Stop start - annyoing or beneficial?

[thexav]

What do you think of stop start tech in cars? Personally I find it really annoying. I try to turn it off and restart the engine at the first opportunity.

Does it really save much fuel? Can it be removed or retro fitted if you badly wanted it?

So is stop start beneficial or does it annoy you? Does your car have stop start and would you want it?

 

[Lunchmoney]

When researching batteries in the last few weeks I found stop/start cars need bigger (read: more expensive) batteries.

My question is does the fuel saving pay off the extra cost in maintenance and other running costs?

 

[obi_waynne]

In town driving and traffic jams or where lots of waiting at lights happens then yes stop start can add quite a bit to your journey.

Stop start is much more intuitive now with some cars starting the engine as you press the clutch or release the brake. First gen required you to press the accelerator then there was a pause as the engine starts up. Also in the Audi's I've driven if it turns off the engine a couple of times and you restart quickly both times it will stop turning off the engine.

I would quite like to have it in my car as I do a lot of urban driving. I do turn off the engine for longer waits at lights and in traffic but I am conscious that I'm putting a strain on the battery.

 

[TCJBOLDIE]

And wear and tear on the starter motor

 

[Rudders666]

I despise the start-stop function. I don't see a need for it at all. If you're stuck in a massive motorway queue or something just turn it off yourself for 10 minutes. Killing the engine at every set of lights etc is just a waste of time in my opinion

 

[T9 man]

Not really sure about this. I had a stop-start Audi A4 for 3 months after some "beep beep blasted beep" chap hit my baby once. It was a bit unnerving for me at the time until I got use to it. But, it had this other annoying feature which I discovered on my very first drive in it to an NCP car park. It has sensors in the front and back that will not let you start the car after it has stopped if an object or person is detected, this just happened to be the car park barriers
Sat there like a complete muffin with the queue building up behind me and no idea what to do next. Eventually I spotted this message on the dashboard that stated I have to press a button for two seconds to acknowledge that I am aware of somebody's presence then the car would start. I can laugh about it now, but at the time I wanted to rip the head off the Audi engineer who came up with the idea.

 

[TCJBOLDIE]

Os, I can easily imagine you with smoke coming out of your ears when that happened

 

[T9 man]

Os, I can easily imagine you with smoke coming out of your ears when that happened

You know me so well Rad