[Hashed]

Voted Yay.

I think it entirely depends on the implementation....and I like the implementation in Toyota (Fortuner). By default on startup the feature is on, but when you come to a traffic light, you have to depress the brake pedal beyond what is necessary to stop the car to activate this feature (the indicator shows up on the MID so you know this). So you don't have to remember to turn off Start-Stop every time you begin your journey, because it is entirely controllable by you. When active, the A/C stays on even in Eco mode, and the engine re-starts after about 80-90 seconds to ensure the climate control keeps working. However, you can choose the option for an extended start-stop, where the A/C goes off after about 90 seconds while the start-stop is still active (engine off) - this lasts all the way till about 2 minutes 30 seconds before the engine comes back on. I've tested it to a max. of 2 min 30 seconds, but I've noticed it varies based on how long I've already run the car, so the longer the battery has been charged, the longer it stays active.
As a rule, I don't use this feature till the engine has reached its operating temperature, and also do not use it for traffic lights which are less than 60 seconds. This ensures the engine is not constantly switching on and off, thus helping reduce wear and tear. In BMW's the implementation is similar, however, I never used it as there've been many reports of premature timing chain wear due to frequent start-stops. In Toyota though, I've blind faith that they would not put a feature if they had any doubt of it impacting engine life adversely.

[itwasntme]

Originally Posted by saur95

Experienced it in our erstwhile X1. .

The car wouldn't switch off if you didn't depress the brake pedal past a certain point and I got used to it after a week or so. You can play around with the system based on what you intend to do.

Originally Posted by Hashed

. In BMW's the implementation is similar, however, I never used it as there've been many reports of premature timing chain wear due to frequent start-stops.

Surprised to hear that you can modulate the brake pedal in your BMWs to initiate (or postpone) start stop. In my 330i, it is insanely aggressive and will switch off the engine while the car is still rolling.

I believe BMW has changed the earlier mild nature to a strong one from the G20 onwards.

[ramji_or]

Voted "Nay"!

As GTO pointed out, its particularly annoying with diesel engines and I have 2013 VW Golf 2.0 TDI, which shakes up the entire cabin while starting up. Even when this feature works perfectly, it is jerky and feels un-refined.

It becomes more annoying when it does not work, all of a sudden the engine wouldn't start on releasing the brake on a traffic light and would ask you push your gear lever to "P" to manually start the car.

[DuHasstMich]

Absolutely annoying to say the least, and a pure gimmick. We have had this feature on our 2016 Ciaz Diesel and I can't actually pen down any positives.
The shutdown on traffic lights is extremely annoying specially during the summer season.

Our car recently had a alternator failure, and this part cost a whopping Rs.45k to replace at M.A.S.S. This is a very high sum for such a useless feature.
Plus this car is a daily running runner and still we have already put in 2 replacement batteries thus far.
I'm sure all this negates any fuel savings I would have accrued in the last 6 years and then some.

[amalji]

I have been using the idle start/stop feature on my Innova Crysta Diesel Automatic for the last 4.5 years ( 63000 kms ). Let me try to give a review on the feature.

When does it get activated? Or in other words, when does it automatically shut down the engine ?

When one of the below conditions are met.

• You stop in a traffic light with brakes depressed firmly.
• You stop in a traffic light and then change the gear lever to P regardless of whether brake pedal is still depressed or not.

Are there any exceptions to the above rule?

Yes, listed below.

• When the battery doesn't have enough charge.
• When the steering position is not straight.
• When you are on a steep incline.
• When the cabin temperature is not within an acceptable range of the target temperature set.
• When driver seatbelts are unfastened.

When does it restart the engine after it automatically shuts it off ?

• If the gear lever is in P, whenever you depress the brake pedal.
• If the gear lever is on D, whenever you release the brake pedal.
• If the gear lever is shifted to any position other than P or D.
• If the steering wheel is slightly moved.
• If the cabin temperature is not within the acceptable range of the target temperature set.
• If the battery charge is below the unacceptable threshold.
• If the start/stop timeout is reached. In Innova Touring Sport, there are 2 settings for this. If you put it on short, the engine restarts after 30 seconds. If you put it on long, the engine restarts after 2 minutes and 30 seconds. PS: I always use the long setting. The short can be very irritating with engine stopping and starting a lot in a traffic signal.

Are there any scenarios when you must remember to turn off the Auto Start/Stop.

Yes, when you are wading through flood waters. The last thing you would want is for the engine to shutoff with silencer dipped in water! Personally, I have turned it off around 3 - 5 times in the last 4.5 years of usage when I had to drive through the really bad Kerala flood waters.

Do I like this feature ?

I think, I should answer this question in phases.

When I was about to buy the car, I got a heads up from the showroom that this feature might be disabled due to issues. I was praying that it gets disabled more because of my anxiety for durability concerns.

In the first week of driving, I had a lot of anxiety on whether this thing will not restart when it is required. I was also worried about blocking others behind me due to a lag in starting and getting a move on.

In the first month of driving, I was still getting used to this especially in bumper to bumper traffic situation in Bangalore.

Inspite of my skepticism about this feature, the reason why I continued experimenting it was for 2 reasons.

• As a pedestrian, I always hated it when people keep the engine ON on a traffic signal. It destroys the air quality in that region especially if it's a busy junction. I am someone who manually tries to switch off whenever possible. But, at times I do not do that because I am lazy or if I am worried about the cabin temperature and comfort level not being maintained or because I do not want my music system to reboot during an engine restart. The engine start / stop feature takes care of this problem beautifully. I don't need to be bothered about cabin comfort, my laziness and at the same time music system doesn't reboot on engine restart in a start/stop mechanism as well.
• One of my friends told me about the number of engine restarts a milk delivery van does on a typical day and that things are still very durable. This kind of reduced the anxiety of durability even though not fully. I kind of trusted brand - Toyota to do their home work and testing before introducing something like this.

After getting used to this feature for around a month, I kind of started loving it for environmental reasons and continued to use it. Like the way, driving became something that we do without the need for consciously thinking about it, the start/stop system way of driving also became something like that for me now.

Now after using it for 4.5 years, what do I think of it.

I just love it! And the reasons are listed below.

• Less contribution to air and sound pollution while idling in a traffic signal.
• No Diesel clatter/vibrations while you are at a traffic light and at the same time cabin comfort is maintained and other electrical accessories like music system work flawlessly as well.
• Better efficiency ( I'll try to quantify this later )
• Early warning for a battery failure. In all my cars that I have used before, the battery just fails without any warning one fine morning when I try to crank it up. On an automatic vehicle, this can be a terrible situation because you cannot even jump start the car without another electrical source. But, with the Auto start/stop feature, I could get very clear signals when the battery started degrading. Normally, the "Battery charging warning" which disables the auto start/stop features comes On once in 30 drives or so where it kind of doesn't turn off the vehicle even in a stop condition. This generally continues for 30 - 45 minutes or the entire duration of the drive. The frequency of this happening increases as the battery degrades to a point where every 2 trips, this starts happening. I took it to Toyota to check the battery and they mentioned there is nothing that they could find wrong with the battery. It was around 3.5 years old by then. But, I just asked them to change the battery and the problem went away. So, this is kind of a dependable early warning system for battery failure.

Do I still have concerns ? Ofcourse, yes and they are listed below.

• The impact on durability of parts is still unknown. I have only done 4.5 years / 63000 kms with it. For someone like me obsessed with durability, 4.5 years is not a big enough tenure for me certify on the durability aspect.
• Toyota could have some sensors to detect flood waters and disable auto start/stop feature automatically rather than leaving it to the common sense of the driver.

How effective is it in reality?



The Start/Stop feature helped the engine stay Off for 167 hours and 52 minutes in 63321 kms of driving which translates to close to 2.65 hours every 1000 kms which is a significant number!



The life time mileage ( as per MID ) for the Crysta is 12.3 kmpl inspite of driving most of it in Bangalore. This, on a 2.8 L Diesel engine with 176 PS of power coupled with a torque converter automatic gearbox which steals efficiency and carrying close to 2 tons of weight is remarkable is what I would say. And I'm punting that the start/stop feature had a huge role to play here.

[piiyush21]

I have this feature in my XUV 500 but I've always been sceptical about using it due to two reasons first I live in Delhi so you may get boiled in your car and second majorly due to I don't trust the engine will be able to accept so many start stops over the period of time.
Also, Delhi gets choked up during the rush hour traffic and the car turning off every time you idle for some seconds is irritating.
It is a nice feature but durability makes me use it less.

[Livnletcarsliv]

I voted for YAY!
Of course the functionality and purpose this feature is the need of the hour due to fuel prices, inflation, pollution, etc. Unfortunately, as many have mentioned the manufacturers (except a few) still don't get it right.
So, YES for the actual purpose of this feature and NO for ground reality.

[Jeroen]

I voted yay, but that is of course living in the Netherlands.

I see a lot of members complaining about the extra wear and tear on battery, starter, engine and so on. But on most if not all cars with start/stop functionality these have been up rated accordingly. I have looked but I can’t find any evidence, based on a good sample size that shows start/stop engine suffer from more wear and tear than their non start/stop equivalents.

There might be other considerations, for instance the AC switching off, which is a real inconvenience, but all the other technical issues might not apply really.

And it does save fuel and reduces emissions, even just by a little bit. Of course, more in town than on the motorway. We have many many threads on this forum discussing all kinds of fuel efficiency measures,, be it technical, driving style, cultural or otherwise.

I would have thought the fuel savings alone, small as it might be, would sway a lot of Indians?

[SaiSW]

Voted No. I don't really have much of an issue with fuel efficiency since I have a diesel and i generally switch off my car if i have to idle at a signal for more than a minute. I think the fuel I'd save with stop start with my driving style must be really negligible but the cons are just way too much.

[carrot_eater]

I Voted Yay

In the Fortuner, it is implemented quite nicely. One really has to push the pedal to stop the engine and once you move to P and can relax at those long traffic signals.
And what I have noticed is, whatever logic they have used works very well once it is depressed and stops it does not stop again immediately e.g in bumper to bumper traffic.

And most importantly, one can switch if off, when one needs to, also it does not engage in Sport mode..I drive on highways in Sport mode and eco in the city.

Battery warranty doesn't change for this feature.

Overall a good feature.

[Guna]

I have it on my Tiguan Allspace and I found the implementation not at all suited for Indian conditions. Engine shuts off with the slightest opportunity of the vehicle coming to a halt, often in the middle of 'stop and go' situations during bumper to bumper traffic. Ideally the engine should stop only if the car is stationary for more than 10-15 seconds (or there should be a 'user defined' setting).
I suspect that this in fact results in more fuel being burnt as the engine draws more fuel during start up.
This feature violates the '1minute idling rule' for the turbo engines.
It is also likely that the brake pads will wear out faster.
However this feature is handy if you are stuck in a traffic jam, where you get to move 1 feet every minute.

[Porcupine]

Landslide results of that poll.

I personally voted nay as it's a really irritating feature. And most times it seems to be arbitrary. There are times when the engine doesn't cut off when it should, and there are times it cuts off even during a minor pause while reversing or parking. And this is across various manufacturers.

Not only is that irritating, but the constant shudder of the engine starting just gets on my nerves.

[SaiSW]

In addition to my previous reply, some cars keep their infotainment undisturbed whether the engine is shutting off or not but some cars restart the entire system if the engine is shutting off or turning on. In the case of my car, the infotainment does get interrupted and its annoying. It only takes a few seconds to reconnect to BT but its annoying still.

I think some cars, especially Tatas of the past 4-5 years do not seem to have this problem. Its one of those little things that make a difference in the cabin experience.

[d3mon]

Originally Posted by amalji

The Start/Stop feature helped the engine stay Off for 167 hours and 52 minutes in 63321 kms of driving which translates to close to 2.65 hours every 1000 kms which is a significant number!

The life time mileage ( as per MID ) for the Crysta is 12.3 kmpl inspite of driving most of it in Bangalore. This, on a 2.8 L Diesel engine with 176 PS of power coupled with a torque converter automatic gearbox which steals efficiency and carrying close to 2 tons of weight is remarkable is what I would say. And I'm punting that the start/stop feature had a huge role to play here.

Idling fuel consumption for a big diesel is around 0.7-1L / hour.

Taking the max number, it means you saved 0.265L every 100KM.

Your lifetime average is 12.3KMPL, which is 8.13L/100KM with start/stop.
Without start stop, it'd have been 8.39L/100KM, which is 11.9KMPL.

So best case, you got about 3.3% benefit from the start stop system. Mind you, this is not including the overhead of starting up, extra drain on the battery (which is charged back up by the engine ), so realistically, it could only be about ~2% overall benefit.

[allwynkingsley]

Have the S-Cross Manual with Smart Hybrid, and feel the implementation is elegant here. Engine turns off when car comes to stand still, neutral and clutch completely released. And the moment clutch is depressed again, engine comes back to life almost instantly. Ofcourse there are exceptions, but mostly know what to expect.

Believe manuals have an advantage as you can always override the system with the clutch pedal. Haven't seen the reason to disable this yet.