Quote Originally Posted by daleWV View Post
Just taking a wild guess here, by any chance did they replace any of the tail/brake light bulbs when you had the service done on your car? It appears from the electrical diagrams in the service manual that the ecu monitors the brake light circuit for pushbutton starting purposes. So the ecu sees the voltage applied to the brake lights and decides it's ok to start the engine. If the wrong bulb was installed in the tail/brake light socket or was incorrectly plugged in, the tail light voltage could leak into the stop light circuit and fool the ecu into thinking the brakes are applied and it's ok to start the car.
Dang! Your wild guess hit the nail in the head. Made me facepalmed after remembering

Last week, when I was about to leave the shop, the mechanic noticed that my right brake light (filament type) was busted. I have six spare led bulbs so he replaced it right there and then. He replaced the left side with led bulb as well to make the lights even.

Earlier today, before I read your reply, I had already ripped off the plastic panels and started checking for continuity here and there, based on whatever I traced in the service manual. Admittedly, I was lost in all the diagrams but I also saw your observation regarding the ECU reading the brake lights.

After reading your reply, I removed the led bulbs from both sides, measured the voltage from the connector and both have 12v. I tried push starting without the bulbs and still had the same issue. I now put the old bulb (previously in the left side) to the right side. I retained the new led bulb in the left side and voila, the engine did not start. To double check if it was just a bad led bulb, I removed the old bulb and replaced it with yet another led bulb and issue came back.

This left me wondering as to why the left side works just fine with led while the other side won't and prefers the filament one.

Anyway, thank you guys for all the help.