OK, been noticing lately when riding around on the bike that when I am at a light and it turns green a number of the cars alongside me seem to restart their engines. Not a really long start like I am used to, just a quick vroom up, but definitely a startup sound.
Has this been a thing for a while? Why is it happening? Is it part of a hybrid engine system? Is it people trying to save gas? Isn’t starting up at every light going to be hard on the car?
For the record I am driving an eight year old car when I do drive so I don’t have perspective on this.
At least for the Toyota hybrid power train, yes, it is a feature. As long as the batteries have a decent charge, the IC engine shuts off at every opportunity, not just when stopped at a light but also when coasting downhill, etc.
this was the standard procedure for the Mercedes 300 I rented a year or two ago. I thought the same thing. THe goal I think is to save fuel, so they can legitimately say the car gets XXmiles per gallon…because it doesn’t idle when stopped.
The drivers aren’t doing it; its a function of the car’s performance parameters programmed in.
I think its stupid, because the amount of fuel one saves is going to be offset by the cost of replacing the starter more often. However, car companies aren’t graded on starter replacement costs…they are graded on fuel economy.
it’s called “auto start/stop.” shuts the engine off when the car is sitting at a stop.
hybrids do this, yes, but more and more non-hybrids are using auto S/S.
Not really. when you start the car “cold” (from off,) the PCM doesn’t know where the engine “is.” So it has to crank through about two complete crankshaft revolutions to determine top-dead-center on cylinder #1 and where the camshafts are in relation to the crankshaft before it’ll enable fuel and spark.
on an auto-start event, the PCM never turns off and knows where the engine stopped, so it only has to run the starter for long enough for the next available cylinder to fire.
I drove for a courier service many years ago.A typical day meant starting the vehicle 30-50 times a day, every day.
I don’t remember anyone having starter trouble.
It’s a feature of my 2017 Ford Escape. It’s not a hybrid - full gasoline engine - but it’s an “EcoBoost” engine.
I had the same thought when I bought the car (the car does allow you to easily shut the feature off) but I was assured by the salesman that Ford tests the starter a bunch of times, more times than I’d ever end up using it. It would be suicide for them to put in the feature and not have the cars’ systems not be able to handle the load. I trust the feature on this car more than I would trust the starter to last on a car that didn’t have the feature and the driver did the on/off manually.
the solenoid does two jobs; it is what engages the starter pinion gear with the flywheel ring gear, and also closes the circuit between the battery and starter motor. on engagement, the starter motor can be drawing hundreds of amps of current, and over time the electric arcing on contact can erode/pit the contacts and cause them not to conduct. that’s why with a failed starter solenoid you often get that “click” with no crank.
For the cars so designed it doesn’t seem to be an issue although some folks claim we don’t have enough data/experience to say for sure.
For other cars it becomes a debate. Some mechanics and engineers claim that constantly starting a “normal” engine “hot” can lead to internal issues over time but we’re talking far more occasions/restarts than an average person would ever do. The average driver isn’t going to do it at every light.
My F150 has this as well. When I first pulled off the lot, I didn’t realize that it did this, so I thought my brand new truck just crapped out in me a half mile into my lease.
The only time I turn it off is when I’m trying to charge my phone.
Quick question: how does this work for an automatic? Does it just switch off when you stand still for a while.
Around these parts start/stop has been pretty common for years and I’d say very few new cars don’t have the feature. But that’s mostly manual gear boxes. If you put the car in neutral and disengage the clutch, the car switches off… and starts again when you engage the clutch.
Exactly right. Engine stops when you pull up to a light, coming to a complete stop, and idling for literally a few seconds. Then engine starts again when you take your foot off the brake pedal. If you’re one of those people who is constantly creeping up on the car in front of you at a light, your engine will be constantly stop/starting.
I think more car brands/models have this feature now than those that do not.
I find it irritating, to say the least. I believe most cars will allow you to turn this feature off through driver configuration settings.
I have this stupid option on my Mini Cooper and BMW and I hate it (has been turned off since the day I bought the cars). Maybe this “feature” is smoother on different car brands, but when the car starts again it jerks; I find it hard to believe that the start/stop isn’t bad for the engine/tranny.
My BMW (2015) has it. It’s getting more common, tended to be European makes up till a few years ago I think. Many hate it. I like it, complete silence form the car while you sit at the light. And the fuel saying while not large isn’t negligible. Nor is it IMO reasonable to assume they don’t take into account the greater use of the starting system when engineering it to last as long as it normally would. Although I suppose the fairest answer there is, we’ll see.
On mine and I guess its common there’s an override button right above the start button (push button to start, some people hate that too ) and you could learn to hit it as second nature whenever starting if you really hate the feature. Or you can keep the car in ‘sport’ (as opposed to ‘comfort’ or ‘eco pro’) mode on the mode selector which also cancels the start/stop function. But you have to do one of those each time you start: it defaults to start/stop ‘on’ in ‘comfort’ mode each time you start. At least on mine there’s no way to permanently disable it, with normal consumer access to the software, you see that question often on BMW forums. It also gets automatically cancelled out with temperature below around 35F (? IIRC) or above 95F, or when you’re in stop and go and it’s happened a bunch of times in rapid succession, where admittedly it can first get a little annoying. But I just press the cancel button if so.
I’ve actually found that I can keep the engine from stopping if I don’t press as hard on the brake-- I’m still completely stopped, but with a lighter touch at a red light, I can keep the engine running.
I have this on my car. Brand new Cruze. It took some getting used to because I didn’t know it was a feature, so I could feel the car jump at lights and after being so used to diagnosing every little jerk and slip on my old car I thought I got a shit car.
It apparently is there to help fuel and apparently has no lasting effects on the starter/spark plugs/etc.
It took some getting used to, but I rarely notice it now. Still a trippy first few weeks though.
I had a social worker that inherited a car from Europe that was totally silent when you stopped and since I had almost never ridden a car that wasn’t a pos every time I rode in it I wouldn’t hear it and say "hey your car died "for the first few times
) and you could learn to hit it as second nature whenever starting if you really hate the feature. Or you can keep the car in ‘sport’ (as opposed to ‘comfort’ or ‘eco pro’) mode on the mode selector which also cancels the start/stop function. But you have to do one of those each time you start: it defaults to start/stop ‘on’ in ‘comfort’ mode each time you start. At least on mine there’s no way to permanently disable it, with normal consumer access to the software, you see that question often on BMW forums.