rhukster

Ok, I know none of you guys probably run your cars in comfort/eco mode but i'm still in my < 1000m run-in period so I have been using it most of the time. Now i've driven other stop-start cars and without exception, they all stop every time you come to a complete stop, and of course start again when you take your foot off the brake.

In my 2014 E63S, the availability of stop/start seems much less predictable. There's a little eco mode indicator on the dash, and usually even after an extended period of driving, the engine does not stop when I bring the car to a complete stop. It does however, toggle into the green 'eco' mode after about 30 seconds or so. Usually right before the light goes green! It's forever stopping right before having to start again, which I'm sure makes the economy worse than if it didn't stop at all.

Sometimes, it does stay in green eco mode, but this seems to have little bearing on the current battery charge which is about the only thing I can think of that should make any difference.

What are you experiences with this? I'm interested to know if its normal for the E63, or if there's something a bit iffy with the system in my car.

Cheers,

Andy

Chocofishez

Mine needs to be warmed up a bit before it will work. I don't use it very often, but the one time I had a 45 minute slog through bumper to bumper rush hour traffic I thought it worked quite well.

83zx83

I have experienced the same. When the ECO is shaded green I believe it is ready to shut off at stop. For me car needs to warm up and if I am using a lot of electronics it seems to not shut down as frequently. From what I read in the manual my operation seems to be as described

6G Schnell

I wouldn't use ECO during break in: frequent starts are not good for the new engine.

Do we have any experts than can chime in with pros/cons?

catpat8000

Sources/links? This seems pretty dubious to me.

Pat

vdubpower

theres no rhyme or reason as to what makes the eco be active or not....none what so ever

i asked the chief amg tech who is in charge of amg service centers, while at amg academy.

theres apparently trillions of calculations that have to be lining up in unison and it will be active, but again, no consistency.....

catpat8000

It seems pretty basic on my car. Once oil temps get over 180 degrees and it's driven a few miles, it stops the engine every time I stop.

ManhattanSpin

I've read the same about frequent starts/stops. But I also think we enthusiasts worry way too much about break-in. Personally, I lease my vehicles so I really don't give $0.02 about break-in. Drive it however you like, life's too short.

thoramge63

I just picked up the car from European Delivery and they didn't recharged the battery completely, so at first no parking assistance, parktronic, and eco where working. I was able to fully charge the batteries at home everything else works again with the exception of the eco start. Frustrating to say the least.

ace10

It is clear to me that operation of Eco mode is one of the great unknowns to mankind.

For example this AM, ambient temp is 31F. It's raining. I drive less than one mile to a stop and the car ceases combustion. The coolant temp has barely budged and the oil temp reads 32F. The following electrical draws are on: Wipers, headlights, rear defrost, sat radio, seat heat on 3, and windshield defrost on max.

Either this Eco mode is completely random or the set of parameters in which it is allowed to operate is far too complex for a simple human to understand.

ManhattanSpin

For what it's worth, I had these same mysterious start-stop/eco mode issues with my Porsche 911. Sometimes it would start/stop, sometimes it wouldn't. Sometimes it would decouple transmission and glide, sometimes it wouldn't. I think the tech just isn't perfected yet.

OWLY

Same issue in my Panamera S...hated the start stop function.

catpat8000

After I thought I had it sorted out, this morning ambient temp was 49 degrees and ECO became active (and stopped the engine) at an oil temp of 100 degrees. So no consistency for me either.

kart125

While I was waiting in line at the Performance Tour in Vegas I was playing arround with that too... It seems there is even differences between models! The SLK was stopping while the ML wasn't, Under the same temp and driving conditions! It looks more and more like a gadget to get by the GG tax in America...

vdubpower

like i said no consistency

2012 merc amg

Sometimes mine works real good other times not as others have described. But I did notice a weird thing last week when I had the readout set for Range when the car shut off at lights in eco the range numbers were ticking downwards, I thought that was really strange since the engine was not running, Maybe the energy it's gonna take for the alternator to charge back the battery? Can the German engineers really be that smart?

rhukster

LOL, seems like i'm not alone with my experiences with the eco mode. I take great comfort in that. I'm not totally really that fussed if everyone has the same sort of experiences with it, it's not something that i'm really going to use much. This car is made to be driven in Sport+

Chocofishez

I've been driving around in ECO over the last few days so I can chime in here. I can't make any sense of the start/stop either. It has a mind of its own.

sdg1871

Someone has to develop a coding solution to disable this. Wonder if anyone has already.

DXBE63

i hate it, specially in summer heat as AC doesnt pump cool air when stopped. its also very laggy so i always turn it off.

AHI

Same inconsistencies with my 2012. Mind of its own, and works only when it wants to.

PeterUbers

Mine is fairly consistent... I tend to use it when I'm running low on fuel...

2012 merc amg

At least on my car I find that if when I stop I release and press the brake again fairly hard it shuts down. I like the feature as it does save fuel and I can generally get it to work by using this method. I'd be interested to know if this works for others?

AHI

I actually tried this a few times tonight and it worked.

2012 merc amg

Great, I figured if it worked on my car it must work on others, maybe there is some kind of bug in the software in all our cars. It's simple enough to do this every time you stop and will save gas and relieve the "why is not the car shutting down anxiety" Now if we can get MB to fix this problem so it works as it should that would be great. Maybe there was some kind of fail safe built into the system so as it was not too sensitive in that the car might shut when you don't want it to?