In my last car (Audi A6) when I kicked the transmission to Sport Mode it would hold upshifts and downshifts so the RPM stayed higher allowing for faster passing. Is this also true on the 2010 RX? A few times I had to pass a car on a rural road where only certain sections can pass and I put it into S Mode I felt no different then regular mode in regards to shifting to be more responsive?

The only time seems more aggressive with shifting is on the highway since the display says default 4th gear on entering this mode, but on the highway. Am I required to manually shift it also when trying to pass say from around 30-40mph?

For my driving habits I never use the Triptronic (Not sure what Lexus calls the manual feature). I keep it in D except when passing on rural roads where I shift to S pass then back to D. On highways I keep it in D as their is no urgent reason to pass like on rural stretches where the dotted line might not be for another 10 miles.

Thanks

 

Interesting.

 

S is for shiftable or selectable, not sport. It allows the driver to select a specific gear and hold that gear within specific RPM/load parameters. The shiftable mode is ideally suited for selecting a lower gear for descending grades without smoking your brakes, or allowing the driver to hold a gear while smoothly accelerating/decelerating on a curvy road. In preparation for passing another vehicle, the driver may select a lower gear to raise the RPM's for a given speed allowing for increased throttle response and more predictable acceleration. Of course, the aforementioned uses of a gear selectable automatic transmission are completely foreign concepts to the majority of vehicle operators.

 

oh I see thanks. I guess I will shift to lower gear if I need to pass rapidly. So another question I am wondering is why does my car default to 4th gear even at a stop when put into Selectable Gear Mode; I would think it should be in 1 then?

I had thought it would only use 4 gears, but from the clarification above that's not true since the shift programing is not changed.

 

Im pretty sure 2010's dont have a sport mode? The S stands for selectable shifting.

 

I'm not sure S stands for "semi-automatic" sounds more like a gun than a car

But when shifting from D to S, the shift programming does change in that "AI-SHIFT" is disabled when in S. Although S mode is supposed to limit the highest gear, your car will shift to a higher gear if you over rev it.

see page 19 of PDF file (page 160 of 2010 owner's manual)
http://drivers.lexus.com/t3Portal/do.../sec_02-01.pdf

 

On my 330 with this feature, it was called sequential trans shifting or something to that effect. I don't have the exact wording in front of me at the moment. I used it mostly to downshift in the snow, similar to the days when I drove manual. I haven't tried it in the 450h to pass someone. There's enough power when I press on the gas.

 

Not sure if this thread is dead yet. I just bought my first RX 350 2 weeks ago (Canadian 2010 Touring package with Nav and all) and still learning the car.
Maybe I got used to driving newer BMW's with ECO-Pro mode and 8-speed transmissions, but when driving in the city I want to get as much fuel economy as possible and I've noticed that when driving my RX in D mode I kept thinking "c'mon, shift the gear already!". I had a feeling that it doesn't use all the gears and if I'm driving like 60km/h it probably sits at 4th and I have to force it to shift by manipulating with the acceleration pedal (depress or release at certain points, then it seems to shift).

I then started experimenting with the S-mode, thinking initially that it was a Sports mode with manual gear shifts (I know, RTFM ), but I've noticed that even when leaving it at 6th at all times, it shifts much smoother and faster, and seems to always keep the revs below 1500 (again, I'm talking about city commute type of driving with traffic lights and constant start-stops). Overall the car becomes lazier and smoother, but that's exactly what I need in the morning traffic. So I'll keep experimenting and need to check how much the fuel consumption is affected, but I think I found a way to worry less about using too much rev when not needed.

Cheers