Engine Braking. WTF!

[Rocket]

Is anyone else experiencing over the top engine braking when slowing down quickly? The first couple times this happened, I thought I got rear ended. Feels like the engine is braking and slows things down then just lets everything surge forward. Is this normal? It seems like the electric motor to me. Never experienced anything like this in a gas engine car.

 

[OzLC]

Sooo... are you cruising at a pace where the engine has shut off. If so, when you apply the brake, in my experience, that suddenly kicks the engine on, and it hits the RPM it needs for braking.

I drive a lazy downhill road every day. For a mile it is strictly electric but a sharp turn at the bottom of the hill causes me to brake. The engine kicks in, with RPMs in the 2500-3000 range. Irritating.

 

[Rocket]

Sooo... are you cruising at a pace where the engine has shut off. If so, when you apply the brake, in my experience, that suddenly kicks the engine on, and it hits the RPM it needs for braking.

I drive a lazy downhill road every day. For a mile it is strictly electric but a sharp turn at the bottom of the hill causes me to brake. The engine kicks in, with RPMs in the 2500-3000 range. Irritating.

Hmmm. Maybe that is it. I don't think I am in full electric but I will pay more attention.

 

[jmqb1]

Check your nanny settings. The Proactive Driving Assist looks like a car with 3 circles. It'll engine brake like a mf. I turned mine off. Drives way better and no surprise engine braking.

 

[Rocket]

Check your nanny settings. The Proactive Driving Assist looks like a car with 3 circles. It'll engine brake like a mf. I turned mine off. Drives way better and no surprise engine braking.

I will do that first thing tomorrow morning. Thanks.

 

[OzLC]

Check your nanny settings. The Proactive Driving Assist looks like a car with 3 circles. It'll engine brake like a mf. I turned mine off. Drives way better and no surprise engine braking.

Hmmm. I thought I did that once, but I checked, and it was turned on. So, I turned it off (again?). Got a note to self to check it tomorrow.

 

[xeontis]

Check your nanny settings. The Proactive Driving Assist looks like a car with 3 circles. It'll engine brake like a mf. I turned mine off. Drives way better and no surprise engine braking.

I agree, once I turned this stuff off it was much better.

 

[robsurfskate]

Turn off PDA.

 

[TakaraLC]

PDA breaking distance is linked to the distance setting used by the adaptive cruise control (set by the distance button on the steering). So if you reduce that to a lower distance, PDA becomes very useful and much less annoying.

 

[Roonie]

I like the PDA as it detects cars braking before I see it sometimes. Also if your an aggressive driver you probably don't like it. I keep distance between me and cars in front and it is a more relaxed driving mode as it brakes slowly in my opinion. Almost self drives. It acts like cruise control is activated and slows down when other cars slow down? I have also noticed it lets go of the brakes around 15 mph.

 

[OzLC]

Check your nanny settings. The Proactive Driving Assist looks like a car with 3 circles. It'll engine brake like a mf. I turned mine off. Drives way better and no surprise engine braking.

Good call. Turned PDA off. Drives more normal. Thanks.

 

[b407driver]

Although the engine may kick on in the situation described above, the actual engine braking in the LC250 is minimal to practically non-existent (go try it). For towing, it is not optimal, for sure. Even off-road, there were times when I wondered what the vehicle was going to do when in 1st gear descending as the RPMs got close to redline (yes, in 4Low); curious if the car would have auto-braked to prevent an over-rev. This was never an issue in the 4Runner.

 

[neema2k]

I turn it on and off and treat it kind of like the adaptive cruise control. If adaptive is at level 1, the pda would be level 0 adaptive cruise.

Right now, and I will adapt as I drive this more, the pda is turned on during traffic, off when I'm more aggressive, and on long distances or school zones I turn on adaptive cruise. Off by default.

Also on downhills the pda seems to do things right. I think there's more to the pda than just breaking. I would like to hear feedback on this point and if there are other systems involved downhill.

I'm still experimenting. The LC is definitely a modern animal that needs mastering and yet simple.

 

[Bikemedic1]

Is anyone else experiencing over the top engine braking when slowing down quickly? The first couple times this happened, I thought I got rear ended. Feels like the engine is braking and slows things down then just lets everything surge forward. Is this normal? It seems like the electric motor to me. Never experienced anything like this in a gas engine car.

Regenerative braking. You can turn it off.

 

[TakaraLC]

Regenerative braking. You can turn it off.

You can’t turn off regenerative breaking.

 

[neema2k]

You can’t turn off regenerative breaking.

Turn off PDA in the drivers console

 

[pdxlc]

I believe you may be experiencing the regenerative braking. It can be quite noticeable especially when decelerating down hill. You can tell if the regen braking is activated when you see the two red lines at the bottom of the center screen even when you have not applied the brakes. This means the regen system is applying enough force to slow down the vehicle that the brake lights are activated to notify those behind you that your vehicle is slowing down. This is common in hybrid and electric vehicles. In my experience the LC can be very abrupt when it engages or disengages the regen braking causing it to lurch or clunk. Especially when going downhill at higher speeds. My LC has 5,000 miles and this does seem to have gotten better, but it is still more noticeable than any other hybrid or EV I have driven.

 

[Rocket]

I believe you may be experiencing the regenerative braking. It can be quite noticeable especially when decelerating down hill. You can tell if the regen braking is activated when you see the two red lines at the bottom of the center screen even when you have not applied the brakes. This means the regen system is applying enough force to slow down the vehicle that the brake lights are activated to notify those behind you that your vehicle is slowing down. This is common in hybrid and electric vehicles. In my experience the LC can be very abrupt when it engages or disengages the regen braking causing it to lurch or clunk. Especially when going downhill at higher speeds. My LC has 5,000 miles and this does seem to have gotten better, but it is still more noticeable than any other hybrid or EV I have driven.

Thanks pdxlc. I think that is what is going on. At 3600 miles and not sure it is getting better but I do think I am driving a little differently and can anticipate when it is going to happen more often so can brace for it.

 

[TakaraLC]

Turn off PDA in the drivers console

PDA has nothing to do with regenerative breaking.

 

[fftfk]

Check your nanny settings. The Proactive Driving Assist looks like a car with 3 circles. It'll engine brake like a mf. I turned mine off. Drives way better and no surprise engine braking.

Thanks for posting this. The PDA nanny was so annoying I was giving serious thought to getting rid of the LC. I turned it off after reading this and virtually all of my complaints have been fixed. I can’t believe Toyota went live with such a half baked, poorly thought out system.