My ISF was waiting for brake parts at the dealership over a public holiday and I was loaned an IS250 for 5 days.

Whilst the 250 is a lovely cruiser, it's no substitute for my F. However, I really liked the throttle response on the 250 in normal drive mode. My F feels dull and clumsy in normal drive. Conversely, flicking it to manual and sports seems a bit too much for day to day driving. The bi-polarness is too great.

I know some of you have the Apexi throttle control unit. Is that what you ppl did to cure some of the dullness?

I'm considering slotting it in normal drive mode with sports switched on for day to day commuting. For traffic light wars, I'd then engage manual.

Some of your thoughts on this matter would be appreciated.

 

This was my first impression as well, so I just put sport mode on each day.

I REALLY STRONGLY think the sport mode button should be an "ECO" button and by default the car should be in sport mode on start up........ Wouldn't think it would be too hard to rig up.

 

Yes the apex throttle controller fixes that dullness and they great thing is it has so many modes so you can always find the right one to fit how you want the car to feel like. When i want to have fun i go with boost mode on, traction controls all off , and sport mode on but thats just me

 

That's for fuel testing, which ever the car is in at default is how they test. But agree would be nice to be able to switch!

For the D mode; it's a learning auto. Stick it in D and drive it hard for 5/10 mins and it should adapt making the D mode much more engaging. The reason the loan car was more frisky was it was more than likely driven quite hard as standard.

 

Wow! Thanks for this info. I didn´t know either... Have been frustrated since day one that I have to switch on sports mode every time (and no, personally I have no problem with the S mode for daily driving, I love it...).

Now I will def. try "teaching" my normal D-mode to be more responsive

 

Hey that is good info. I do recall now that I caned it in drive mode and shortly after that it was holding gears longer and downshifting harder. I thought it was a glitch but I guess it's part of that learning process.

So I guess these are the options:

1. Drive in sports mode all the time;
2. Drive it hard in normal drive mode and teach the tranny to play ball;
3. Apexi controller.

 

+1 on the Apex Throttle Controller, I had an IS 350 prior to the F and noticed this same issue when I would hop into the 350. The car was very responsive in comparison to the F. Mess around with the Apex controller a little bit and this should solve your problems.

I was not aware that the D mode was learning. I drive my car like a Prius most of the time so perhaps I need to drive in Man more often to get a better feel from the car in routine driving conditions.

 

It's not just D mode either if you stick it in Sport mode and then drive like Miss Daisy you'll notice the response starts to dull a bit as well (it will still hold revs etc much better than D though) doesn't take long to adapt back though. Had this in my MB as well and it annoyed the hell out of me, not sure why they have to make auto's that adapt. The driver does the adapting bit, the car should stay the same.

 

If manual in the city is too much, leave it in D and put it in sports mode. When on a freeway or open road, floor it and it should feel like there is a little button underneath the gas pedal. It will allow you to press the pedal down even more, and it will downshift an extra gear, and take off quicker. After learning about this button it's like night and day!