Here’s a chance to buy most of a Ford Explorer:
Oh Lord have mercy. I can give up the stop/start feature for $50. Holy cow, sold. I’d pay them $50.
7 Likes
Agree with Bing… I’d pay them 50 bucks to never get tbe stop start chip!
2 Likes
I believe GM did similar with some of their trucks. They sold them without the active fuel management software, so the cylinders never deactivate and I believe they gave a $50 rebate also.
3 Likes
I’m not fond of active fuel management, although I did get used to the stop/start feature in the BMW 118d I had as a rental in Austria. I got stuck in a traffic jam on my way back from an Alpine lake to Graz on a Sunday afternoon. The fuel management system only kicked in when I released the clutch. I spent a lot of time with two feet on pedals during that drive. Much of the return was downhill and all I had to do was manipulate the brakes to move forward.
I didn’t mind the cylinder deactivation on the vehicles I’ve driven that were equipped with it. But, I think it reduces engine longevity in some cases (particularly early GM’s).
Start/stop, I don’t have any experience with. Every once in awhile I’ll see an F150 and notice the engine startup noise as they leave a stop light. I couldn’t imagine liking that.
When we had this discussion a year or two ago, if we knew it was as easy as unplugging a chip . . . Gotta know which chip though.
I have to agree with that 100 %.
Nor do I. I rarely have passengers beyond my wife anyway.
As for the other issue, I’ve never driven anything with auto stop/start but occasionally I’ll be sitting at a light and hear the car next to me start when the light changes. From what I’ve read online, different companies implement it better or worse but you can generally bypass that feature on an automatic-equipped vehicle by putting the selector in something other than “Drive” (“5” on a 6-speed transmission, for example). Dunno what you’d do with a stick. I’m a bit surprised the EPA hasn’t had something to say.
I picked up a jeep Cherokee rental for my daughter that had auto-start and hated it, for the short ride to give it to her. I did notice when coming to a stop. If I would be on the brakes and let off and back on again a second before the dead stop it would not shut off.
1 Like
With the auto-stop/start do they put in heavy duty starters an battery’s in them otherwise I would think think they would wear out a lot faster?
1 Like
From what I gather, they do. But obviously if they do use heavy duty stuff in those applications it’s for a reason. More cycles equals more wear. No way around that. Maybe they’ve compensated for it well enough. There’s just something about a vehicle going dead at a stop that I do not like. Maybe it’s because I’ve driven a lot of junk that I tried to keep from doing that.
3 Likes
If you can believe this, they’ve compensated for it: https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1109687_dont-start-stop-systems-wear-out-your-cars-starter
They make it sound good but I wonder how much of the write up is a sales hype and also how long it would last in the real world.
How many hours can a vacuum cleaner operate for before the brushes in the motor wear out? If a trip is 5 miles and creates 10 seconds of starter spinning each time after 200,000 miles that’s 400,000 seconds or 111 hours on the starter. I think a vacuum cleaner still lasts much longer!
When my friend got his new 2022 Forester, he instantly disliked the auto stop-start, but decided to give it a try for a few weeks to see how much fuel it saved. He concluded that it only added something like .25 mpg.
Now, part of his start-up routine–along with fastening his seatbelt and checking the mirrors–is to press the dash-mounted switch to deactivate the auto stop-start. It’s truly become second nature to him, and he doesn’t even have to give it any special thought in order to do this more or less automatically, every time that he starts the engine.
And, I was surprised to see that every manufacturer seems to use the same symbol on that deactivation switch, so at least it shouldn’t be too confusing for drivers as time goes on. For those who aren’t yet familiar with it, this is the “universal” symbol that appears on the button for deactivating Auto Stop-Start:
1 Like
My F-150 has start/stop. It’s not implemented all that well. It’s noticeable when it shuts the engine off, and very noticeable when the engine starts. It’s the opposite of seamless. Since I drive my truck maybe once a week, and the battery is usually slightly discharged. It won’t activate until the battery is charged back up by the alternator, so unless the trip is 30+ minutes or more the start/stop will be disabled. Also I figured out that if you have the heat or A/C on full blast it won’t worth either, likewise if you put the transmission in tow/haul or sport mode, it’s disabled as well. At any rate, once the warranty is up, I’ll ForScan the start/stop feature away and forget about it.
Can you disable it with Forscan? I assumed it wouldn’t let you do it permanently.
They make an “auto stop eliminator” - basically an on / off button with the terminals switched. It makes it default to off, but auto stop is still available if you press the button. I think it’s basically the factory button in reverse.
My understanding is that you can change the default setting for the cancel button to on. So start/stop would be off by default and if you pushed the cancel button it would then turn on.
1 Like