Hello! I've been a long time lurker on this forum. I ran into a problem I was hoping somebody here would be able to shed some light on.

I drove my car today.. everything was fine. No funny noises, no weird vibrations. I parked the car for four hours or so... when I came out to the car, the car would not start. The weird part is, the car seemed to have full power. The doors unlock on their own, nav worked, headlights, dome lights were all operational. When you push the start button, the dash lights up like normal but the starter refuses to turn over. Just quiet... nothing... The screen says key detected so I know that's not the problem. It display doesn't show any errors.. It just says check completed. The engine light and the battery light did stay on but being able to run the accessories tells me that the car does, in fact, have power. I THINK those two lights stay on if you push the start button twice without actually starting the car anyway? Can somebody please confirm this? Actually, the car acted like I pushed the start button twice without applying the brakes and that's it. I also tried jumping the car with no success..

Has anyone else here experienced a similar issue? My car is currently sitting at the dealer waiting for somebody to come in to look at it on Monday.

 

Obvious question, but are you pressing the brake when pushing the button? Sometimes if I let my car sit for a week or so I have to pump the brakes two or three times to repressurize the system, otherwise I get the condition you describe. You may have a slight vacuum leak and it is not recognizing that you are pushing the brake pedal.

 

Maybe someone did a Hybrid conversion :P

 

Yes, I definately pushed the brakes again.. and again...

 

i had the same problem a few weeks ago but i noticed that i had the car in drive... lol dont ask it was a long nite lol

 

damn that sucks... hope all goes well

 

Is the LED in the start button actually changing to green to indicate that key is detected + brake depressed? When my remote ran out of battery I had to hold it literally on top of the start button to get the car to recognize the key.

 

yes, the LED on the start button changes to green.... Everything appears normal. The car just won't turn the engine over.

 

Pull the battery plug to reset everything and try to start it again!

 

Thats one thing I didn't try. It's sitting at the dealer right now.. Either way, if something is glitching like that, I'd rather have the dealer see it for themselves before they pull that 'couldn't duplicate the problem' line on me

 

Same thing happened to me when i had the IS350...the problem was brake pedal was somewhat stuck and it wasn't depressing all the way so i had to move the car around and press brakes few times and it worked

 

I'm hoping the problem is as simple as that.. However, the car seems to detect that the brake pedal was being depressed as the LED light would go green everytime I hit the brakes. Ugh. I guess this isn't a common problem after all... Could the battery be the culprit? I don't think it's very likely either.. All of the electronics in the car were on including the headlights.

 

That sucks. Did the dealership tow ur lexus to the shop? Keep us posted.

 

Yes. They contract out the towing to AAA. They made it over to us in just over an hour. They even made a follow up call to make sure that we were picked up by the tow truck. I'm going to the dealership first thing tomorrow. I will keep everyone posted.

 

Hmm..sounds interesting. Let us know what the outcome is..maybe it's just a bad brake light switch or somethin'..I'm sure it's simple.