I'm starting to suspect that sport mode incurs a slight MPG penalty, any thoughts?

 

IDS Sport mode? or the transmission S mode? I think it's expected that both should consume a little more gas, especially the transmission S mode as it has to hold gears longer.

The IDS Sport mode provides a bit more throatier acceleration, hence uses more gas.

 

ids.

 

What happens when you put the ids to sport and the transmission to S.

 

^^^^ it blows up. Just kidding.

IDS SPORT should only change the sensation and feeling of the steering. It also audibly changes the engine noise through the defeat of the sound frequency of the sound system. It also vectors the torque more aggressively in SH-AWD models. IDS should NOT affect fuel economy whatsoever. Now, the transmission in S mode, should make a SLIGHT difference in the fuel economy, unless you are in it all the time, then it would make a bigger difference.

 

S mode simply is the manual mode. It will shift automatically from 1st to2nd at red line or before with the paddle. For all other gears you control shifting with the paddles completely the tranny will not shift for you. You can cut a couple of tenths in S mode. The IDS sport mode varies steering assist, transmission map, torque vectoring and the amount of sound suppression from the noise cancelling system. I don't know how much more aggressive the shifting pattern becomes, but it would makes sense that if it holds shifts longer and downshift more quickly it should consume more gas. Since I drive exclusively in sport mode I can't really tell how fuel consumption fares in the other modes. Its hard to tell when you're driver 2 BTW you can also select gears in D, however after a few seconds of steady state driving it returns to automatic.

 

Yes it does.