Good to hear mate!

The ESS in my wife's 2014 328i xDrive stays off when you shut it off manually...hope my June delivered 2015 C300 Sport comes this way as well!

Wow sounds great!

have found this thread interesting for the strong views expressed against using the eco stop start.

Have lived with it for 3 yrs and think it a great idea and the thought that users disable it permanently is very depressing. Here in europe there is a strong awareness that we need to think much more about the environment and how we are affecting it, hence the growth in the number of diesel cars in the uk for example, brought about by tax penalties for higher co2 emissions. Diesel is much cleaner in that regard but now we are facing penalties on diesel because it has been realised the particulates bring about their own problems.......

Your average european would not be happy with a daily driver that does less than 30mpg we expect figures even for petrol in the 40 plus range and many small cars are hitting 50 and 60mpg, taxation of fuel meaning it is expensive here plus people are becoming more aware resources are finite and pollution is not good.

Eco stop start is a simple way to reduce the emissions you put into the atmosphere with no real penalty to you....if it is hot and you need the air con or cold and you need the heating the car manages the situation and will turn the engine back on if required, or not turn it off if the load is too high.

I do turn it off when manouvering in tight underground car parks as it can be a nuisance then stopping and starting all the time but otherwise it stays on a small concession by me to the environment on which we all depend........go on see if you can live with it for a week!

Did we ever establish if your car retains the last selected mode beyond the 4 hour reset period?

It is important to know as this would establish whether there has been a software change on the latest vehicles, or not.

Very well said indeed.

If you drove in rt. 93 traffic Monday - Friday everyday to work, you'd feel the same way as I do about ESS. My starter motor would be dead after six months with the bumper to bumper traffic I encounter on a daily basis.

What's good enough for BMW should be good enough for Mercedes Benz when it comes to the ESS default setting.

I don't like the eco stop/start system. It's seamless enough, but I don't like worrying about more starter cycles and the extra transmission pump. I know it sounds silly to some, but I also don't like having an aux battery replace and pressing the button after each start (at least two a day) means that start/stop button will wear out quickly. How much to replace one little over-pressedbutton on a MB I wonder?

I think this is one of those "features" that is great in a Prius or a hybrid, but I have a 302 hp V6. Why bother forcing me to go through a process each time I start the car?

Not a deal breaker, obviously. Just annoying.

My car doesn't even stay in the same mode for 4 hours. As soon as I turn it off, it goes back to C. Every time

Build date? US or EU?

10/2014. USA build

I drive a 320 BMW and have found this function can be quite dangerous.

If you forget to turn it off when you get in the car (which I do about half the time), when you pull up to a junction and put it in neutral, when the car has come to a standstill it 'VERY' silently switches the engine off.

If you slow to a standstill, and then immediately see your gap to pull out, put your foot on the clutch and straight into first, the engine rumbles into action in a not a very smooth action (taking you by surprise) - this often leads to you (or me at least), thinking you have just stalled - take your foot off the clutch and you WILL stall...nightmare!

OK...that scenario doesn't individually happen all that often in fairness, but when it does...

There are no manual transmission C-Class cars in the US market, so its interaction with the clutch isn't going to be a real issue. I normally leave this feature engaged, and I find it to be very fast acting and very non-intrusive. It is an excellent implementation of auto stop/start.

In this car, it is simply on by default. If you are in circumstances where it might be a nuisance, you use one finger to push a button that is right on the console ... it couldn't be simpler. My Porsche has auto stop/start, and it will stay off if turned off. That's a sports car however, and it can be a very abrupt function that is not nearly as well implemented as the one on the C-Class. I leave it off. On my C300, it's really not an issue.

This fits into the same class of complaint as the Agility Select's default to Comfort mode ... or even the inability of the key fob to store and engage the seat memory settings when the car is unlocked. There seem to be an entire range of memory functions that are not built into this or other Mercedes vehicles. I don't know why this seems to be the design default for Mercedes, but it is.

I just don't see these memory quirks as major issues. Odd? Sure, and maybe even annoying, but certainly not major issues.

Sure it could...like BMW, when you turn ESS off manually, it stays off. No more button pushing!

This eco start/stop feature is a pain in the butt. Mercedes needs to do a software fix so it can be permanently disabled. Your agility select selection should also be there on start up.

I don't have my C300 yet but the Eco Start / Stop features was on during my first test drive and I found it barely noticeable. It is quite well done. A stark contrast with my wife's Prius, after 5 years I still get a feeling of dread every time it shutdowns at a stop light. My advice would be to try it before discarding the W205 for this reason.

Well I have had it for about three weeks now, and it is horrible. I don't see how anyone could say the restart is not a very dramatic event. The whole car shutters a lot. Also, here in Florida it is useless. Whenever the temp in the car goes above the A/C setting while the engine is off (every day here), the car starts up. Also, when creeping forward in heavy traffic, it can stop and start four times within the space of 30 sec. This is unbelievably annoying to me...

So, why don't you just shut it off when you get in the car?

Because I have to shut it off when I get in the car --EVERY time I get in the car. It's funny how on my other old cars, I can just get in and go - just saying...

I have to push the start button every time I get in the car- bloody annoying lol

That can be very tedious, especially since you have to do it each time you want to drive the car. You'd think the car would know you wanted it to start as soon as you sat in it.

I can only speak to my (admittedly short) experience, but for me the ECO start/stop was notable for its lack of notability.

It does sound like MB goes to some trouble to make the restart smooth, http://media.daimler.com/dcmedia/0-9...0-0-0-0-0.html, maybe something is miscalibrated on your car?

My wife almost had an accident due to the start/stop on our then new BMW328i. She got so scared she wouldn't drive it...period. BMW finally came with a free one time fix by disabling it. You can still enable it by touching the on/off switch. Needles to say we both were relived to see this abomination switched off on our new car!!!

I have driven two new loaner cars from the dealer, and they were just as bad. If this is a smooth start, I would hate to see a rough one...

You should still have your dealer check the function for you. Mine is barely noticeable when it turns on and off.

I am thinking about pulling the button and changing to switch so that it must be pushed to activate.
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Will this work? Anyone tried?