Distance Until Empty Button?

[Cavman]

Sorry if this has been covered before. I have looked in the manual but can not find a button to push that will give me the estimated distance until Empty. I know it is there because the salesman pushed some buttons while I was taking my test drive and it showed that the available range was 8 miles (the gauge looked like it was below empty).

Can anyone give me the quick button combinations to find that information.

It is nice to know how much farther I can go even though I am unlikely to push the envelope much below 1/8 of a tank.

Thanks in advance for your help.

[Jim Nazium]

Sorry if this has been covered before. I have looked in the manual but can not find a button to push that will give me the estimated distance until Empty. I know it is there because the salesman pushed some buttons while I was taking my test drive and it showed that the available range was 8 miles (the gauge looked like it was below empty).

Can anyone give me the quick button combinations to find that information.

It is nice to know how much farther I can go even though I am unlikely to push the envelope much below 1/8 of a tank.

Thanks in advance for your help.

There isn't one. Lexus must of figured that with the Battery energy "percentage left" and what remaining fuel there is, they could not devise a way to exponentially know how to calculate a formula to display what "miles to empty" could be accurately displayed. And, more importantly the dangers involved if a customer were to push the envelope and run out of fuel, causing the vehicle to be propelled on battery power only would in effect run the risk of putting the vehicle in "dead battery state". A procedure that probably would involve too many owners stranded, requiring special start up procedures and hence incurring costly expense to both the owners and Lexus.

If you search the boards, you will find some who have a pretty good idea, on how far you can run once the fuel idiot light comes on.

Cheers

MadloR

[Cavman]

There isn't one. Lexus must of figured that with the Battery energy "percentage left" and what remaining fuel there is, they could not devise a way to exponentially know how to calculate a formula to display what "miles to empty" could be accurately displayed. And, more importantly the dangers involved if a customer were to push the envelope and run out of fuel, causing the vehicle to be propelled on battery power only would in effect run the risk of putting the vehicle in "dead battery state". A procedure that probably would involve too many owners stranded, requiring special start up procedures and hence incurring costly expense to both the owners and Lexus.

If you search the boards, you will find some who have a pretty good idea, on how far you can run once the fuel idiot light comes on.

Cheers

MadloR

Thanks for the quick reply. I had also asked this question of my delivery specialist before I put it on this message board and he agrees that there isn't a "Distance Until Empty" button. Too bad, it would be fun to see who could snap a photo of the Highest distance until empty after fill-up.

[NY_RX400h_Savanah]

Well with all the respect-Ford Escape hybrid does have it. So I think that simply some moron forgot about such an obvious option. It is very possible since Japanese are impossible to deal with when it comes to design-I deal with Panasonic Corp. on daily basis and get any software changes on their business networks or phone systems is impossible-they totally ignore requests from their American offices. Going back to our Lexus- it's probably the same story-but forget about getting any upgrades anytime soon. Algorithms to Get Miles until empty are 20x simpler than one for turning on/off combustion engine-and it would take any software or electronic engineer less than 20 minutes to write it. The way it's done in other cars- is that on board DSP that calculates your avg. MPG compares it with amount of fuel in the tank and gives you ESTIMATED DISTANCE-for given MPG-simple enough??-YES and only morons would try to go below 30-40 miles to go (although I did it with my wifes' BMW-reaching gas station with 2 miles-don't ask how ;) ). Saying that I want to answer all those that are going to scream that RX400h is a Hybrid and it's totally different- It's not-and if implemented would be just as accurate as in regular cars. Remember you'd be getting just an estimate based on your average MPG.

Another usable options that I still can't believe is missing (I'm still p..d off after 2 years of using car) is avg. Speed-I honestly thing that DSP installed in RX has few more MPS's to handle those very simple calculations. Just my 2 Cents.

Other than that car is nice piece of work- and as they say- nothing is perfect but it could be near perfect.

PS

You can't even find out how much estimated fuel you have while your reserve light goes off-isn't that something???

[Gryphon]

I'ts a bit frustrating that our RX's don't have this, but my 94 BMW 8740iL did, and it was very accurate.

Tom

[NY_RX400h_Savanah]

I'ts a bit frustrating that our RX's don't have this, but my 94 BMW 8740iL did, and it was very accurate.

Tom

I know where you're coming from- first 6 months I was so frustrated wit lack of it that almost wanted to return the car-of course RX400 is a great, smooth and enjoyable car- but it is such a shame that those simple things were not taken care of. After 2 years I still get frustrated when someone talks about it ;)

[vinovelo]

I'ts a bit frustrating that our RX's don't have this, but my 94 BMW 8740iL did, and it was very accurate.

Tom

I know where you're coming from- first 6 months I was so frustrated wit lack of it that almost wanted to return the car-of course RX400 is a great, smooth and enjoyable car- but it is such a shame that those simple things were not taken care of. After 2 years I still get frustrated when someone talks about it ;)

Hmm... didn't know this. That IS a pain, especially considering the other complex display functions this vehicle has.

One thing I do on my current vehicle is to reset the trip odometer as soon as I see the low fuel light go on. I then know

I have a reliable 50 miles to go. It helps that there are dual trip meters for this.

Hmm...someone tell me there are dual trip meters and a low fuel light on this thing...right? I'm about to buy one....

I better check :whistles:

[retired00]

Hmm... didn't know this. That IS a pain, especially considering the other complex display functions this vehicle has.

One thing I do on my current vehicle is to reset the trip odometer as soon as I see the low fuel light go on. I then know

I have a reliable 50 miles to go. It helps that there are dual trip meters for this.

Hmm...someone tell me there are dual trip meters and a low fuel light on this thing...right? I'm about to buy one....

I better check :whistles:

Yes, dual trips and a low fuel light.

[Jim Clark]

It IS a surprise they don't have this simple function. My '94 Jeep Grand Cherokee has it and I've driven it right down to zero as I entered the gas station. It took all of the tank capacity to fill it (within a 10th) so it must be very accurate.

[katzjamr]

with all due respect jim i think your post is exactly why lexus didnt provide this feature, they chose to protect the expensive traction battery from people would run the tank too low and ruin it by operating the vehicle with no fuel and no engine backup. Its an expensive battery pack, around 4k from what i can tell and dont you think if the miles to empty feature was available the posts we would be reading here would be more like, "Damn, i didnt know driving to the gas station with no gas engine would ruin my battery, now the dealer wants all this money to replace it...."

I, like 'vinovelo' in his post notice when the light comes on, realize that that light comes on at three gallons left in the tank, and do a quick mental calculation based on my current mpg average for the miles left to empty. i never was used to a miles to empty gauge, so its not a big deal to me, however i formerly used to run the tank pretty low and i had to change my habit with this vehicle. also remember the fuel pump is in the tank, and uses the surrounding fuel for cooling so that is one reason to not let everything run dry. just my two cents, dave

[Jim Clark]

with all due respect jim i think your post is exactly why lexus didnt provide this feature, they chose to protect the expensive traction battery from people would run the tank too low and ruin it by operating the vehicle with no fuel and no engine backup. Its an expensive battery pack, around 4k from what i can tell and dont you think if the miles to empty feature was available the posts we would be reading here would be more like, "Damn, i didnt know driving to the gas station with no gas engine would ruin my battery, now the dealer wants all this money to replace it...."

I, like 'vinovelo' in his post notice when the light comes on, realize that that light comes on at three gallons left in the tank, and do a quick mental calculation based on my current mpg average for the miles left to empty. i never was used to a miles to empty gauge, so its not a big deal to me, however i formerly used to run the tank pretty low and i had to change my habit with this vehicle. also remember the fuel pump is in the tank, and uses the surrounding fuel for cooling so that is one reason to not let everything run dry. just my two cents, dave

katzjamr:

Good point, you may be right. But I thought the battery system would shut down if you ran out of gas. There are warnings in the manual that you should immediately pull the car over and not drive it if you run out of gas.

I agree that it's pretty easy to calculate miles to empty when the idiot light comes on, it's basically saying "get some gas now dopey".

[stevil]

The GS 450H has a "crusing range" miles indicator on the energy screen. I must say the GS version of this screen is much better than the RX version. Why they are differen't I don't know, but on my GS it will keep fuel economy for the last trip vs resetting completely. Additionally there are more bars, and I get a "tank MPG" reading on the guage display which is calculated differently than the nav display.

[NY_RX400h_Savanah]

with all due respect jim i think your post is exactly why lexus didnt provide this feature, they chose to protect the expensive traction battery from people would run the tank too low and ruin it by operating the vehicle with no fuel and no engine backup. Its an expensive battery pack, around 4k from what i can tell and dont you think if the miles to empty feature was available the posts we would be reading here would be more like, "Damn, i didnt know driving to the gas station with no gas engine would ruin my battery, now the dealer wants all this money to replace it...."

I, like 'vinovelo' in his post notice when the light comes on, realize that that light comes on at three gallons left in the tank, and do a quick mental calculation based on my current mpg average for the miles left to empty. i never was used to a miles to empty gauge, so its not a big deal to me, however i formerly used to run the tank pretty low and i had to change my habit with this vehicle. also remember the fuel pump is in the tank, and uses the surrounding fuel for cooling so that is one reason to not let everything run dry. just my two cents, dave

You have a valid point but I think Lexus was just stupid in that case-how else you'd explain giving that feature for GS?