I read recently of Lexus owners who left their car running overnight in their garage and were found dead the next day. Evidently they forgot to hit the Stop button when they exited their car and were eventually overcome by exhaust carbon monoxide leaking into their house from an attached garage.

My garage is not well sealed from my house, and in the past I've accidentally left cars running in an outdoor parking lot while inside a nearby restaurant. So I'm wondering whether my C43 could continue running in my garage even when the key fob is no longer nearby. Can the Keyless Start be programmed to turn off the engine when the fob is removed? (If I fully close the door to my garage my cat can't get to his litter box).

 

Simple, just get a carbon monoxide detector in your house...

 

You're notified if you open the door when the engine is still running. It displays a message that the vehicle is still running.

 

If you download the app, it'll notify you of things like that. Doors unlocked, engine running etc.

 

How does 1 not even realize that their car is not yet turned off before they exit the car? Its not as if the C43 is a CT200H Hybrid.

 

My current vehicle, Audi A4, shuts off automatically after a certain amount of time so If for whatever reason I walk away from the vehicle, doors closed and all, it will shut off in like 3 minutes or so. I am unsure however if that is the start/stop technology working and will eventually turn itself on? I notice it when I am already in the car on the driveway, waiting on my wife to come out. I place it on park and it will shut off. I hit the start button again to start it. I guess it is different since with start/stop technology, you have to have the brake pressed and when I take my foot off the pedal the car comes back on. So it does shut itself off after a few minutes.

 

Well, they were Lexus owners soooo...

 

This is indeed happening at an increased frequency, especially among elderly people hard of hearing. Newer cars tend to sound an alarm if you open the door with the engine still running. Start/stop systems contribute to the issue as people inadvertently think the engine is off. I've had keyless start/stop for over 6 years and I have never forgotten to turn off the car. Partly I guess, because it's hard not to hear the cars I drive and if I drive a car with start/stop, I generally turn it off first thing. The trick to not forgetting something is to actively think about it when doing it. There's a concept called reality monitoring. It's when we actively think about what we are doing instead of just doing things. If you just do things you tend to not remember if you did it or not. The Japanese are famous for reality monitoring. They get trained to speak out loud and gesture what they are doing. It's why they have a very low rate of accidents caused by human error. You can observe it at train stations for example with the train operators talking to themselves and gesturing as they go through their procedures before departing the train to make sure nothing gets forgotten or they don't accidentally run somebody over because they forgot to check if the doors are closed and fail to see somebody caught in a door etc. Train yourself to think about what you are doing or put up reminders. For example stick a note on the door to your house that you can't miss to remind you to turn off the car. I often don't remember if I closed my garage door after leaving the house, because it happens instinctively, but it also has happened in the past that I forgot to close it. So, I've installed a device called the Garage Butler, which automatically closes my garage door if it's left open for 10 minutes.

 

How can you NOT miss dat exhaust rumbling even on quiet mode. That's an alarm just by itself.

 

Because if auto start stop is enabled the car wouldn't be on when exiting the vehicle. That's when the prompt is enabled when you open the door to tell you that the engine is still running.

 

is this a legitimate post?

Turn off your car when you park..... if you cant do that you shouldnt have a licence

 

The auto start engages when your foot comes off thee brake, does it not?

 

with auto start/off, sometimes i thought the engine is off but when you take off seatbelt, engine automatically start again.

 

I parked my c43 outside restaurant went inside with wife ate a meal , looking at my car right in front of the restaurant ,came out 1 hour later and car was running !! Wife didn't realise and obviously I didn't mention it !
Call me old ,stupid whatever ,but it happened ! I guess even with the PE the idle is too quiet LOL

 

At least you will only do it once.

 

To be honest, I know it happens, but I can't really fathom how one goes about forgetting to turn off their car. Does one not put it in P, either and just get out of the car? If that's the case it's probably time to hang it up and take the bus. Thankfully, the car puts itself in park if you open the driver's door, otherwise some of these people would run themselves or others over. Not that it hasn't happened with other cars. Wasn't there an actor pretty recently that got pinned to a wall and killed by his own car, because he got out to get the mail and left the car running in D? BTW, if you have a 2019 then you only need to turn it off, which automatically engages P and the parking brake. So how hard is it to remember to push one button when parking the car? In the pre-FL you have to push P when parking and then turn it off. The two buttons are practically next to each other, so it also seems hard to understand how somebody would put it in P, but then not turn off the engine.

 

Yea, when you remove your belt, my car starts right back up at the stop light. So you can't kill yourself in c43.

 

In my '17, you can press the start/stop button, but park won't automatically engage until you open the door. I frequently exit this way, keeping my foot on the brake, knowing that P will engage when I pull the door handle. Just one less button press

The actor in question was Anton Yelchin (Chekov in new Star Trek movies). As best anyone could tell, he thought he put his Jeep in park, but actually put it in Neutral, got out and it rolled in to him, pinning him to a brick pillar.

 

In my '18, I press START button to turn off the car while holding the brakes on DRIVE. It auto PARK and engages the parking brakes. I think that's how I got out of the car with CLA and C300 for past 5 years.

 

It's coming back to me now. The Anton Yelchin case triggered a debate over the non traditional gear selectors. I do find those problematic. I think MB was smart by placing it on the steering column. Those that are still mounted in the center console trigger old habits and one inadvertently ends up pushing up on them in an attempt to put the car in P, only to end up in N or R. I've surprisingly gotten used and accustomed to MB's gear selector stalk immediately. I find it very intuitive as it doesn't require taking one's hands off the steering wheel. I got used to it so much in a very short time, that when I drove my parent's car one day I kept turning on the windshield wipers. Surprisingly never the other way around. This is my first Mercedes, only owned it for 2 months so far and I've never inadvertently changed gears in an attempt to turn on the windshield wipers. It took me much longer to retrain my muscle memory for the new gear selectors in the latest Audis and I still occasionally end up putting them in R when I mean to put them in P. Also interestingly after not driving my Merc for about a week, I had zero issues adjusting back to the more traditional mechanical PRND gear selector in my RS5. At least Audi automatically applies the e-brake if you open the driver's door with the gear in D, R or N to avoid what happened to Anton.

 

 

Yes, that's something that bothered me as well. As I mentioned above, though, that's only on the pre-FL. Starting with the 2019s it now goes directly into P when turning off the engine. With the pre-FL it goes directly to P once you open the driver's door after turning off the engine. Sort of works as well, but not ideal.

 

Yes, it's a great safety feature in 2019. In any car, my muscle memory always looks at the gear indicator in the instrument cluster before taking my foot off the brake pedal and/or turning the car off and/or opening the door and/or exiting the car. So even with this cool feature in 2019, I always tend to hit Park first

 

It's more like natural selection taking it's course....