I've been noticing that my brake pedal is hard to push in during startup. As soon as the car is on the pedal comes back to being normal. What could this be? Thanks for taking your time.

 

Ah yes, the phantom stiff brake pedal. I actually had this occur to me a few months after I purchased my '06 IS350 back in 2011 and it freaked me out! After a couple of days though, it just went away. It popped up again this year, but because I figured it would just go away again like it did previously, I didn't worry about it. It went away after a couple of days.

Have others had this happen to them? Oh yes! Have we managed to find out what causes it...no.

 

Wow I would of thought it was due to maintenance. Unfortunately this has been going on for about two weeks now

 

I've been having the same problem recently. Mine eventually went back to normal after a week.

 

it's only happened to me when changing my pads. You have to squeeze the calipers together to get the pads out, then when you put in the new pads, you pump the brake a couple times til it is stiff to seat them up square. Once the car is turned on then the brake pedal goes back to normal.

Perhaps the brakes were pumped while the car was off?