Toyota 2009 High Rpm When Idling Options

[RainMaker]

Hello,

I don’t know much (anything) about cars and I was hoping someone could help me. I bought a Toyota RAV4 2009 (automatic, 4WD, base model) four months ago (Canada). I do not drive it often. In 4 months, it has only 3500 km. Every time I start the car (in the morning or after it has not been driven for half a day or more), the RPMs go to 1,500 and it can take up to 5 minutes for it to go down to 1,000. When I shift it to D at 1,000, the gear change is rough (it can be felt). In some cases, even though I waited for 2-3 minutes and if I don’t wait until the RPMs drop to 1,000, gear change can be very “brutal”. I have few questions:

1. Even though outside temperature is not low (between 11C (52F) and 23C (73F)), is it normal for it to go up to 1,500 rpms?
2. Is it normal for it to take up to 4-5 minutes to drop down to 1,000 rpms?
3. Is 1,000 rpms too high, i.e. should it drop lower than 1,000 rpms?
4. If it is not normal, what could be the problem?

Thank you very much in advance.

[Yoda]

Mine idles below 1,000 RPM. At first start up it jumps to about 1,500 or so for about 5-10 seconds in the cool weather (~10°C). One thing I have noticed on cool mornings is that the ECM will not allow the engine to provide full acceleration until the temp comes up to normal. Good for the engine, scary for me when it causes me to misjudge the amount of time it takes to accelerate to merging speed.