Even if it is silky smooth, I know the engine is off because I start to sweat. Even my wife who knows nothing about cars said "what is wrong with the A/C"

 

This reminds me of a very similar thread on this exact same subject a weeks ago. The bottom line from MB is that ALL vehicles built for the U.S. market come with ECO Start / Stop, where by default it will be ON when you start the car. MB will not disable this feature or reverse the switch function (default OFF), because of the ever-rising CAFE standards and EPA regulations. If you do a search on ECO Start / Stop, the thread is probably still here on the site. You'll see a lot of comments that look exactly the same as those written here and also why BMW gets to set their ECO Start / Stop differently. It's a very good thread.

Yes, almost everyone here in the states doesn't seem to like it, but we're stuck with it. Just be thankful we still have the option to push a button to shut the damn thing off, which I do by default now. Down the road, my concern is that they''ll just hardwire ECO permanently on and there won't be an off button to push.

My concern with driving in heavy stop and go city traffic is strictly that with ECO Start / Stop on, you'll likely wear out your starter a lot faster. It's almost completely un-noticeable when it turns the engine on and off, so it's not that the car shakes or anything.

 

I can't see why they wouldn't allow it to be modified though, BMW allowed it in the F30's and now they make it standard (to remember last setting)
Perhaps MB should listen to their customers more, as I know more people who would prefer it off then for it be left on

 

It's a question of money and government mandates. MB gets energy credits from the EPA, that are worth millions, because of this functionality. According to the paperwork, they save about 1 or 2 mpg with ECO Start /Stop and it has to be set to default ON according to the docs. If they were to reverse or disable it, the company would lose those credits and the additional cost of higher government fees / fines would be passed unto customers in the form of higher prices for their vehicles. In a highly competitive market, price matters and MB would likely lose market share to one or more of their competitors, if they had to significantly bump up prices.

The other alternative would be to down-size the engines in their cars to boost the fleet-wide numbers mandated by the EPA. Of course part of buying a MB is about the performance aspect. So turning a large percentage of their cars into glorified golf carts wouldn't go over too well with the vast majority of their customers.

As I stated, if you can find the thread I referenced, it covers all of this and why BMW gets to do it differently. They get a lot more energy credits, because they own Mini Cooper brand, which makes their fleet-wide gas mileage numbers look better. MB owns Smart, which unfortunately has a much smaller market share and thus it doesn't lower their fleet-wide mpg numbers nearly as much. It's all laid out with feedback from MB techs and docs outlining the whole justification.

While it would be nice to think that MB is solely at fault or not listening to their customers, the sad fact is the government mandates the CAFE standards and EPA guidelines that all the car companies have to meet. Thus the car companies have to jump through all sorts of hoops to find a way to still sell cars people want, while avoiding onerous government fines in various countries as the CAFE and EPA standards keep increasing every few years. Personally, I would prefer the ECO Start / Stop to not even be part of the vehicle, but that that's not going to happen any time soon.

 

Personally, I would pay $2000 extra to have a permanent off option.

 

^ +1 I second that

 

My C63 defaults to Comfort Mode each time at engine start. You have to dial in Sport, Sport+, Manual. It doesn't annoy me, it allows me to dial in while the engine warms up.

 

Exactly! It takes me all of 3 seconds after starting my car to shut-off ECO Start / Stop and put the car in full sports mode, which is what I prefer 90 percent of the time. Would I like the car to retain my preferred settings, so I don't have to do this each time? Sure. But it's not that big a deal nor is it the end world to me. That's just me of course. If this is the biggest complaint most people have with their vehicles and it is so unacceptable that they would consider switching to BMW or some other brand over it, then that is of course their right and option to do so. Virtually every MB model thread has at least one discussion devoted to the ECO Start / Stop topic. So very few MB owners like the direction MB is being forced to follow.


Now if people wanted to complain about how MB intentionally detunes a number of their models for both marketing and yet again EPA reasons, so many owners have to go out and pay various third-party shops to "fix" the issue (get the full stock capability out of their vehicles) and in the process risk their MB warranties, that is a much more interesting topic and something MB should address as a post-sales services option. Again, that's just me. Having to push the ECO Start / Stop button on the center console to OFF each time I start the car just doesn't rise to the level of a major hassle for me.

 

$2k? No, I wouldn't pay that as it doesn't annoy me that much. However, I would be willing to pay say $200 at the dealership for them to code it to remember the settings if that were possible. It's an annoyance but most certainly not a deal breaker and does only take a couple of quick seconds.

 

With the technology available today this shouldn't be a problem. Also on shut off and exit the seat should move back for easier exit and entry. Does Cadillac know something Mercedes doesn't? These are nitpicks and the car is still awesome but I guess you come to expect these little luxury touches.

 

Very true my 08 infiniti had the seat move back once i shut the car down and opened the door. Strange a 2015 benz doesn't. For me the Eco start is a none issue. It's literally one button push from being off when i want it off.

 

My 2014 Jeep Grand Cherokee Overland does this as well...I turned this option off because it took forever for the seat to move back all the way.

 

First world problems ehh?

 

This can cause an accident? how?

 

Parkwood said, 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

I had to respond to this, I think Parkwood has drunk the greenade.

Co2 is a harmless gas which without it life on earth would not exist, Co2 is a plant food used at 1200ppm ( 3 times the atmospheric level of 400ppm) in commercial greenhouses the world over, crop yealds are on average 40% greater than at normal levels, the plants also need less water. Over the past 20 years CO2 has been increasing, according to satellites which accurately measure the earths temperature there has been NO increase in global temps over that same period. Scientist are digging with pneumatic hammers into the permafrost at Viking settlements in Greenland to remove buried artifacts, this means it was obviously warmer at the time they were buried than today. You are being taxed on the air you need to survive.
The polluting gas is NOT CO2 but NOX from the millions of diesel cars sold across Europe, NOX is responsible for over 60,000 deaths in the UK alone. 99% of motorist who purchase diesel cars do so for two reasons, (1) better fuel consumption (2) lower ved.

 

123Brit said, I am thinking about pulling the button and changing to switch so that it must be pushed to activate.

That won`t work, I had a mini with stop start, I superglued the button down, after that the stop start never came on again.

I tried similar on a 2013 c class coupe just to see, I pressed the button in before starting the car, the green light still came on which means gluing it down won`t work.

 

She was at a traffic light awaiting for the green light. When the light turned green she stepped on the accelerator and felt the car shudder. Being completely new to the system she stepped on the brakes causing the car behind to almost hit our car. Then she realized that the light was still green, getting more confused she hit the start button and the car shut-off. After a panic restart the car lurched to the middle of the road just as the light was already yellow. She made it across all four lanes, made a turn and headed back home very scared and frustrated. Never drove that car again until BMW coded the damn thing to remember the last position. As for me, I kept forgetting to reset the on/ff and the car kept shuddering every time...what a fiasco, hated the damn thing!

 

I am not getting into a debate on global warming or CO2 as I am not an environmentalist. However, I was a scientist and this piece of information made me understand what the real issue is and so I will pass it along to everyone here.

Process 1: Yes, CO2 is good for plants and bad for us. Plants have been fixing CO2 for millions of years (that is using photosynthesis to take CO2 and putting it into themselves and releasing oxygen). We need the oxygen (and release C)2). So after millions of years, the earths atmosphere decreased the CO2 and became rich enough of oxygen to support life (including us). When those plants die, they (and the carbon they fixed) were buried in the ground, and were eventually turned into coal, oil, etc.

Process 2: Now, by digging up that stored carbon (in coal, oil, etc.) we are burning it, consuming oxygen and releasing CO2 back into the atmosphere, essentially reversing process 1.

The problem is that process 1 took millions or years, but process 2 is taking very much less time than that. No problem you say, the plants will now take the CO2 and release the oxygen. How will fewer plants than existed in pre-civilization time, reverse a process at a rate a million times faster than it did the first time? Answer - it can't. We are putting more CO2 in the atmosphere than is being (or can be) taken out. It is not a balanced system. The atmosphere will not revert back to the way it was in viking times, there is a fear it will go back to the way it was before the amphibians came onto the land or perhaps when the plants were new. That is the concern.

Now, given that, on the one hand I should feel bad about driving a C450 when a more fuel efficient car would do, and on the other hand ...

 

The BMW system sounds awful. At least in my c450, the engine turns over as soon as the pressure on the brake pedal is released and is definitely running before I put my foot on the gas (unless I guess if I really move my foot quickly). For me, it is unobtrusive unless I am in a sporting mood, when I sport up the settings with the auto start/stop off.

 

No offense to your wife but with her unfamiliarity with the system, perhaps it would have been prudent for someone to have spent a little time with her before she took the car on the streets who gave her a little information on how it works. Based on your description of the event, it would not have been the car's eco system that caused an accident.

I still don't get people's issue with the system. I've mentioned this before, but I programmed an Individual setting in the Agility Select via Vehicle Settings that I use every time I get in the car. Eco is off always. And that's the same with our GLC300.

 

The BMW start/stop system works the same as in the Benz. It's actually better in the BMW because the dealership can change the setting on the car so it remembers your last choice. So if you turn the start/stop system off it will stay off forever...until you turn it back on again. It doesn't automatically turn on each time you start the car.

 

My solution is that I developed a habit to start my C450 up in sports plus mode everytime all the time

 

So you turn the car on, select sport plus and the start it?

 

That other thread is "eco start/stop". Don't bother to go there; those guys say the same things you do.

You guys don't give up. You can't have what you want, because MB thinks they know better than you what you ought to want. I have been reading auto magazines since the 1960s, and MB's reputation for 'Mercedes engineers know best' was considered something everyone knew even then. Paul550 is right; it would be well within MB's corporate tradition to make auto stop/start/stop always on.

However, if MB listened to customers, you wouldn't have crumple zones, disc brakes, and the other safety features that are the main reason many customers buy Mercedes. In the mid-1950s, Ford tried to sell safety. It didn't work. This convinced the auto industry that safety was a loser. MB didn't listen. MB's safety research and the research of a few U.S. universities convinced Congress to mandate safety, whether customers and the U.S. auto industry wanted it or not.

(If you don't like pushing buttons when you start, you would have really hated the first seat belts! They were interlocked so you couldn't start the car unless you buckled them AFTER you sat down! That prevented you from just leaving them buckled behind you. The interlocks didn't work very well either. Drivers went crazy. Finally, voter referendums forced the safety industrial complex (already in full know-it-all bureaucrat mode) to back down.)

In a few years, you will have to push a button to enable the steering wheel! What are you going to do then? A few years after that, the first cars without a steering wheel will come out. The environmentalist establishment is determined to make that happen sooner than you think! You know what? A majority of auto buyers would camp out in the rain to buy those cars! Not just mothers either! Your road warrior businessmen will love turning driving time into productivity!

 

Dear Mercedes,

Stronger letter to follow.