That’s why the simple expedient of an ON/OFF switch on the dash makes perfect sense. They did that, right?
Why yes, yes they did.
Not sure if you or anyone else knows, but roughly what percentage of cars use the “starter-less” method?
I don’t have any real numbers but here are some systems that don’t use the starter motor or use it only sparingly:
- Mazda i-Stop
- i-StARS used by Citroen, Peugeot, Volvo
- BiSG (Belt-integrated Starter Generators) are used by Ford, Ram/Jeep, MB, Hyundai/Kia, Audi/BMW/VW
- Toyota Hybrid Synergy Drive on most of their hybrids
Note that Subaru is missing from that list, the car that inspired this thread. Maybe they just did a terrible job with this system.
Sorta sounds like of the large volume manufacturers only GM, Chrysler, Honda, Nissan, and Subaru are missing from that list.
And that doesn’t mean they all abuse their starter motors. It just means so far we here don’t know whether they do or don’t.
I’ve only had that feature on my plug in hybrid. Worked great, completely seamless. Of course, that car always started silently on battery, and only turned on the engine when it was at speed. “A running start”. That car was a lemon, and had all sorts of problems, but turning off the engine at a stop wasn’t among them.
My current daily driver is electric, and if course it’s moot.
My search was pretty light, so I have no idea the manufacturer uses that technology on all of their vehicles or just some. There may be a lot of cars out there which haven’t implemented ESS cleanly.
I have a lot of sites blocked where I am, so I can’t verify this AI answer (the cite is a youtube video that I can’t see), but according to Gemini:
[Subaru uses] a heavy-duty starter motor and a high-capacity, high-cranking battery designed to handle frequent, repeated engine shutoffs and restarts.
Could explain why it seems to terrible and is so hard on the battery.
Rather the opposite. It seems they added an extra good battery and extra good starter to handle the extra workload.
Now whether they did a good job of that is a different matter.
What I mean is, maybe they don’t do that nifty start from nothing that other car companies do, they actually have to start the engine every time. That’s certainly what it feels like, as opposed to the Mini, where it just seems to continue on.
Oh. Thanks for the clarification. Could be. I know I’ve run to the end of my confident knowledge with the whole topic.
Based on my research thus far, this seems to be correct as far as Subaru’s system. It actually uses the starter, but the starter is designed for the extra cycles and is beefier and better constructed than typical starters.
Way back in the day, I did all the mechanical work myself on my '64 VW Bug. The reference that I used the most was John Muir’s How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive, A Manual of Step by Step Procedures for the Compleat Idiot, yes the infamous Idiot’s Book.
He describes a test simple test to see how well you did a tune up. If the engine was warm, all it would take has a quick touch of of the start on the ignition switch to start your engine. This engine was as basic as they came with a mechanical carburetor and breaker point ignition. A warm and well tuned engine starts very easily with little cranking. Of course the float bowl in the carburetor was probably full. No fancy technology. Computers back then often took entire rooms.
[bolding mine]
Does anyone else remember the General Motors V8-6-4 debacle? I was delivering new vehicles to dealers back then, and some failed before they made it to the lot.
I have one of the modern implementations of this and it seems to work flawlessly. Ram is using cylinder de-activation to meet the fleet economy standards for their heavy duty trucks (Class 2 and 3). Apparently, computers compensate for the change in power as it turns on and off automatically, and the only way I know it’s dropping cylinders is the green “ECO” on the dash. They call it “MDS”.
They’ve had this on their large gasoline V8s since 2014. It can be switched off, but will reset to ON when the engine is started anew. It uses oil pressure to collapse the lifters on cylinders 1-4-6-7 and just allows them to run with the valves closed. Apparently the compress/decompress cycles cancel out and are energy-null.
Out of curiosity, I’ve run the same 400 mile trip with MDS on one way, and off during the return trip. As you’d expect, the difference is undetectable from the owner’s perspective. I suspect there’s too much variation in wind, traffic, etc. to see these small differences.
They’re not meeting CAFE standards, but a similar version for heavy duty vehicles. I think Ram is the only manufacturer that uses this and apparently it gets them past some mpg number (I don’t know the details).
Heh,heh. I was in Portugal and rented a car. Got in, start the engine. Nothing. WTF!
Look around. Am I forgetting something? Dumb mistake? Don’t want to look like an idiot when I trudge back to the office to tell them their car is a piece of s**t.
Go back to the office.
The vehicle is a hybrid.
And?
Well, I found out that with hybrids the engine won’t turn over—it’s dead silent—until you step on the accelerator. I learned something.
Yes, I had in in my first Jeep (a 2020 Cherokee Trailhawk) and I have in my second Jeep, a (2017 Cherokee Trailhawk). The one for the 2020 was more complex to install; it involved disassembling part of the dashboard to get at a point where it goes inline between a pair of connectors. The one for the 2017 just plugs into the OBD-II port.
Anyway, as far as I know, it is by far the cleanest way to defeat the Auto-Stop/Start defect. When you start the vehicle, if that bug was turned off when it was last shut down, then it will simulate a push on the button to turn it off again. None of the side-effects of the various other hacks that people do to defeat this defect.
I have it on a 19 Forester and a 24 Outback. On the Outback it installed above the sun glass holder/map light housing. On the Forester, it installs in a cable assembly that’s plugged into a module under the drivers seat.