While the vehicle is stopped, regardless of what gear it's in, a brief push of the engine button will stop the engine.

However, if the vehicle is in motion, the engine start/stop button needs to be pressed and HELD FOR 3 SECONDS to stop the engine.

Contrary to previous posts, this will NOT lock the steering. Steering becomes heavy due to the loss of power assist, but is manageable. There is plenty of reserve braking capacity to bring the car to a stop.

The steering lock isn't engaged until the vehicle is PARK, the engine is turned off, and the driver's door is opened.

 

Thanx for the clarification. Good to know Toyota has already put these safety features in the Lexus cars.

 

My wife has a 2009 Camry XLE (yes, one of the recalled cars) with the push button start. The system works the same with her car. With the car in motion, push and hold the start button for 3 seconds to stop the engine.

 

i believe the same applies to all toyota/lexus with start button

 

I beliece the same applies to ALL cars with start/stop button

 

The point I was trying to make here is that by turning the engine off in this manner, at least with the LS460, it does not engage the steering lock. A lot of folks have been advising not to turn off the engine in a runaway situation, for fear of loosing steering control.

I don't know how this may work on other makes or models, but on th 460, the steering lock doesn't engage until the vehicle is stopped and the driver's door is opened.

 

same thing for other toyota and lexus. like you said, as long as the car is not in P, steering will be there, just heavy coz' no power steering, but especially when the car is rolling, you will be able to steer.

 

FWIW, Car and Driver magazine ran some tests with a V-6 Camry. They held the accelerator down to the floor at 70 mph and stopped the car completely with just the brakes ... engine still at full rev.

The amazing thing is that it took only 16 feet more to stop it than it does with the engine running normally (190ft. v. 174ft.).

The runaway thing is being over-hyped and I personally think it's a hatchet job by the gov't. But even if your Toyota does run away with you, all you need to do is hit the brakes.

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Many cars do use the 3-sec, but Nissan/Infiniti is set up where you press the button 3 times in rapid succession, IIRC.

I think we might see an emergency shutoff warning instruction on the sun visor soon.

 

Putting the transmission in neutral doesn't hurt either...

 

Couldn't agree more, Mike. In the wake of Chrysler and GM's bankruptcies, people were singing the praises of Toyota. The "buy american" crowd is having a field day with it (although many are surprised when you tell them the impacted models were American built and the defective part was built in America (shocked?)

Not to downplay the seriousness, but good lord, if your car is in "runaway" mode, put it in neutral, hit the brakes and/or shut it off. With all due respect to those who didn't figure that out, it's not exactly rocket science.

 

to be honest i still can't seem to understand why people can't do this...

and at the same time we got that lady talking about her story, and how scared she was. BUT she still got the time to call her husband and said how scared she was. all these without the thought of putting the car in neutral?

i am not trying to get into too much bs, but come on...

trying very hard not to get into too much politics and conspiracy here

 

Agree, Rom, and the one that gets me is the CA Highway Patrolman! For goodness sake, CHP officers are trained on how to handle vehicles, and this guy let an ES350 roar up to 100+ and run into a bridge abutment?

That's just weird.

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granted, it was his wife driving (i believe), but yeah, considering that he's TRAINED to do pursuit of suspects at 90+mph, it shouldn't take him more than a second to figure out how to throw the car in neutral. it's not even his car, it's a loaner. who cares if the engine blew...

 

Or better yet shut the car off?? Yeah I agree the patrol mans accident does not make any sense at all? There was another incident where a woman said she called her husband while her car was out of control- excuse me but if you have time to call someone why cant you think of turning off the car or taking it out of gear? It is really sad to see that people are taking advantage of the situation and the media is eating it up..