yelloguy

"pound the metal" is different from gradual acceleration though. I am not "flooring the pedal: either. I am gradually pushing it in and expecting the car to accelerate. And I end up waiting longer than my own expected wait times. User @E46CT is right to say that I did not time it. And I described it, post-facto, as a count of a 3 second timer. And I am fully aware that it could be all in my head.

I will ask to test drive a different ES tomorrow. And I will play with the down pedal shifter on the one I am buying to see if that makes a difference.

LS500Fan

My '18 LS has severe delays at time from takeoff at times. In fact it's the main reason I'm dumping it and buying an ES hybrid. No transmission to make the driving experience poor, in the city anyway. The fact that the LS has a 4 speed trans in the hybrid is reason enough to not even consider it.

alextv

This is my insight here on the toyota hesitation. I have a 2001 LS430 which is a powerful car but has a terrible hesitation problem that can be somewhat mitigated by reset the ecu to loose memory effect. Their have been times that an accident almost happens even after I floor it which also takes about a second to respond properly. I also keep it in sport mode which helps but still unacceptable. I am sure the software keeps it in a higher gear until you floor it for gas mileage but when you need the power you need it and the heck with gas mileage. Also have a 2008 Tundra that does similar but not near as bad. My 2020 ES300h is responsive immediate and like having it that way. Don't know if other manufacturers are that way but seems like this could have been corrected better over years.

703

There should be no hesitation unless your floor it, which takes about 1 second before it selects the right gear. Everything else is abnormal.

703

outdated advice on battery disconnect and transmission learning. To understand what 12v battery disconnect effects read the repair manual for the ES or any car Lexus made in the last 10 years.

LexFinally

Wow, you learn something new every day. What IS the effect of a prolonged battery disconnection on these late-model cars?

alextv

The hesitation I am mainly referring to is like I am going 35 mph and push further on gas pedal it will stay in that higher gear with little power unless I floor it to go in lower gear which does take about 1 second. The 2001 LS430 helped a lot to reset ecu for memory effect. Disconnect battery in my 2020 ES300h doesn't loose any radio presets and just a few settings change in other areas. I like the safety of knowing I can push the gas and have it respond in the hybrid.

703

On the ES only 2 things. Steering sensor zero point and steering angle. Which is re-initialised when you move into gear and start driving above 22mph.


Nothing else is reset or lost. So this whole notion where people go to lengths to supply 12v power while changing batteries to preserve settings are superfluous. Or think that ECUs are reset is simply false.

LexFinally

Fascinating. Thanks for sharing it.

alextv

In my ES300h there were a few other settings I had to reset but nothing major after battery disconnect. The only one I can remember right now is in navigation when cross state line to turn off the notification. I am glad settings like radio presets are now using non volitle memory and transmission memory effect is apparently no longer used. Battery disconnect will also clear dtc codes and cut the mil light off if it was a glitch in software. Most of the time if we experience something wrong simply turning car off and back on will reset the system but if not then a hard disconnect of battery would be the next step. Our cars are full of numerous computers and always susceptible to software glitches just like our computers at home. Reason for my disconnect was to eliminate the parasitic drain of the battery if it was to sit more than a week. Before a software fix my battery would drain down below 12V after 4 days. Much better after the fix but bought a battery tender to use if more than a few days. Glad our cars are pretty much trouble free.

grp52

Actually there's one more in addition to those two. The parking assist monitor system may also need to have the steering position sensors recalibrated/synchronized with the software upon 12 volt battery low voltage or reinstallation of the battery. If you get an ! in a diamond symbol displayed on the backup camera view, there's a procedure in the XXXX Lexus YYYY Navigation and Multimedia System Owner's Manual (page number varies 194 to 198 depending upon pdf version).

ESh

I replaced the 12V battery, I left the car with no power overnight and nothing was reset.

alextv

Mine is also a 2020 ES 300h with a Dec 2019 build date. ESH was your battery bad and was it covered under warranty. Did you have the software update done which helped the parasitic drain on mine considerably. As for the reset you may never see any changes unless you changed something as simple as crossing the state line notification as I did. Only reason I did was because I live near state line and cross often.

703

the parking assist error is actually just the steering angle.

yelloguy

I did another test drive before buying the car yesterday. Put the car in sport mode and going around 50 mph, I push the gas pedal in gently. It took the car about a second to pick up. I tried that several times and it was about the same. I put the car in eco mode, and the delay went up to about 3 seconds. Normal mode was somewhere in between. Then I tried the negative steering pedal trick. In eco mode, I could pull the negative pedal up, push the gas pedal and the car would pick up in a second. So much fun!

The car is now mine! Thanks to all those who chimed in.