It appears that the sport mode is automatically deactivated when the engine switch is turned off.
It gets reset to normal mode. Is there any way to disable the automatic deactivation?

 

I would like to see if this is possible as well. My IS-F did the same thing with the sport mode. It would be cool if it just stayed on the angry sport mode even if it uses a little more fuel :-)

 

It's not possible due to EPA regs. I asked about this on IS F and the reason why the system defaults to NORM mode is because the car was tested and certified in normal operation settings. If the car were to start in "SPORT" mode, the parameters change. There's no way to disable it as the system is programmed to do it.

 

That's a weird reason, because for the past 30 years most Toyotas with auto trannies have this PWR button that changes ECU mappings to delay shift points, which can stay enabled between restarts and certainly changes fuel economy and emission behaviors.

 

going to have to look into that. i'm 99.9% sure that when i set the mode while driving in eco, sport or sport plus,,,,, when i restart the car it's in the same mode in which it was set.

 

They did in the past but not anymore. The older Toyota & Lexus with ECT PWR switches used to be a rocker switch with a detent. If you left it in PWR mode, it stayed. Since ECT Sport Mode came into play from the IS F, it automatically reverts to normal operation mode. You can push the ECT control switch to Sport but it doesn't have a detent to stay in SPORT. It's all just an electronic switch which cancels out at startup. For the newer stuff starting from CT, its called Drive Mode Select with a circular drive mode switch on the console.

08+ IS F
11+ CT 200h
11-12 LFA
10+ LS 460 Sport
13+ GS
13+ RX
13+ ES

 

You are probably right. Because the reset applies to Sport mode, not Eco mode.

 

Echo or normal will remain in the same mode, not sport or sport+.

 

As a point of reference, my S5 had the Sport Differential, which allowed Comfort/Auto/Dynamic settings. If I had the car in Dynamic (which = Sport for Lexus) and turned it off it would default to Auto. This is not unique to Lexus.