jeffbayne

Ok, first of all, a buddy of mine has an Audi A6. He said the computer would gradually learn his style of driving- ie. heavy throttle off the line...etc... and would begin to shift at a higher RPM.

I've been driving my 01 UL for two months now. The guy i bought it from is the type to hit it hard starting out- every time. Me being a slower, gas saving driver with a need for speed exhausted in a Viper, notice that the shifting levels sort of want me to hit the gas harder. I'm not saying there is a problem- I'm sure there isn't, but I'll be doing say 35-40 and push on the gas ever so slightly to get up to 45, and it will downshift and launch- just like its used to doing with an aggressive driver.

I would not think anything of this except for what Audi apparently does.

Any thoughts? thanks,
jeff

xuserx04

iTrader: (6)

Yeah i put well over 50 000 miles on my Ls in the last 16 month and i get that "downshift and launch" feeling too. No idea what it is thou

???

hrp

Cars with computers actually do "learn" the driver's style of driving, especially if only one or two people usually drive the car. If you wish the car to "reset' back to the factory defaults, disconnect the battery overnight. But you'll also have to reset most of the rest of your "settings" from radio to seat memory. Below is from a 16 Jan 09 post on this site by DrJfrmLA:

The learning process isn't unique to Lexus. Most new cars besides the bottom end of the food chain have some kind of logic circuits like I described. Power versus Snow settings only affect the starting gear as I understand it. In snow setting, the transmission starts in 2nd gear to minimize wheel spin.

It will affect gas mileage only insofar as it shifts to higher gears more quickly, so the engine revs slower and uses less gas as a result. The logic circuits don't affect the torque converter slippage/lockup dynamics so far as I know, so the smoother shifting is the result of more slippage and lower gas mileage. I expect the two things wash out in the end.

If you bought your car used and have never disconnected the battery, you most likely did inherit the previous owner's patterns. Over time, it has "learned" you and your wife. If you bought it new, the default settings were probably a thing of the past in a couple of thousand miles.

I think the thing to remember is we aren't generally talking about a dramatic change. The change will be noticeable if you disconnect the battery after a relatively long time, but it won't be stunning. You will need to drive your car like a street racer ALL the time for it to stiffen up beyond the factory defaults. It is like a rheostat, not a light switch. I don't know of any way it can be adjusted stiffer than factory defaults if it can be adjusted at all except to disconnect the battery. The right computer software (like the dealer's) might let you adjust it so it snaps your neck with each shift, but I'm not sure why you would want to do that. Also, I don't think it makes the car any slower--if you jam the accelerator pedal into the carpet, all bets are off and it runs to redline and snaps off shifts like a manual (well, almost). smile.gif--it just feels slower.

sojah

iTrader: (1)

i think it only takes about 25-30 mins to reset the ecu which is what you are doing by disconnecting the negative battery cable.. it is perfectly safe to do and very easy. i used to do this on my previous gs400 all the time (once every 6 weeks) in order to maintain the best acceleration, because i found that after about 4-5 weeks of my slow m-f commuter driving the car would gradually start to take off slower and slower and at that time i wanted it to be as fast as possible,, when i needed it of course...

hrp

Sojah,
You are correct in that it only takes 25 - 30 min, but most folks won't wait that long, and so I always tell them "overnight" to make sure they allow enough time for the ecu to reset. Saves hassle!!

sojah

iTrader: (1)

true ^ ^ ^ true..

AlexusAnja

As my high school dance teach will tell you, I had no groove and definitely no style, so I hope my LS doesn't learn my style... ha ha.

As for disconnecting the battery, what gets lost in all this? Clock, radio, GPS, anything?

hrp

Disconnecting your battery long enough to allow a reset will wipe out almost all of your settings; seat memory, radio settings, etc.

sojah

iTrader: (1)

yeah i found it best to write down my radio station presets quick on a piece of paper, and make sure the seat is set to how i like sitting, then unhook it, when you hook it back up just set the seat memory once again and redo your radio presets. takes about 2 minutes if your good like i used to be with my gs

btw i'm like 99% sure you won't even loose anything in your gps cuz i had to erase all the previous entries in my gps when i bought the ls manually (which on this nav actually means taking out the manual and following the damn directions.).

AlexusAnja

What worries me are the remote control settings. I have my home remote set, which I can reset easily, but I also have my parent's apartment remote programmed too and I don't have that fixed code remote anymore to program. So is removing the battery overnight going to kill that?

sojah

iTrader: (1)

not sure about that one, i would have to triple check that one before i did it if it were me. if you can't find info on CL about it try to call a lex dealership, not that they ever give me credible answers half the time but who knows.

blacksc400

iTrader: (4)

Just do like what 2GS people do, pull the fuse and it resets the ECU in 2 mins. And doesn't mess with any other settings.
I need to find out where the fuse is for the LS, I used to do it on my GS all the time!

GS3Tek

iTrader: (8)

Nope, that's the only thing that doesn't get erased. I checked and verified it

sojah

iTrader: (1)

i debated the fuse approach years ago on the 2gs forum but never thought i would be doing it again on this ls430 section but here goes. i pulled the 2 fuses that were the proper 2 to reset the ecu on th 2gs and mine reaset the same exact stuff that unhooking the negative battery terminal did. the only difference for me was that the battery cable method only took >1 min to unhook and less >1 min to hook back up, the fuses were hard to get to, difficult to pinch and pull out + push back in if you dont have small fingers and the fuse inside the passanger side floor feet area was really tricky to get in that tight spot for me and i thought i was fairly limber... battery method even my mother did while i was on vacation from my instructions, and im sure she would have failwed misewrably at pulling the fuses method... but yeah that is another option, thanks for mentioning gs3tek

tham430

Disconnecting the battery is how they do the reset at the dealer ship. I have had some shifting issues with my 01 LS UL and the head mechanic disconnected the battery to do the reset and advised me to do the same if I desired the ecu to relearn my driving patterns.

One thing he said may be the problem with my shifting is the throttle position switch or something like that may need reprogramming but they would have to hook up a computer and drive the car to duplicate the problem which cost 3 to 5 hundred dollars.

However there are Lexus technical bulletins that seem to infer that a flash reprogram can be done to the ecu to update it's settings, but in talking to the mechanic at lexus he wasn't to sure and I haven't had the chance to ask one of the other Lexus mechanics in the area.

TIM