[GBX]

Have used this in the T-Roc, and the system is entirely seamless.

The engine restarts with the slightest change in pressure to the brake pedal or any movement to the steering wheel. The car is looking for all possible cues to get the engine back on boil. It's not possible to outsmart it unless you consciously try.

Even the actual turn on/off is barely felt. Eventually you get used to the near silence when stopped.

As for additional wear and tear, I'm sure this has been accounted for by the engineers. I say just get maximum warranty and use all features of the car without a second thought.

[kapi]

I have it on my Crysta Touring Sport. I actually bought a small relay switch from the US specially designed to turn this feature off, that's how much I hate it.

Having said that, if I am driving personally and the car is stopped at a long traffic light, I will usually turn it on. With the driver driving, it's always turned off.

[veyron999]

I voted "yay" for the feature.

Yay for the intent - to save fuel, and save the environment.
Nay for the current implementation.

I used to drive a Jeep Compass with this feature. What I would've really loved is to have a manual stop/start mode instead of auto start/stop. I'll explain why

- There were times when this feature switched off the car - like when I reached my parking spot. The moment I put the car from D->N / engage the e-brake, the engine would come back to life. Which is absolutely silly.
- In traffic, when I don't want the engine to cut off, it would. Again, just wasteful specially when it's just for a second or two.
- Also, in traffic, when I can see there's a signal for 2 mins, the car system won't cut off because my speed hadn't gone >8kph since the last cut-off. Again, defeating the purpose completely.

I used to end up switching the feature on, and off manually depending on whether I want the engine to cut off or not. But the placement of the switch was very inconvenient for this use-case.

What I would've loved is to have an easier way to switch the engine off, and on back again than having to turn the ignition off like one would do while actually switching the car off.

Am I stupid?

PS: I too am concerned that on the long run, this would do more damage to the engine, turbo, and battery - I am convinced that the manufacturers would've incorporated enough mitigations in place to avoid any serious damage.

[LEOMAN]

Auto start - stop ,
Not useful for the cars nor the environment strains a lot of components engine,mounts,gearbox,battery are only to name a few. Maruti calls it mild hybrid which i disagree totally.Even the AC compressor is strained.Your turbos can also fail due to AutoStart stop.

[anandavinash]

Voted Nay. Not a fan at all.
In the stop and go traffic of Bengaluru, I find the creep function of the car extremely useful. By switching on this feature, every time I come to a complete halt in traffic, I need to step on the accelerator again which is irritating. Instead, I get around by just varying my brakes.
Used it for a few weeks when my car was bought but disabled it soon after. I drive an Audi A3 on which there is the option to keep it permanently switched off.

[CommitTran]

Originally Posted by kiku007

The A/C compressor doesn't run when the car is OFF and that can be an issue in hot climates.

Exactly the reason why this feature no matter how good it gets will never be fully accepted in India. Summers are the dominant weather in our country and AC is required for 8-9 months in almost all the areas.
I have tested auto start stop in my Slavia and found to be not bad. But due to extreme temperatures currently I am not using it. May be in winters I'll use it. But intial impressions are good and I found it to be much more smooth than my friend's Fortuner.

[rAijin_]

Voted 'Yay' for the feature.

My reasons:

• The feature is require for the environment. And yes, it helps save some fuel as well.
• For a single person / vehicle, the fuel saved may be very less. But if you look from emission perspective, even 1% change multiplied by millions of vehicle is a huge impact.
• For the minority of us (me included), that prefer more control or personalisation on the feature, we may feel annoyed.
• But, for majority of population, who do not care about the specifics, this feature is really helpful. Again more for environment and less for the fuel economy.
• I believe the reasoning behind enabling this feature every time we start the vehicle is for the same.

But, there is of course a lot of scope for improvement. Especially in diesel vehicles as mentioned by GTO and Dr Jay Goyal. But, I think diesel are already going out of the picture .
Good thing is that this feature is here. Let's hope it's implementation gets better over time.

[SakJel]

Hello, it's a complete No No(Nay) for me.

I have used this feature in a couple of cars that I have and owned and it's a complete useless feature I believe, specially in Maruti cars where they have just installed it to pair it with the so called Mild Hybrid system which is a complete joke and I think it's only for the company's tax benefits.

It's the first thing I switch off as the default for most of the cars when we crank the engine is in on mode. It just harms the starter, turbo etc in the long run I feel.

Cheers...........

[PaddleShifter]

“Yay” for petrol cars.

“Nay” for turbo diesels.


I have voted for yay mainly because:
1. I have a petrol car (Maruti Suzuki petrol K15B engine). Frequent start stop doesn’t shake the cabin.
2. The start stop is mediated by an ISG motor with a Li Ion battery, so it doesnt put load on the conventional starter motor-alternator unit.
3. The petrol engine is a non turbo unit.
4. Definitely saves fuel.

By the way, the cons that I have encountered so far:
1. Only specific battery works with the car having an ISS system.
2. AC doesnt work during stop but this can be tweaked in the car settings (choose comfort rather than economy).

[livetodrive]

Voted yes, but again going through the posts I too feel there are lot of scope of improvement. Just thinking out loud like software may try to get real time data if we are in traffic or stuck in a signal and based on that takes an 'intelligent' decision to put the engine in active or power collapse domain.

We hate it or like it, the feature is going to stay, period. Because with the evolution of EVs, the future of car software will be same as our mobile software. Where our mobile goes into several power domains like active, passive /sleep, power collapse. And the software will try to trade off, maybe through an energy aware scheduler on which state the car engine/CPU core should be to optimize power consumption and get maximum performance.

[firstguri]

I'm actually inbetween the poll options but I did choose 'nay'. However would like to add that even though I switch it off the first thing after starting the car, I switch it on at long traffic lights. I've noticed the car (Virtus GT) switches back on when it starts to feel a little warm. So I'm sure ACC is also one factor in the start stop equation. The reason why I keep it switched off is at times it's too aggressive and switches off the engine as soon as you're coming to a stop or sometimes when you just have to stop because of traffic. And in these situations the engine will start and stop within seconds and that is not good. Now different manufacturers might have different logic program for the function and if the system is too aggressive then driving becomes irritating. Although I've read that there's a set minimum time for the engine to start-stop after the previous start-stop, so the engine will not keep cutting off frequently in traffic but that one time also when the engine will cut off is really irritating.

[abhatt]

It has to be intelligent and use ML etc to be more efficient. Most of the times its a painful feature with very high false positives.

[ruchiragrawal]

There's an interesting video by Jason Fenske for anyone who is wondering if it is worth stopping and starting for just 30 seconds or so.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFImHhNwbJo

[ArTigor]

Experienced the auto start stop feature in XL6 and was impressed with it, it is smooth. It surely helps in saving fuel during the peak hour traffic of Mumbai and also is not inconvenient. As for the argument for the extra fuel burnt during frequent start/stop, modern engines are way more fuel efficient in this aspect and with the auto start, the crank is just optimal to get the engine fired up. So it is definitely a yay for auto start stop.
There are if's and but's though, I am okay for this feature with simpler naturally aspirated engines, but for complex turbo petrol I am skeptical. Also for diesels and 3 pot 'vibrating' engines that constant start stop with all that vibration will surely be a bad experience.

[ajayc123]

I have not voted since my answer is it depends. In summers, not too keen if the ac is impacted, but ok in other seasons.