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Does An Ls 430 Memorize Driving Patterns?


ScottRoy

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When solving my navigation override problem I disconnected the batter for about 10 minutes. The first time I've done that since buying the car. It did not loose seat settings, radio settings, phone settings, etc. But the MPG, time traveled and other such numbers reset.

Then I drove it and it seemed more peppy! It shifted and drove a little different. Do these cars somehow memorize driving patterns and get into a groove of how to shift and respond to driver controls?

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When solving my navigation override problem I disconnected the batter for about 10 minutes. The first time I've done that since buying the car. It did not loose seat settings, radio settings, phone settings, etc. But the MPG, time traveled and other such numbers reset.

Then I drove it and it seemed more peppy! It shifted and drove a little different. Do these cars somehow memorize driving patterns and get into a groove of how to shift and respond to driver controls?

"Memorize" is not exactly what it does, but that's close enough. The car has a fuzzy logic circuit that patterns your driving habits in a kind of "moving average" way and then adjusts shift points, shift stiffness, throttle tip-in and response to those patterns. If you drive with a soft foot, the machine will remember that and develop a driving "feel" that is consistent with that. When you disconnect the battery, the logic circuit resets to the factory default settings, which sound a little brisker than it remembered from your driving style.

My indie mechanic has a Toyota Tundra pickup. He says he disconnects the battery at every oil change to get back to the crispness of the factory default settings. Even if we occasionally (or even often) slam down the hammer and run through the gears hard, it's still the case that most of our driving is more gentle and so the machine is almost always going to loose some of the factory 'click' that are the default settings.

If you like the default feel, you can do what my mechanic does. Otherwise, you will get the old softness back before too long.

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Well, that is interesting. And since your mechanic manages this on a Tundra, I suppose my Wife's Limited Sequoia has it too.

I probably inherited the previous owner's driving habits at first, but now its patterned after a mix of mine and my Wife's.

Does it develop a different pattern when the transmission switch is on Power VS Snow? In other words when I switch to Power, does it develop a separate patter for that setting?

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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). :)--it just feels slower.

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