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I don't know if there is anyone left in the world driving an HS but me, but I still love my car and I'm about to replace the tires again. Per the thread above, I replaced my OEM tires in June 2013 with Michelin Primacy MXM4. Those came with a six year 55,000 mile warranty. It's been five years and a few months, and almost exactly 50,000 miles, and the tires are pretty much at their end. If it were summer, I'd wait another few months but with winter starting up, I want good traction for the rain and light snow. From Tirerack.com, the MXM4 don't really get that good of a rating any more. Instead, I'm looking at either the Michelin Pilot Sport 4S or the Premier A/S. Anyone have experience with either of these? The Pilot Sport doesn't list a rating for driving in snow, so I'm assuming that they're a summer-only tire? In that case, I guess I'll be getting the Premier. I'm in Oregon and our winters are a lot of rain and a little snow. Any thoughts?

First, I want to thank you for keeping up with me on this thread, since I can't seem to get any other responses. I have a Premium package on my HS with every option they offered (I drove a loaner HS the other day during an oil change that was a base model -- I'm glad I spent the extra cash on my car; I would gladly take this over even an LS), so I've got the 18" wheels. That knocks out the Michelin MXV4 but the Primacy MXM4 tires seem like a good choice. I agree that I don't know sport or extreme tires. I never push my car; I enjoy tweaking my mileage rather than pretending I'm a race driver. In spite of the word "sport" in the name, the Michelin Pilot Sport A/S is supposed to be one of their green tires with better mileage. From the Michelin web site, the A/S 3 looks really promising but I don't think I can wait until July; my current tires are on their last legs. Curiously, if you go to the Michelin web site and ask for recommended tires, they only list their sport tires. Seems they consider the HS a sports luxury car. I do get a lot of compliments on its looks, but it doesn't have the zip needed to be a true sports sedan. The OEM tires were Toyos and they did OK, but they didn't last long and they're over-priced for what you get. I found some positive online remarks for General G-MAX AS-03 tires and for Pirelli P Zero Nero All Season tires, but I don't know enough about those brands to really judge them.

After reviewing tirerack.com and various other sites, I have this list of candidate tires so far: Michelin Primacy MXM4 Michelin Pilot HX MXM4 Michelin Pilot Sport A/S Plus Continental ExtremeContact DWS Bridgestone Potenza RE970AS Pole Position Michelin also has a promising tire in the Pilot Sport A/S 3, but it's apparently not available until July. Any suggestions or reviews?

I've been looking at their web site but the list of possibilities is endless. Also, I really want a good rolling tire to maximize mileage and I can't figure out how to identify those tires.

I was looking around for a topic on choosing replacement tires for the OEM tires on my 2010 HS 250h. Maybe I'm just blind but I don't see much discussion. What tires have people tried? For me, I would prefer tires that provide good roll (better mileage) more than traction.

In August of 2005, I bought my wife an RX400h and by the time I bought myself an HS 250h in late December 2009, I figured I was pretty experienced at hybrid cars. So imagine my surprise to discover my car behaves quite a bit differently than my wife's in regards to turn on/off the electric motor and gas engine (hybrid system). My question is, has anyone else noticed strange behavior? How does your car behave. Here are some of my observations: 1. Any time my car has been turned off, when I turn it back on, the gas engine will always turn on. More than that, the longer the car has sat in "off", the longer the gas engine will run. Here is the best example: in the morning, when I turn on my car to go to work, the gas engine will run for four to five minutes, even if I'm coasting downhill. By comparison, my wife's 400h will coast out of the garage in electric-only mode and won't turn on the gas until she either accelerates or hits a hill. 2. Just to further prove that last point, if I do a lot of short trips, I get terribel mileage. A typical example is to drive from my office 1/2 mile to the post office, stop for 15 minutes, then go to the bank and stop for 30 minutes, then go to lunch and stop for an hour, then go to an appointment and stop for 30 minutes. Each time I restart the car, the gas engine runs for a minute or two, with poor mileage. On a day such as I just described, I will actually average under 20 mpg. By comparison, if I drive those exact same roads *without* turning off the engine, then the gas engine will only run a few minutes in the beginning and after that it's mostly electric. The result is an average of 39 mpg or so. My best days for mileage are when all my stops are at least 5 miles apart. 3. And just to expand further upon the same point: because the gas engine *always* runs when I first turn on the car, that means I cannot turn on the EV mode when I first turn on the car. Only after the gas engine is "done" will the car let me run EV mode. Pratically speaking, that means that if I spend a few hours inside a mall and come out to the parking lot, I cannot use EV mode to drive around the parking lot, even though I'm going 5 mph. 4. This morning I sat in my car for five minutes in my driveway while making a call. Naturally, the gas engine insisted on running the whole time. What I found strange was that the engine surged for about 15 seconds at one point, for no good reason at all. 5. On the way to my home is a small but steep hill. I have to push the car pretty hard to go up the hill but then I coast down the other side. What I've noticed is that most of the time (but not always), when I coast down the back side of the hill, the gas engine continues to run, giving me lower mileage. 6. Generally speaking, I've noticed a number of times when the gas engine will stay on even though I am coasting. At first I thought this was to recharge the battery, but I checked the battery charge and it was 80% full. 7. Speaking of battery charges, mine rarely goes below 50%. Most of the time it's 50-80%. I've only seen it down to 30% a few times. In spite of all these complaints, I will say my overall mileage is pretty decent. I get about 35-36 mpg on the freeway and 38-40 mpg in the city. And I know that this is all computer controlled, so the question is, what the heck is that computer doing? Any comments or observations about your own cars would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for replying. I think this occurs more than most people think. I think there is under-reporting or that there are some cars that have this problem more than others. I am really surprised that there have been so many people reviewing this topic and nobody else has responded. Either at this site or on the club lexus forum. I lisited the same topic as "cruising and surging" and have over 350 people that have viewed it and nobody but one that has commented beside you. Thanks. It would be great for you to go to the club lexus forum and comment on there to see if it gets the string going. Again, I think if enough people make a fuss, they will address it. Just like the brakes, acceleration, etc. I have not had a problem with the brakes, but have noticed it occasionally. Thanks again. I've had my HS since the end of December and I've noticed some funny business with the hybrid system (I'm going to start a new thread on that in a minute), but not your problem. However, my highway driving is almost always with the cruise control and LKA turned on, so I probably wouldn't notice. The other day I took a 30 mile stint on I-5 with no cruise control, just to see if my mileage improved (slightly, but not much) and didn't notice any surging. My driving was 55-65 mph. It's kind of like this thing where there is supposed to be a problem with the braking software. This is observed only when you brake while going over a pot hole. I make a point of not going over pot holes and of going over speed bumps slow enough that I don't need to brake, so I've never observed that problem either.

Ok, for anyone else checking this, I've made progress. First, I got the garage door openers to work. The instructions in the manual are right, you just have to be really patient about each step of the process (and I did have the rolling codes). Second, and even cooler, I got my contacts transferred to the car. I have a T-Mobile/Google G1 phone that uses the Android operating system. After some thought, I realized that it wasn't enough to tell the car to go get the contacts, I needed an option on the phone that says "send the contacts." The phone doesn't come with such an option, but there is an Android app called Bluetooth File Transfer that will send anything on your phone and has a specific option for sending the contacts list. So I followed these steps: 1. Linked the phone to the car. 2. Went to the phone menu on the car and clicked on contacts. When it asked me if I wanted to import contacts, I said yes. 3. On the phone, I launched the Bluetooth File Transfer app and told it to send the contacts. It recognized the link to the car, made the connection, gave me a choice of which contacts to send (I set it at all), and then sent them. Afterwards, I check and everything is there. Now I only have to solve the problem of the Aux (1/8" audio) input for my MP3 player, plus how to disable the annoying beep when in reverse.

I got my HS last night and I'm thrilled. I had thought of buying my own space shuttle, but I thought, why go for old technology when you can have something really state-of-the-art? Anyway, there are a few things I haven't quited figured out, so if anyone has any suggestions, I'd love to hear them. 1. I can't get the garage door rmeotes to learn my garage door openers. We had no problems with my wife's 2006 Rx400h, but for some reason, I haven't got it to work in the HS. There are two sets of instructions, depending on whether your garage door opener has rolling codes. I think mine does, but I tried both methods (and a few other creative ideas, as well) without success. 2. My phone (a Google/T-Mobile G1) works just fine in making calls via bluetooth, but I can't transfer the contact list. In fact, it seems that once I start the transfer, bluetooth connections goes up and down repeatedly. 3. I was successful at connection an iPhone through the USB port, but had no luck at running an MP3 player through the AUX (1/8" stereo plug) connection. I tried this using a Creative Labs mp3 player and then my son tried hooking up his Macbook through that same connection. It just doesn't recognize that it's there. Just for reference, I have the Mark Levinson stereo. Everything else seems awesome and the voice commands sure work a lot better than in my wife's car (we used to joke that maybe her system was set up to listen for Japanese). So, any ideas?

I'm willing to believe the problem is not using playlists. I was preparing a digital photo frame as a Christmas gift for my mother today and kept having problems copying all of the photos (500 or so) onto the SD memory card. What I had forgotten is that most memory cards has a limit to the number of files they'll accept in the root directory. So I created a folder and was easily able to copy all 500 photos into it. This doesn't apply directly to the Ipod, but I could easily see the same kind of limitation existing in the way the Lexus audio system reads the Ipod. I only got my HS last night and I tested it today with my son's Ipod touch, where he has about 3000 songs. Scrolling through the longs lists was a list slow, but we had no crashes at all.

Coastaletech looks interesting, but their price is around $200. There are people on eBay making similar claims for $30. What's the difference? Anyone have experience with either?

Don't know about the ACURA, but the BMW SUV? Our neighbor whines about getting only 14mpg. At 1/2 the mileage per gallon as our 400h, a nicer NAVE seems like hardly a tradeoff IMO. As for lockout issues, the Locpic cured all that for us. What's the Locpic? I searched the rest of the furum and couldn't find any other reference. My wife has a 2006 400h and there's two things I'd love to do for here: unlock the nav while driving and give her quality Ipod integration.

Sorry, but the web page messed up and I don't think my reply to this post was posted. Here it is: "Does anyone know where to find this bypass module?"

thus this mean that voice dialing is NOT supportet? every 100,-$ hands free bluetooth system from nokia or sony-ericsson is supporting voice dial! i ← Keep in mind your car is not a phone -- it is just converying signals (such as talking) between your phone and speakers/mic built into your car. So far as I can tell, the care will not transmit voice dialing command from the mic to your phone (and I'm not sure any bluetooth phone will receive voice commands via bluetooth). The car can, however, do basic voice commands for navigation, etc. One thing: it would be good if we could increase the voice command vocabulary. Has anyone heard of a way to do this?

One touch works while driving, but the phone book does not and dialing does not. These are silly restrictions, because they force you to dial from your phone, a much less safe way of making calls. Along the same lines, you can't enter a destination into the GPS while the car is in motion, even if it's the passenger doing the entry. I understand that the lawyers are just trying to be extra-cautious, but why not just provide a screen to turn on these features (dialing while driving, entering destinations while driving) and then have one of those screens where you touch "yes" to release Lexus from all liability? By way the way, my wife and I both have Motorola V600 phones, and those work well with the car. It picks up the bluetooth easily and transferred the phone books. The only thing I wished it supported was voice dialing (which my phone does very well).

You Can! But you're limited to the 17 numbers in the 'One-Touch' numbers (plus one is a floater.) Set these up as your frequent numbers and you're all set! Your passenger can sit there and dial numbers from the phone itself safely. This method though has a disadvantage of not 'connecting' to hands free until the party answers which can be confusing to the called party since it is not until they say hello that you're aware of the connection! ← I find the one-touch buttons next-to-useless, because there's no way to tell where they go (whose numbers). Our cell phones' phone books successfully transferred to the car, so we'd like to be able to use those, but that doesn't work when the car is in motion. More to the point, people (including me) often dial numbers while driving. Doing this with the large, easy-to-read touchpad would be much easier than doing this with tiny cell phones. I wonder if there is a way to hack the programming on this to disable this feature...

Why can't you make outbound calls while the care is in motion, using the Nav screen and the phone books? Supposedly this is a safety feature (just like they disabled entering addresses for the GPS while in motion), but I think it was a failure to add safety. People make cell calls from the cars all the time (while driving), and unless we get a national law against this (unlikely), it's going to continue. The most dangerous part of people driving and calling isn't talking on the phone, it's looking at the phone to dial the call. The nav screen is bigger, easier to read, and closer to the windshield. So if you could use the nav screen for your dialing, that would reduce the danger. So why did Lexus choose to disable outboud dialing while in motion? And, more to the point, is there a way around this?

I agree that the casette is a dinosaur that should have been left out, but I don't agree that satellite radio is the "modern" approach. Everyone I know under the age of 25 would prefer mp3/iPod support, and I tend to agree. I wish that my 400h had included an iPod connector.

I'll vote for digital. My 1994 Cadillac Deville has digital, and I like it a lot better than the gages on the 400H (although I think the 400h is still a great car!).

We just hit 1100 miles this weekend. I took my wife on a day trip on Saturday: Salem to Portland to Hood River to Timberline Lodge on Mount Hood to Portland to Salem. Couple hundred miles or so, and the mileage averaged 29 mpg. One curious thing: we pulled up to a market and I ran in while my wife drove around the parking lot. She swears that she only averaged 5-10 mph and that only the electric motors ran the whole time. However, when I came back out, the trip mpg had droped about .4 or so. I haven't figured that one out.