Yesterday was a bit colder for my area at 40 deg F and I took the 350 to the grocery store to run some errands. Usually cold start on this car is normal, higher RPMs for a short while then it'll mellow down to normal idle. When getting to the first red light about two miles away, I noticed my car creeping forward, so I kick it into neutral and it was still idling at 1200 or so RPM. Light turned green, drove another half mile and noticed the same behavior at the next light. It wasn't until we got to the store, shut the car off, then back on again when leaving that everything returned to normal.

I've seen behavior similar to this before with my older Maxima when the IACV went bad. Is there anything I should be looking out for? First time ever with this behavior in this car, driven it plenty of times in colder weather (around freezing) and didn't exhibit this.

 

That is not near cold enough to cause any warming up issues. How many miles?

 

Yeah seemed off to me as well. 38k miles.

 

I have a 2014 GS350 AWD with 198,000km. I’ve never had mine rev that high, but when it’s cold out (or the engine is cold), it’ll usually sit around 1000rpms when stopped at a light. This is normal behaviour. Where I live, we get cold temperatures regularly, and down to -20/30C. This stops once the engine is closer to operating temp. I remember a friend’s 2000 Camry V6 would do the same thing when it was cold. Wouldn’t worry about this too much, from what I know it’s just what the car does to warm everything up faster. We have a 2019 GS350 AWD as well that does the same, with 37,000km.

Forgot to say, these seem to take a while to warm up from my experience with past cars. Had a Honda crosstour that warmed up very quickly. The high idle lasts a while as well, and the faster creeping is normal, with it idling higher in drive.