Difficult starting "Steering Lock Active" warning
 

My 2013 ES300H is doing an annoying random thing. When I get to drive it it shows a key on instrument panel (I think good) when I hold brake and press start I get a yellow warning triangle and a message "steering lock active" and car won't drive. If I cycle the power on and off a few times the message goes away and it runs like normal. This happens randomly about 10% of the times I drive it, sometimes it takes 5 or 6 power cycles before it drives. It usually happens when I am in a hurry so it's a pain. Anybody seen this or have any ideas, possibly brake switch or shift position indicator hate to just start replacing things.

Thanks
Bill

How old is the fob battery?

I'm not positive but that sounds like it "might" just be a "glitch" in the system. You might want to try just unhooking your battery cables, and then put them back on.. but remember before you remove them, you're probably going to have to reset all of your settings like seat position, radio stations, outside mirrors, etc.... I would be hopeful that unhooking the battery would " clear " the system when you hook it back up. If it doesn't work, at least you will have eliminated one thing off the list. Good luck with it.

Roland

I'll give the battery unhook a try but first I am going to try my other fob for a few days. I already tried a battery change on this fob which didn't help.
I noticed today that when starting normally I get a beep before the car does it system check and is ready to go. When it's not going to run there is no beep before system check. Not sure what the beep is supposed to mean to me.

Thanks for the help.
Bill

The steering lock used to be mechanical and if you turned the steering wheel with the mechanical key off
you would find that the steering column lock had bound up tightly and you could not turn the key.
Our keyless systems have an electrical column lock but is is subject to the same malfunction. If you
turn the steering wheel hard with the car off and the actuator can not release you get the warning.

Solution in both cases: Try to turn the wheel in each direction, one will be completely solid and the
other direction will be tight but will move slightly. Turn the wheel strongly in the direction it will move
to and press the Start/Stop button (or turn the key in an older car).

Seems to happen more in the winter time as folks assist themselves out of the shut off car by tugging
and pulling on the steering wheel.