2021 ES 300H MPG Issues
02-03-22, 05:49 PM
#31
another thing that makes whatever negative of the braking worth it for me - if you are are reasonably calm driver/ braker, then brake pads last for a LONG time!
I just had 70,000 mile service - and they told me the brake pads are at 90% of new!! I may never have to change pads/rotors as long as I own this car! (probably will trade it by the time it reaches 130,000-150,000 miles I think). thats a nice cost saving.!
I just had 70,000 mile service - and they told me the brake pads are at 90% of new!! I may never have to change pads/rotors as long as I own this car! (probably will trade it by the time it reaches 130,000-150,000 miles I think). thats a nice cost saving.!
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landonm86 (02-04-22)
02-04-22, 08:39 AM
#33
Pole Position
Several people have mentioned a difference in the smoothness of the braking in the ES300h. I think that is the result of the fact that, with the hybrid vehicles, most of the braking is done with engine/regenerative braking, and the actual brakes only kick in to help bring the car to a complete stop. When I first got my RAV4 hybrid, I noticed that, too, but, after a while, it felt completely normal to me. And I suspect that this is a characteristic of all Lexus and Toyota hybrid vehicles.
I am using the State Farm "Drive Safe and Save" program, which gives you an insurance premium discount for safe driving. Several times, I've gotten dinged for "harsh braking" when I don't think I was braking harshly at all. I suspect that the "Drive Safe and Save" device is detecting that bit of lack of smoothness that happens when the actual brakes do kick in to finish bringing the car to a complete stop.
I am using the State Farm "Drive Safe and Save" program, which gives you an insurance premium discount for safe driving. Several times, I've gotten dinged for "harsh braking" when I don't think I was braking harshly at all. I suspect that the "Drive Safe and Save" device is detecting that bit of lack of smoothness that happens when the actual brakes do kick in to finish bringing the car to a complete stop.
02-05-22, 08:58 AM
#34
Instructor
What is your Driver Pulse score? Mine lately is between 81-83 and it takes every little to make that score takes a nose dive. I baby the throttle, turnings, brakings, and go easy on the deceleration to traffic lights / stop signs. I am not surprise if some people think there is a geriatric driver behind the wheel if they are behind me. I have State Farm insurance too and they tried to get me on board with this program. There is a dongle that needs to hook up to OBDII port. The weird thing is Lexus is already natively collecting all that data. I notice with the wife's new Venza Toyota already has third party insurance companies that they have relationship with that can access this data without the dongle.
Last edited by ionian; 02-05-22 at 08:59 AM. Reason: ...
02-05-22, 09:09 AM
#35
Lexus Test Driver
What is your Driver Pulse score? Mine lately is between 81-83 and it takes every little to make that score takes a nose dive. I baby the throttle, turnings, brakings, and go easy on the deceleration to traffic lights / stop signs. I am not surprise if some people think there is a geriatric driver behind the wheel if they are behind me. I have State Farm insurance too and they tried to get me on board with this program. There is a dongle that needs to hook up to OBDII port. The weird thing is Lexus is already natively collecting all that data. I notice with the wife's new Venza Toyota already has third party insurance companies that they have relationship with that can access this data without the dongle.
02-05-22, 09:40 AM
#36
Lead Lap
What is your Driver Pulse score? Mine lately is beMtween 81-83 and it takes every little to make that score takes a nose dive. I baby the throttle, turnings, brakings, and go easy on the deceleration to traffic lights / stop signs. I am not surprise if some people think there is a geriatric driver behind the wheel if they are behind me. I have State Farm insurance too and they tried to get me on board with this program. There is a dongle that needs to hook up to OBDII port. The weird thing is Lexus is already natively collecting all that data. I notice with the wife's new Venza Toyota already has third party insurance companies that they have relationship with that can access this data without the dongle.
Right now the State Farm app shows a 99% driver's score for me. Occasionally, I get dinged for harsh braking, which is likely recorded because of the way the engine braking and actual brakes on hybrid vehicles interact. And I've occasionally gotten dinged for fast cornering. There is an stretch of road near me where the data base that is being used (Google Maps, I think) includes a speed limit of 30, but the actual speed limit is 55, and I've occasionally gotten dinged there. With the State Farm Drive Safe and Save, any times you are dinged affect their Driver Score for 2 weeks.
Most of the insurance companies with similar programs use a device that gets plugged into the OBDII port. State Farm, however, uses a different system. Their device doesn't get plugged into anything in the car. Instead, it communicates via Bluetooth with the cell phone. Information from the device gets sent to the app in the phone, and the phone app transmits that information to State Farm.
02-05-22, 02:31 PM
#37
Instructor
The next time you are gunning it I would be interested to see what your score is for that particular trip. Around town I can easily get a score 17 without breaking a sweat by just doing a few "harsh" brakings, "aggressive" cornering, and a couple of "fast" accelerations in a short trip.
Last edited by ionian; 02-05-22 at 02:36 PM. Reason: ...
02-05-22, 03:09 PM
#38
You guys do understand that the reason these apps exist is to raise everybody's insurance rates, right?
Once enough people accept the surveillance as a fact of life, the "discount" for accepting it morphs into a penalty for the holdouts who don't. And once everybody's being surveilled — which I understand is already built into most new cars to a lesser extent — its data gives the insurers a data-based excuse for refusing to pay a lot of claims they had to pay before. They're not doing this for our health, so to speak.
Once enough people accept the surveillance as a fact of life, the "discount" for accepting it morphs into a penalty for the holdouts who don't. And once everybody's being surveilled — which I understand is already built into most new cars to a lesser extent — its data gives the insurers a data-based excuse for refusing to pay a lot of claims they had to pay before. They're not doing this for our health, so to speak.
02-05-22, 03:31 PM
#39
Instructor
You guys do understand that the reason these apps exist is to raise everybody's insurance rates, right?
Once enough people accept the surveillance as a fact of life, the "discount" for accepting it morphs into a penalty for the holdouts who don't. And once everybody's being surveilled — which I understand is already built into most new cars to a lesser extent — its data gives the insurers a data-based excuse for refusing to pay a lot of claims they had to pay before. They're not doing this for our health, so to speak.
Once enough people accept the surveillance as a fact of life, the "discount" for accepting it morphs into a penalty for the holdouts who don't. And once everybody's being surveilled — which I understand is already built into most new cars to a lesser extent — its data gives the insurers a data-based excuse for refusing to pay a lot of claims they had to pay before. They're not doing this for our health, so to speak.
At the end of the day it is just another tool say like fire. We can use fire to cook foods, keep our houses warm, or use it to cause harms to ourselves or others. It all depends on the one that welds the tool.
Last edited by ionian; 02-05-22 at 03:32 PM. Reason: ...
02-05-22, 04:09 PM
#40
Lead Lap
Since signing up for the State Farm Drive Safe and Save program, I've gone back and forth in my thinking about whether the savings are worth living with the privacy issues.
With State Farm, after signing up, the discount for the first premium is fairly small. With my first 6 month premium after signing up, my discount was about $80, but that includes the low mileage discount that I would have gotten regardless of whether I was participating in the Drive Safe and Save program. (You have to read the fine print to find out that any low mileage discount that you are getting is included in the Drive Safe and Save discount.) I was going to cancel my participation, but I thought I'd wait to see what my discount was going to be for the next premium period. That discount turned out to be about $180 for the next 6 month premium.
For now, I've decided that the financial savings are enough for me to be willing to sacrifice some privacy. I guess I figure that, in today's world, as was stated above, the genie is out of the bottle. We are already giving up so much privacy. For example, a few weeks ago, I had to replace my treadmill. I did a little on-line research to help me decide what to buy. Since then, on both my phone and on my computer, I've gotten numerous ads for treadmills. I also know that cable, satellite, and TV streaming services are able to target ads to us to fit what they know about us. I guess I figure that letting State Farm know about how I drive will only ad marginally to the privacy that I've already given up. I recognize that the battle to maintain privacy has already been lost.
With State Farm, after signing up, the discount for the first premium is fairly small. With my first 6 month premium after signing up, my discount was about $80, but that includes the low mileage discount that I would have gotten regardless of whether I was participating in the Drive Safe and Save program. (You have to read the fine print to find out that any low mileage discount that you are getting is included in the Drive Safe and Save discount.) I was going to cancel my participation, but I thought I'd wait to see what my discount was going to be for the next premium period. That discount turned out to be about $180 for the next 6 month premium.
For now, I've decided that the financial savings are enough for me to be willing to sacrifice some privacy. I guess I figure that, in today's world, as was stated above, the genie is out of the bottle. We are already giving up so much privacy. For example, a few weeks ago, I had to replace my treadmill. I did a little on-line research to help me decide what to buy. Since then, on both my phone and on my computer, I've gotten numerous ads for treadmills. I also know that cable, satellite, and TV streaming services are able to target ads to us to fit what they know about us. I guess I figure that letting State Farm know about how I drive will only ad marginally to the privacy that I've already given up. I recognize that the battle to maintain privacy has already been lost.
02-05-22, 04:47 PM
#41
Lexus Test Driver
Interesting. In my experience it seems the scoring algorithm is a bit more forgiving when I am doing highway driving. The Driver Pulse score is the average of past 10 recent trips if I am using what is available in the app as baseline. Technically you can get a bad score in one but if you are getting high on other 9 trips it should smooth out the rough patch.
The next time you are gunning it I would be interested to see what your score is for that particular trip. Around town I can easily get a score 17 without breaking a sweat by just doing a few "harsh" brakings, "aggressive" cornering, and a couple of "fast" accelerations in a short trip.
The next time you are gunning it I would be interested to see what your score is for that particular trip. Around town I can easily get a score 17 without breaking a sweat by just doing a few "harsh" brakings, "aggressive" cornering, and a couple of "fast" accelerations in a short trip.
02-05-22, 04:51 PM
#42
Lexus Test Driver
What are some folks here paying for insurance these days. In NJ here where rates tend to be high, we pay about $2,000 for two cars full coverage and ZERO issues on our record almost 4ever. I think we had one claim for a windshield several years ago.
02-05-22, 05:04 PM
#43
Instructor
You're the perfect driver! The highest driver pulse score I managed to get one time was 95. I kind of "gamed" the system but driving around couple of nearby developments putting down a mile each trip at low speed for like 10 days heh. Under normally driving conditions I don't think I can go higher than 84 as my overall score without having a lobotomy.
02-05-22, 05:36 PM
#44
Hi all, first post. Joined to see if anyone else is having MPG issues with the 2021 ES 300H. I purchased my car in Feb 2021 and consistently got 44-46 MPG until about 2 months ago. Now I can only get 37-38 MPG. My drive style, routine, and distance has not changed. The weather is colder, but I drove it last Feb in similar weather. I have tried different gas stations to see if I had bad gas and I also tried a tank of premium gas for the first time. No change. I called the dealer and he said the ethanol based fuels lower fuel economy in the winter because they sometimes add more ethanol. I live in Northern VA for reference. Welcome any thoughts/suggestions.
02-05-22, 06:07 PM
#45
More on topic, I'm an ex-State Farm policyholder and I'm not a big fan of their service quality these days. They were a leader in pushing for cheap non-OEM replacement parts and other service downgrades in recent years, and their CR survey results are very uninspiring. Amica, Erie, and Auto Owners rate much higher for customer satisfaction. State Farm would have a hard time winning me back.