Mine does the same thing as did my old car so Im used to it. My scion would even go as far as holding higher rpm's before shifting when the engine was cold.

 

It's that time of year again. Time to shut off traction control and use the sport mode and paddle shifters to downshift to save brake wear and keep in lower gears to help keep the engine revved up. My car sits in a heated garage - low 40s - and it still will actually spin out at idle with the Blizzaks when leaving my driveway each morning. Leaving work I use my remote starter and let it run for 5-10 minutes before I even get in, and it still keeps the ridiculous high idle for another 5-10 minutes.

I recently had my rears spinning free while sitting at a traffic light. The car was confused as I felt the anti-lock brakes and/or traction control kicking in!

Love the car, but absolutely hate the high idle and the over intrusive stability control/traction control.

 

Can you use snow mode to start in 2nd gear?

 

I am not totally sure what the point of Snow Mode is. Seems like when I tried it a while back all it did was took throttle response away without changing the ridiculous high idle. I do run through the gears as if it was a manual until the idle RPMs drop to 600-700, but with it in normal not ECT and with the VSC forced off by holding the button for 5 seconds or so.

 

Snow mode forces the tranmission to start in 2nd gear, it reduces torque to the rear wheels making it less likley to spin from stop.

 

I've come up with a partial solution to this. Until the car is warmed up (temp needle hits the icon in the temp gauge) I keep the car in snow mode. this seems to keep the car from idling higher in drive when at a stop and it also seems to limit the bouncing between gears 1-2-3 when in bumper to bumper traffic. I am not exactly sure why it affects the idle, but it does. Of course snow mode also makes throttle response really poor, so i shut it off and put it in ECU power mode once it is warmed up.
I also turn traction control off in the snow. The system on this car is not good. It cuts almost all power to the vehicle when it senses slipping. This could leave you in a dangerous situation. It didnt seem to work this way in the Lexus rx350 I had as a loaner awhile back for a recall.
Hope this helps someone.

 

I've had this happen too. Brand new Blizzaks. It is especially bad in the slushy type road conditions. It did it in my laneway and the car almost pushed into the garage door. I had to throw it in park. Throw it in snow mode, annoying but it seems to help mine.

 

Interesting. We've just had a pile of snow today so I'm looking forward to trying this out tonight.
UPDATE: I tried this method the past few days and it seems to help. Engine still idling high of course but with snow mode on, seems to eliminate the issue I had with needing to apply greater braking pressure to keep the car from lurching forward. Thanks for the tip dutchie350 - a reasonable enough band aid solution.

 

Quoting both posts below as they're relevant/related. Dutchie350, thanks for the initial suggestion. I've been doing this the past couple weeks now and it has helped me (in that I'm less worried about rear-ending the person in front of me due to this issue!).
I actually raised a complaint with Lexus Canada about this issue from a Safety perspective, and it's in progess, though the reality is that the car is operating as it was intended to and the tests they run for this simply confirm that.
I spoke with the service manager (who is excellent and helpful) at my Lexus dealer this morning and gave him an FYI heads-up about this partial solution to share with any others who come in with the same issue. He confirmed that yes, the snow mode will help here as it essentially reduces throttle response and torque as jgr7 mentioned.
As my complaint with Lexus Canada progresses, my hope will be they take this feedback and consider being creative to prevent future issues for other drivers. I.E. How difficult would it be to program the car such that it automatically goes into snow mode (or just cuts/reduces power to rear wheels) at a stop when certain conditions are present? (E.G., high idle, zero speed, car in drive, etc?). I can't believe there haven't been collisions reported, albeit minor, as a result of this.

 

Glad I could be of some help.
I also spoke to the service guy at the local Lexus. He also drove an IS350 so he was familiar with this and said he puts it in neutral. I've read of this same issue with 2014 awd IS350 as well. I also get jumpy downshifts when slowing down to a stop while the car is not fully warmed. In these recent temps (-30) it takes my car forever to warm up. These symptoms don't fully stop until the temp needed touches the symbol in the middle of the gauge. Can't wait until the weather warms up

 

glad to see i wasn't the only one.. my 2008 is250 i just picked up a couple months ago been doing the same thing to me. I live in Montreal, Quebec.. so we see pretty freezing and snowy winter weather... every stop I can feel the car trying to get away, been slipping it into neutral every time.

I had the chance of trying snow mode out during a snow storm we had the day after a freezing rain storm, 9 inches of snow on top of ice. with snow mode enabled I was cruising smoothly from every stop.

 

Its normal, I live in sweden here its like -10celsius. But it goes down very fast to normal rpm.

But it comes out much smoke, not when i drive only when i stand still at red lights etc. Even if the car is warm.

 

Does anyone know if the high idle is time sensitive or temp. sensitive.
Because if it is temp. sensitive putting a resistor into the sensor wire would trick the computer into thinking it was warm and reduce the idle.....assuming the resistance goes up as the temp. does, normally.
So who has figured this out and done it already?

 

This is an old thread, but still relevant. My 2012 IS350 idles high, until it gets completely warmed up. I found that if the outdoor temperature, as displayed by the IS350, drops to 39F, it will start revving high at a stop sign and downshifts harshly. I recently found that if I turn the climate control fan off, the temperature, at which the high revving starts, drops to 30F. My commute to and from work is short; 7 minutes. So, I leave the fan off, if the temperature is <= 39F. I rely on the seat heater to provide some heat.