hill country so I have some pretty good ups and downs to contend with. We may be pushing it a little this last week too just to see what she can do. Econ mode turned off on purpose. Not sure which gas they fueled me up with before we picked up the car but we'll be watching the mileage to see how it does as we settle in with how we drive her.

Aptosuser

If you're getting 29 with ups and downs, you're doing very well. That's a big improvement over your 350's mpg. The dealer probably filled your tank with premium gas, which is what the owner's manual calls for. I have filled up with premium consistently, even though a number owners on this forum have said that they haven't seen better gas mileage with premium vs. regular. I don't think the premium gas recommendation is for mileage; it's for long-term fuel-injector maintenance, I believe. Anyway, I figure it's silly to spend $41,000 on a car and then nickel-and-dime it on gasoline if the manufacturer calls for premium gas. The 450h's fuel-sipping ways make it easier to "swallow."

COPAPILOT

Hybrids get their best mileage in stop & go traffic. I live in the second largest city in Illinois, Naperville, just to the west of the largest city, Chicago. It is constant stop & go traffic. And when we drive into Chicago on I-88, we get our best mileage. They say that if everyone in the USA who commutes to a major city drove a hybrid, we would cut our countries gas consumption by 30%.

As for hilliness, the best trip mileage I got was driving back roads through the northern mountain chain of Pennsylvania. I was getting 30 MPG in the mountains and only 28 MPG through Ohio and Indiana.

My wife and I love the RX450h. It was great in our snowy winter driving. The AWD of the electric rear motor responds much faster than the mechanical AWD of the RX350. You hardly know you are driving I deep snow.

I still love driving my 2004 Mazda RX-8. It corners like it is on rails. But the high performance tires on it are not good below 32 degrees so I put it away for the winter and put it back on insurance in April. The only car I have driven that can corner like it is the Tesla S. All the RX-8s came in ahead of the Porsches at Road America the last time I was up there. The Porsches couldn't go through the turns without the tail end loosing traction. My friend's Porsche spun out and crashed 1 1/2 laps into the race.

The RX450h is our year round car.

kitlz

Well, I turned eco mode on today and the mileage jumped back to normal range. But I haven't done my regular commute yet. Still it feels good after this past brutal winter.

Aptosuser

StillLine, Can you get the Fuelly banners working right on this site? They're supposed to update on their own. Or do you just post a new link to your banner each time you add a "fuel-up"?

Kingy68

I assumed that from what I'd read, but have not found that when driving the car.
I've got 23mpg to 25.45 mpg in stop / start traffic and shorter journeys. (Figures are accurate as I've brimmed the fuel tank and calculated rather than trusting the obc which can be 5% out).
I did a 360 mile round trip last weekend and got 32.73 mpg. (Nearly 30% increase on my previous best recorded mpg ).

Nice to see the RXh finally achieve above 30mpg and it would have been higher if I'd been a bit more ecenomical on motorways and not taken a detour to avoid a closed road.

Aptosuser

The RX 450h does best mpg-wise after the ICE warms up. At which point, ironically sort of, it will shut down more readily at slow speeds and let the EV take over. Short trips are hell on mpg in a hybrid, it seems -- or at least in this big, heavy one. However, my RX replaced a six-cylinder RAV4. The best I was able to do in the RAV around town was about 19-20 mpg, so even 23 mpg in the Lexus looks good to me. I am averaging better than 28 now, but you're right, the car seems to do better on longer freeway trips than it does around our neighborhood, which by the way is not on the level.

COPAPILOT

I have found that since I trained my wife how to drive to get better gas mileage, we actually get better mileage in "normal" than using ECO mode. Beside the RX450h, I have a Ford F-150 4X4 and if I drive the RX like I do the F-150 to get better gas mileage. Both vehicles weigh the same but I get 13 mpg on the truck around town and 30+ in the RX. I get 18 mpg on the road in the truck and 29 in the RX. If I were younger, I would convert the truck to an EV since I am a member of a club that does fossil fuel to EV conversions. One of our guys converted an old Ford Ranger to EV. Have you seen that Toyota and Tesla are working on converting the RX to and EV.(no engine, no gas)

Aptosuser

I was inadvertently driving without the eco mode turned on for a long time and averaging better than 28 mpg, per Fuelly. Last week I realized this and turned it on. I'm interested to see if it makes a difference. Unfortunately when I was running through the display menus to get to the eco-mode setup, I inadvertently turned off the parking assist function and then scraped the passenger-side front bumper and part of the side panels on a retaining wall in our driveway. It looked like a minor repair job to me, but it's going to cost around $1,700 to fix it ($250 out of pocket for me).

VVRX

My mileage varies from one fill-up to the next. Fortunately, and probably because of the warmer weather I have been getting better than 29 mpg and distance doesn't seem to be a factor.

Aptosuser

I don't know as I see much difference in mpg yet with ECO mode turned on now, however the NAV "energy display" seems to indicate that the car is running on the battery more often.

COPAPILOT

I ran down to Springfield over the weekend to attend the 150 year Lincoln Funeral gala. I took I-55 down and back, flat as a board except where the road rises for overpasses. I went down in Sport Mode and returned in ECO Mode and cruse control. 28.8 going there and 29.9 returning, both at 75 mph. 75 mph seems to be the engines best efficiency sweet spot and with Interstate speed limits in Illinois being 70 that works out fine. I could hear the motor kicking in as I approached an overpass and in generator mode going down the other side. The engine was just staying at the same power letting the motor supply the additional power needed.

COPAPILOT

That's unfortunate. I am not sure why Lexus put the Park Assist on that control. It has nothing to do with the other items on that steering wheel button. It is not something that you would want to change often if ever. It could easily be a button on the dash like the Blind Spot Monitoring (BSM) button which should be located higher on the dash than where they have it located.

I was told by Lexus that suggestions like this should be fed back to Lexus through your sales person since they attend quarterly meetings with Lexus for improving their design. That way when you get your next Lexus, you will have less of a chance of having the same problem.