Hello good people,

Considering moving from a BMW G60 540i and before that a G30 to a E450 later this year. Looking forward building out a luxurious interior after the somewhat austere bimmers. Is it possible to turn auto start stop off permanently? If not, assuming I use the default drive mode and don't change to sport each time, is it one button each time you start the car? Do you have to go through screens or is it a hard button?

 

Another question to ask for a mild hybrid is: do you want to bother turning it off or does it work well enough that it’s not necessary to disable?

 

To answer your question, the button is close to the start engine button. As for turning off start/stop or not, it is smooth enough to not be noticeable. If you don't pay attention to the rpms, you pretty much never even notice the car turned itself off or restarted.

 

It took a week to get used to driving with the stop start enabled. The difference I found was that the car wouldn’t creep forward in the same way if I let my foot off the brake. I learned to lift my foot off the brake to get the car to move at an intersection for example.

It also occasionally turns off the engine as I’m pulling into a parking brake which results in the car slowing then lurching forward a few inches as it restarts the engine.

 

Yes this plus if you want engine braking to help with slowing down it is less than if you have auto start/tstop off but... the engine still does it if you apply the brakes or if the vehicle detects a close proximity to the vehicle in front (or the distance is decreasing too fast relative to the speed) it will keep the engine on or turn the engine back on when slowing down. This is true in "Eco" mode as well. With eco mode glide mode also activates and turns off the engine if no vehicle in front and at a certain speed above.

As the W214 first does regen brake before physical brakes, if I recalled correctly, it does physical brake and regen brakes regardless at gear 1,2,3 etc. When it does regen brake at say higher gear, gear 7, you will notice the "charge" bar is at max.

 

On the 450, the engine does not have a traditional starter but uses the starter/generator inside the bell housing, thus you hardly even notice the on/off at stop lights. Also, the a/c compressor is electrically driven so you still have cool air while sitting at a stop on a hot day. I find it a non-issue as compared to other models that have a traditional starter.

 

As others have said, the stop/start is smooth, silent, and seamless so no need to turn it off. I think silence at traffic lights is great.

 

needlessly burning gas seems like a silly thing to do

 

Some and I am one of them, believe start stop on a vehicle can reduce the reliability of the vehicle and also do not like it...I know quickly when I forgot to disable it on my CLE 53.

Some MB models you can program the car to send a message on the MBUX screen to tap to disable stop start. If you do not have that option you can create a routine.

 

^ That's flawed thinking with this generation of engines. These cars do not have a starter motor to wear out. Idling is more wear on an engine than having it off.

Of course it is, but didn't want to go there as many think start/stop is a political issue.

 

this is just old fashioned thinking and lack of understanding - same people that want to disable the radar cruise control in favor of the old fashioned cruise.

 

He talks about the ISG, although this is 53 version so ignore the part he mentioned the supercharger part:

 

May be irrational, but I just don't like stop start function. Maybe time to rethink this. But it is easy to disable after start, one push button. And it becomes automatic part of routine. And then flick another switch to dynamic function for the day, either sport or individual. This is on w213 E450. You can pay someone to disable through software if you don't care about your warantee. Any changes to ecu no matter how minor, marks your car as ineligible for coverage

 

this is not correct about warranty coverage (at least for US).

 

Yes, I stand corrected. The law is that any modification would have to affect the system you are having a problem with to deny coverage. But .... the dealer decides what is covered, and if you are denied for any reason you have little recourse besides trying another dealer. I would not want to be in this position with a dealer. If you do your own maintenance be sure to have extensive records.