chromJ

Good day

I am a little confused by the reason of auto engine turn off/restart at traffic lights.

Mechanical/electro-mechanical devices have life time mainly based on the cycles while in service.

when I leave this option activated a single trip for the car could mean 20 or more off/on cycles for the starter motor and other components compared to a single cycle if the auto shut-off is disabled.

is there any study that shed the lite on how much fuel savings a car accomplish during 10 years or whatever.

The second question how do I make the default of this option off. Currently every time I manually turn it off it comes back on after new ignition


Edit : After searching I found many articles supporting the fuel saving claim.
Now the remaining question is how to make the default to be off.




Thanks

HouTexMB

You can't permanently turn it off on the SL. It defaults back to on when you turn off the car and you have to hit the button every time you start the car. Pretty annoying.

Utopia Texas

The theory is that if you have 10 million engines turn off, for example, 30 seconds at each stop light you save 5 million minutes of engine run time at each of those stop lights millions of times a day around the planet. You personally may not see much gas savings but when you add up many vehicles stopping continuously the savings are huge. Though the over ride on my 2017 SL450 only works for 4 stops at least I have a tiny bit of control. My wife's new Cadillac has no option at all and the engine turns off at every stop.
PS- I wonder how many starter motors will be replaced after just a few years or if modern technology will keep them usable for extended periods of years?

chromJ

Yes

Good point to think like mother earth.

I read while searching that they make the starter motor more robust. So theoritically it should last like a car that does not have the auto-shut off function.

It starts to make more sense after I searched.

Thanks

chromJ

I don't know how is the logic of the control unit is built but one would think that it should be simple to program the auto shut off default to the off state.

Thanks for the reply

PaulE550

Mid City sells a hardware fix your can have installed, if pushing the off button at startup is too annoying. Enjoy.

HouTexMB

It's my wife's car and she doesn't seem to mind. My Audi S8 does not have this feature thank goodness.

jetjok

I have this feature in my E550 and for the past 3 years have gotten quite used to it. Initially I didn't like it as I was always a little worried if the thing would start, when the light turned green, or when the traffic ahead of me moved. No problems with it, ever, and so I've acclimated. Won't even be an issue to me when the new SL comes next month.

chromJ

Thanks for replying


I am almost convinced after lots of research that the echo start/stop is a feasible feature.

I found this thread entertaining

https://mbworld.org/forums/e-class-w...p-feature.html

Today I decided not to disarm the feature. I find my self spending more time waiting at red light than driving.

gkgeiger

I spend my winters in Naples FL. The traffic lights are long and often. I leave my ECO on. Doesn't bother me at all.

SteveL1

I think it's irritating and turn it off each time I fire up the car. Too bad you can't turn the feature off all together like I can in our BMW's.

Wolfman

It is annoying but there are plenty of modules that will do it for you. Unfortunately every car has it's own annoyances. Many of MB's options that can be selected have to be coded in a BMW. At least they have done the ECO start/stop right, but that took them a year as well (MY13's would not remember).

If you ever drive in Sport mode, just select Sport Plus; that automatically de-selects ECO. On the '13-'16 models, Sport will do that...

threeMBs

On my 2015 SL (and on my two other '14 cars), I have to both select Sport and de-select ECO...two presses every time car is started.

Wolfman

I think you are right. Forgot. Our S-Class de-selects ECO by just pressing SPORT. Single Touch.