Skygc

I have to step on my Brake pedal to start the car, otherwise it will just turn on the accessory. How do u start the engine without stepping on the brake pedal?

ravenuer

Sorry....worded that wrong. This is the first car I've owned that I had to step on the brake to start it. All my previous cars had key start, so never noticed if the pedal was hard or not as I didn't have to step on the brake until I was ready to put it in gear.
I still don't think it's a problem, maybe if it happens in an hour or so, it might be.

riwyle

When a car has not run for a few days, the power brake vacuum booster will slowly leak air by the rod seal or check valve, and lose vacuum. As long as vacuum returns immediately after starting the engine and braking feels normal, there is no problem. It happens on all cars with power brakes, but as you said, if depressing the brake is not required to start the car, you do not notice it.

If you are concerned that it is loosing vacuum too quickly, therefore making it difficult to stop when you lose engine power due to engine failure or running out of gas while driving 80 mph down the freeway with a pile up of cars in front of you, turn off the engine while stopped, wait a few minutes, and depress the brake pedal multiple time to assure you still have vacuum assisted breaking power.

goatee

I had this exact same thing happen to me on my Ford Edge. Ford replaced the brake booster with a redesigned part at no charge. No problems afterwards. The part I can't figuire out is that brake boosters have been made for a number of years now, why all of a sudden do things like this happen? Good luck with your RX.

MicheleTK

My RX450h hard brake pedal issue is intermittent and has been going on for about 5 years since I bought it new. It occurs intermittently after I have been parked (sometimes overnight and sometimes for just 5 minutes). I have been bringing this issue up regularly with my Lexus service department (who are excellent), but they can’t fault my brakes. They replaced something in the braking system over a year ago, due to a known brake squeak issue in that model, in the hope that would fix it (which it didn’t,
and ironically I didn’t have the squeak before, but I do have now intermittently). My car will start and there is no error code but braking definitely isn’t normal when this occurs. To resolve it I have to put the car into park, depress the brake slowly a couple times until it becomes spongy again.

I also have had sunroof issues since I bought it and they replaced something (looked like 2 weather guards) which kept falling out and eventually they ended up glueing something else which didn’t resolve the issue- crunches and groans and bounces back to the closed position or just gets jammed, so it was easier to just stop using it.

I’m really interested in the braking issue though as they tell me there’s no danger but I don’t feel the brakes are as effective when this happens, and I’m travelling slowly- what if it occurred at higher speeds?

The service manager told me the braking system in a hybrid is different and doesn’t have a vaccum. What could be causing this? Any suggestions I could take to my service department?