I’ve noticed strange behavior twice and I’m curious if anyone else has seen it.
I’ll be driving at70 MPH along a freeway when the car in front of me brakes hard. I step hard on the brakes to slow down to 45 or so. Then I notice the engine reving hard, so I look at the tach and it’s sitting at 4k. It stays there for 5-10 seconds unless I change to manual shifting or accelerate again and get the car to shift gears.

Is it supposed to downshift so far that the engine revs like that?

 

Are you driving in DS mode when this happens? DS mode will keep the car in a higher power band when braking. It also assist in slowing the car down by using the engine as an added resistance for braking, and once u press the gas again the car is still in the lower gear so u can accelerate much quicker. This comes very usefull when driving on twisting roads where speed varies a lot and coming around a turn you can slow down and once u get around the turn already be in a lower gear to accelerate much faster.

 

I knew someone would ask that yet I forgot to answer it in my initial question. No.. I'm driving in D when this happens.

 

That has happened to me when i aggressively brake, i think it is a way to slow the car down further with engine force as well.

 

That makes sense logically. If it's supposed to do that... I'm ok with it. I've just been before by a Lexus Lemon due to transmission issues and wanted to make sure it's doing the right thing.

 

Yeah the downshift blipping is weird but I've had that happen a few times on sudden braking. Weird but it does come out of it pretty quickly. If it's a big concern try to duplicate and then bring to your dealer to show the service dept. My guess is they'll say it's normal but it never hurts to ask!

Jay

 

its a normal safety feature. it assists the brakes by using the motors resistance at high rpm(with no load) to slow the vehicle.