jrmckinley

Took my 460 on a long road trip and learned a few things- this was the first substantial road trip I've done in this car.

• Cruising range (or distance to empty) is a complete mystery to me. One leg of my trip was during the time everyone was evacuating the state for Irma. Gas was beyond scarce and it was a pretty adrenaline-filled experience to get gas (hoping the station didn't run out before your turn in line) or decide how much farther to drive until hoping to find another station with gas. I was driving somewhere between 55mph and 75mph the entire trip down country roads and noticed my distance to empty would drop 1 mile for every 2.5-3 miles my trip odometer showed. I knew this couldn't be sustainable math since my distance to empty showed as 303 miles after a complete fill-up and there was no way I would end up getting 750-900 miles in a tank. I wonder why this felt so off to me- I was expecting the display to adapt to the fact that I had been driving all highway and give me a more realistic reading of how far I could go. Instead, I just did basic estimating of a 20 gallon tank and a minimum of 20 mpg to let me know 400 miles on the odometer was a minimum of what I could expect. Once making it to the first destination where gas was readily available, I filled up and calculated 27.2 mpg. Pretty incredible.
• I didn't know my car had auto high-beams but I love the feature. It was pretty accurate detecting when to turn the high beams on & off.
• In one leg of my trip I went through an incredibly remote area (the Apalachicola National Forest to be exact) at 2am where I didn't see more than 5 cars for about 75 miles. I know all cars are subject to having something go wrong, but it's a great feeling to have such high confidence that the car would not leave you stranded. While I have become completely spoiled by the serenity of the LS (this is my 3rd one), the primary reason I continue to be loyal to the Toyota/Lexus family is my experience with reliability.
• I couldn't believe how good I felt getting out of the car after such long legs of a trip. The 460 really is a great car for a road trip. Much more comfortable than my 430 (which I personally put almost 200k miles on and did countless highway road trips in).
• I got multiple compliments on my car during the trip. Pretty cool considering it's a 2010. I have an unlimited monthly car wash membership and tend to keep my car pretty clean so I think that contributes to it, but was surprised by the number of random people who would go out of their way to make a comment about the car.

JLAWS

Thanks for sharing your driving experience. I'd love to take my Ls460 a long road trip like you did. It's funny, a good part of my enjoyment on numerous trip to Martha's Vineyard over the summer was driving there and driving back. I have the DVD video bypass so It would be great watching a few movies on a long road trip to make the time go by for the passengers of course

Your Ls460L with sport 19s has been my dream set up for years. My swb Ls460 with comfort plus package is pretty rare and I am happy with it. I need the 19s to complete the look!

jrmckinley

Thanks- glad you like the setup of my car (that pic you attached was taken just a few days after I got it back from being rear-ended). I think the LWB on the 19's is such a good combo- something about the longer length of the car and those wheels makes for a killer visual, especially directly from the side.

sktn77a

iTrader: (2)

My longest trips are betwen NC and PA (~500miles). I have to say I'm pretty stiff at the end of that trip (about 8-9 hours). We have a short break ever 3-4 hours but it doesn't seem to help. What is nice is that the LS rides smoothly and quietly, so listening to books on CD or to music is more relaxing that in my wife's Prius! We typically get ~30mpg in the LS on that trip (mostly freeway, I-81) at 75-80mph.

Doublebase

They're great cars, and you had better get used to the compliments. I've owned a lot of cars over my lifetime but I've never received as many compliments as I have in this thing, ranging from...what a beautiful car, to savage...that beast is savage. And everything in between. Was totally not expecting that when I purchased it, didn't care for it at first, still don't, but you get used to it.

213374U

Yup, I can't say I've ever had a stock vehicle draw so much attention and questions from complete strangers at gas pumps. When they ask what year it is and I tell them (2010) it's usually a look of shock that crosses their face. Pretty sure I even sent a few checking their local lots for an example they can take home themselves

I'm still aching for a long road trip in this thing, best I've done was 800 across a 5 day holiday. I really want to get out and stretch her legs to one of the coasts or far north.

rgs92

Unlimited car wash membership? Wow, they don't have that in NJ. Awesome.
By the way, here in NJ, the LS gets no attention; Ferraris, Maseratis and Bentleys show up regularly at the local 7-11.
I actually got the LS because I didn't want to stand out with an exotic (or even very expensive) car.

Chuckinnj

Thanks OP for sharing your experience!........... Not to hijack this thread but there is a car wash in Whitehouse, NJ that has unlimited car washes per month. I have used this car wash for municipal vehicles and they always did a nice job. www.greenwaycarwash.com
BTW! I wash and detail my own cars........ I do not take my cars to a commercial car wash.

rgs92

Thanks for that info. I used to just let the Mercedes dealer wash my cars when I had Benzes. They always did a uniquely nice job, inside and out (better than I could do). The commercial ones seem to leave swirls. Cheers.

jrmckinley

There's no shortage of exotic and luxury cars throughout FL that make my old LS about as unique as a Honda Accord, but for whatever reason I got a lot of compliments all at once on this recent trip.

On the car wash- yep- it's pretty awesome. Price ranges from $20-$35/month and just determines the quality of the wash (soap, etc) you get. Very high quality- they have vacuums, tire shine, microfiber cloths and window cleaner free to use for all people with a membership. I always get both cars washed a minimum of once/week (my car probably 2 times/week, the SUV is just once/week). I hand wash our cars from Nov-April but between May-October it's so hot here it's worth the monthly fee to keep my sanity!

rgs92

Neat. My local car wash charges $28 (+tips) for just one "deluxe" wash that is just so-so. Thanks again for the info.

sktn77a

iTrader: (2)

Yep, same price here only they call it "the works"! Wash car, clean wheels, armorall the tires and vacuum interior. They do give a $4 discount on your next wash but that's it.

Gbp

A car wash with interior vacuum and wheel cleaning costs about $27 at my local wash. Unlimited car washes run $60/month for the plan I'm on) with some added perks, such as intermittent wax (not hand-rubbed) and annual basic exterior detail (I don't think it removes paint swirls, but am not sure).

For our other car, I buy sets of four washes for the price of three.

Kennyr44

I use a quarter pressure wash place down the street from my house. I enjoy doing it myself and feel the pressure wash is better than by hand. This method allows the inside of the grill and wheels etc. to get clean, places that are too hard to reach by hand. I like the wax mode also before rinse. My place is pretty inexpensive, $2.50 to do the car unless its been snowed on and really filthy. Some places I've been are double that though for the same minutes. To dry I pull out my Adams Detail microfiber towel. These are amazing. The big one dries the whole car easily. I usually do this once a week.

Oliver Enterprises

I certainly agree with that ... ahem,


jrmckinley - As for the range, I've wondered if maybe the range is partly computed by floats in the tank. And maybe there's enough friction in said floats that it *sort of* hangs up until there's enough unsupported float weight to make it move down. So that's why the range drops, seemingly incrementally (can't spell that), the way it does. I notice this with other cars I own. Post solar eclipse, we needed to get back home. So as other family members were dozing or looking at their "personal devices," I went into fuel conservation mode in an effort to get home without another stop (for gas). The car is so quiet, I frequently get the "why are we going so slow?" Annoying question when I'm going 15 over the speed limit. Since they weren't paying attention, I slowed down. The range was like 40 miles less than the Navigation's number of miles home. But we had a couple hundred miles to go. Long story short, I made it home and the range said I had like 2 miles left on the tank when I got home. The family was very glad not to get home any later than it was (seems like it was about midnight on a school night). The wife had been driving it, and part of the tank was wandering around / looking around. I put 494 miles on that tank, took 21.118 gallons to fill it, and averaged 23.4 mpg. And that's after a lot of not so good mpg areas driven. Quite a vehicle.

The feeling you shared about the confidence in your vehicle to NOT have problems is what Toyota strives for (in my direct design engineering position I held for Toyota). When I hear criticism about how my Lexus is not half the car of a BMW, this same feeling of confidence has me quickly dismissing that crap.

I get compliments on the car too, and statements like, "---- that sounds good." And, "that's a V8?" That question might not sound like a compliment ... but it is.

An excellent write-up from you! Thanks jrmckinley!


Jason