I parked my IS200T on the side of the road today and had a sensation of the rear wheels locking when I tried to drive off again. I'm wondering this is a sign of trouble. More info follows.

I climbed an angled ledge to get the car off the road and onto a grass verge. It was high but nothing of concern, even with the naturally low clearance on the 3IS. I parked my car for a few hours in light rain. I then had trouble driving off. It wouldn't drive forward anymore as I tried to rejoin the road, when the front half of my car was on the road, rear half on the grass verge. It didn't feel like I was scratching my car, but the rear wheel felt like it was locking whenever I applied throttle. I reversed and tried again at the same angle - Same issue. I then reversed even more to get off the grass verge at a different angle and all was fine. The car drove fine thereafter, even on the freeway.

Was it perhaps something to do with the diff/traction? Perhaps one wheel was on the grass (which was slippery from rain) and the other was on the tar road, which cause the issue? I didn't see any lights on my dash.

 

Your car being RWD with no LSD, it's probably what you described where the wheel in the grass had no traction and traction control was trying to prevent it from spinning too much.

 

Do you still have issues taking off from a stop? Honestly, I agree with Answer that it seems like the traction control was kicking in. Sometimes the light in the dash won't show up until it's already engaged.

 

Thanks gents. I didn't have any issues taking off from a stop since. It's strange that the TC light didn't come on (or maybe I missed it). I'll chalk it up as a once-off event due to the slippery grass.