My car is a stick shift. It’s much more of a pain with an automatic, for me. I have never been in nor observed any situation from which someone could have escaped if their car had not been turned off. When a truck is skidding toward and you are idling as opposed to turned off, do you really imagine that you are going to be able to get out of the way? Hard to believe. This is sort of like the people who refuse to wear seatbelts because they might be trapped in the car if they happened to drive into a lake.
My authorities for the efficacy and worthwhilosity of turning off your engine instead of idling are the Tappet Brothers. A slow count to six was their delineation of when it started to become useful. They also stated that it would not add much wear to a modern starter (as in a post above).
I believe – haven’t checked – that it is illegal in California to turn off your engine in a situation in which you “ought to be moving” such as stop and go traffic. But long stoplights, no.
I get about 10 mpg over EPA with my Honda Fit, in both city and highway driving.
Many cars in the U.S. have a handbrake. I have a handbrake, and I’ve had handbrakes in the past, but I was never taught to put in on every complete stop. Maybe, as you say, it’s a European thing.
I’ve used the handbrake (the hand operated parking brake) when driving a manual transmission and starting off on a hill. It is a good way to prevent rollback.
Okay, so you’re talking about a manual transmission. I’ve always driven automatics, where rolling back isn’t usually an issue. It’s only become an issue now that I have a hybrid, which is automatic (CVT, actually) but has the rolling back issue because of the engine auto-off feature.
I don’t think the handbrake would be a solution in my case. It’s possible that it won’t even restart with the handbrake on. If it does, since the car never goes out of drive, when the engine restarts it would try to move with the handbrake on.
I stopped at work the other day to sign some papers. I thought I’d run in and be out in under a minute, so I never bothered to shut off my car. One thing led to another and I ended up in the building for 2 hours.
When I left, I was stunned to see my car running. Surprisingly, my gas tank was around 1/4 full, which is about what I thought I’d started the day with.
For those that shut off their engines (in automatics), do you put the transmission in park? Or put it in neutral and keep your foot on the brake? I wonder if starting their car and shifting into drive is what makes the people in front of me take so long to actually move. Nah, it’s probably because driving is the 3rd most important thing they’re doing at the moment…
As for applying the handbrake at every stop, doesn’t this make an already somewhat complicated process (starting from a stop in a manual transmission car) much more complicated? It seems unnecessary if you have your foot on the brake at all times.
The only time I have ever considered turning my vehicle off while stopped in traffic is while waiting for a train to pass, but I’m always too optimistic that the next rail car will be the last.
