mgauss

Im stuck with LS cars because with age I need the hold button when at a light I have to either press the brake for 6 minutes or put it in park. When will the ES have it? BMW, Mercedes have it. The RX now has it. But so far the ES has the same mechanical old fashioned (though great) engine. I am now in my 4th LS, the 460. I enjoy my test drives with ESs better than LSs as LS is a full air suspension, which eva;uates the terrain and duplicates the dampened feeling. But sometimes, the feedback I get in the LS is like a
hit, like a quick thump, whereas the spring suspension of the ES is bouncy and naturally dampened, not sudden air pushed, like a air bb gun.

I honestly believe that Iwouldn't tell the difference if I rode as a passenger with my eyes closed, naturally thE LS is fantastic perfect car, just that when going over speed bumps wuth only one side of the car the back and forth is too much, too many adjustments.

dchar

Probably would need to wait 2-3 more model years for the full model refresh for the ES to get Brake Hold.

Maljunulo

Have you tried both feet on the brake pedal?

mcomer

The Hybrid ES300h has had brake hold since inception in 2013.
No separate button, just press the main brake hard when stopped.
Does not stay on for minutes however, intended to prevent rollback
on a hill when conventional IC/Auto Transmission would have been
surging forward enough to counter gravity.

SW17LS

Have you tried driving an LS without the air suspension? Mine does not have the air suspension and I have none of what you are describing. I drive the ES as loaners and my LS rides notably better.

What tire pressure are your tires in your LS aired to?

You won't see brake hold in the ES until the next generation. Not sure why the current car doesn't have it.

TechNut

I believe mcomer is correct. At least my 2015 hybrid has the automatic brake hold by pressing hard on the brake pedal at a stop. Interestingly enough, our 2016 NX hybrid has a hold button. With that in mind, I would expect the next generation ES to have the button as well. Probably too easy for people to forget the automatic option so the designers decided to include a physical button.

SW17LS

The feature you're talking about is not the same as the brake hold feature. I had the feature where if you hold the brake down for a few seconds it would hold it for a few more seconds, that's the hill start assist. The brake hold feature holds the brakes for you when you come to a stop until you turn the feature off or restart the car.

The ES and GS do not have the brake hold feature, you need to have that hold button to have it.

dchar

Lexus actually added Brake Hold on the GS (in addition to the GS450h) starting on the 2016MY.

TechNut

Thanks for the clarification on the hill start assist. Now that you mention it, I do recall that reference.

I actually had to look the hold up in the manual as I wasn't able to explain it clearly to my wife today. According to the manual, it will hold it while in park, neutral or drive, until the accelerator is depressed. The manual did not reference a requirement to manually turn it off but I imagine it could be turned off by pressing the button again.

SW17LS

I stand corrected!

It's a great feature, I use it a lot.

bostonsnow

I was at the dealership today puttering around and do see the HOLD button now on the GS, to the right of steering column

I agree that it would be a great addition for the ES to have it. At least on the hybrid it should be easy enough for them to make it a feature, as with the hybrid engine, the engine usually shuts off at stop lights anyway. Not a big deal to add in the HOLD brake feature.

As for the hill assist feature, it is just that. If I am stopped on a slight uphill incline, I do notice that if there is a slight pause after taking foot off break and pressing accelerator, it will not roll back. However, when on a flat surface, you can't use hill assist as a brake hold. On flat, if you remove foot off the break, to my recollection the car does roll forward.

TechNut

I also seem to recall there is some indicator on the dash when Hill Assist is engaged? The hold button on our NX definitely has an indicator on the dashboard but if isn't clear to me if I need to turn the hold option off or it will disengage on its own. The manual states the hold feature will automatically release when pressing on the accelerator, but the one time I have tried it the "hold" indicator remained on even though the hold seemed to release and the car started rolling. I definitely need to explore this to figure out exactly how it works and see if the hold light will go out on its own.

To the last point made by Bostonsnow, I agree that it seems like it should be a simple feature to include on a hybrid. I might add that our hybrid NX also has an electronic parking brake. It would seem like the hold feature and the electronic parking brake are nearly the same feature from an engineering point of view. The main difference would be the action that must occur in order to release the braking function.

bostonsnow

I have never tried it - but I wonder what happens on a hybrid (ES, or NX or any hybrid) if , at a stoplight, you just put on the parking brake while leaving the transmission in Drive...?

chromedome

It just sits there Just like a normal torque converter auto set in Drive. It's a pain to keep using the foot parking brake at each stop and the hybrid isn't supposed to be left in Neutral for long either.

On my ES300h, pressing hard on the brake while stopped enables hill assist, with the traction control icon staying lit for a few seconds. The problem is that on flat ground, hill assist turns off after 3 seconds, so it's useless as a hold assist.