Anyone driven an auto stop/start yet? I drove a new Merc C220 CDi the other day, and found the experience strange, to say the least. I pulled up at a junction, with the car in 'D', foot on the footbrake, and the engine stopped! Foot off the brake and it started before my foot reached the throttle.

I'm not a fan of stop / start, period, but I think auto stop /start is absolute s t. I'm aware of the tax advantage, but other than that, I'd always hit the override button!

Any thoughts?? I've heard LR are looking at introducing it??  Gone - TD4 XS Auto, Sumatra Black, Mud flaps and side strips, clear indicators, private plate, privacy glass

Yer I had one on lone when my car was in for warranty work. I too dont like them, Its never natural to keep stop/starting a diesel engine. I also just had a new manual box with stop/start, still feel the same, If I ever get a newer model then I think the overide button will be the most used switch in there. Dont like stop/staert full stop

I have to say that whilst the response time was very good with the stop start I didn't like it either and turned it off after 1 week.
when i was in London and it kept stopping often it was starting back up a mere fraction of a second after stopping shaking the whole drive train about. cant see long term it doing it any good !
I had a pal who had an alternator go on his stop start vehicle and it was £1300 to replace so wonder what the benefits of stop start are ?

I've got it on mine and I quite like it. It doesn't stop the engine nearly often enough to make a difference to real world fuel consumption figures, although I'm sure it cuts in at just the right times to fool the official government fuel and CO2 test proceedures (which is the only reason that it's fitted in the first place)

I'm convinced that having to pointlessly start the engine just to operate the electric windows uses more fuel than the stop/start saves anyway!

oldgeezer wrote:

so wonder what the benefits of stop start are ?

If it wasn't for that wonderful stop/start fooling the test official test procedure into coming up with 165g/km (instead of the previous 194g/km) then there is no way that I could ever have afforded one as a company car and Land Rover would have missed out on a sale.

That difference in CO2 output would have increased my PAYE bill by another £50 a month

That's what stop/start is for!

Oh yes and corporate average CO2 emission figures too.

Yer I quite like this.

Its not like the Merc system where it just cuts out whenever it feels like it meaning that you can suddenly loose drive when sat at a roundabout <- a friend of mine had a personal experience and near accident because of this.

The LR version cuts out when you release the clutch and are stationary and starts up again when you dip the clutch or the battery needs a boost.

It works very well, and was good in a recent traffic jam where my engine would had been running at least 8 times longer than it should have been.

from me! 2012 DISCOVERY 4 GS AUTO ORKNEY GREY
2012 FREELANDER 2 SD4 GS AUTO BALTIC BLUE - GONE
2011 FREELANDER 2 TD4 GS MANUAL BALI BLUE - GONE

"That's what stop/start is for! " yeah i know that but thats fine if its a company car ! but if its private and you have to pay to run it you don't want such an abortion.
who's also going to be able to afford and run all this stuff when its a few years old ?

My E250 merc which was a 59 plate also kept cutting out on a motorway and you would have to coast to the hard shoulder and re-start ! and Merc could never find out why

When its more than a few years old it won't be mine  2012 DISCOVERY 4 GS AUTO ORKNEY GREY
2012 FREELANDER 2 SD4 GS AUTO BALTIC BLUE - GONE
2011 FREELANDER 2 TD4 GS MANUAL BALI BLUE - GONE

Have the stop/start for several years now. Done +50k miles with it and never had any issue whatsoever with the system so far. Doesn't really stop that often becouse I seem to forget to release my clutch most of the time.

I always seem to deliberatly have to remind me to release it to invoke the system, mostly when standing still for some time already. Then if I stand still long enough it just starts on it's own, probably becouse I always heve my airco on and the sound system I put in draws quite some juice out of the battery.

In any case, don't mind that it's there and in fact like it becouse when standing still at a light the car can't get any quieter then that.

As for fuel consumption, I don't think it has any practical impact. I think the way you drive the car does.

I recently noticed, as I do a 40 mile one-way comute every day, that keeping yourself to the allowed speed limits saves me about 10% on a tank of fuel. This by only reducing my avg speed on the highway with about 10mph.

I've also noticed there's not much more difference in fuel consumption if you go 10mph too fast or 30mph. It's the first 10 that does seem to make the difference. Even off-roading does not seem to noticably impact the fuel consumption.

Have they tweeked the car to be most economical below allowed speeds?

I have stop/start and I like it. I get a lot of use out of it coming out of Derby after work and the tax worked out at £115 for 6 months but the auto is £145 for 6 months. A decent saving. MY11 is even cheaper partly thanks to the troublesome DPF.

The starter motor is heavy duty to cope and I have not had any trouble with it.  LL.B (Hons) - University of Derby
LOT (Lord of Time) - University of Gallifrey

Yup, I agree, the LR version works just fine. no probs at all with mine. I suspect that long term, it will also prolong the life of the clutch, since sitting with yer foot on it waiting will inevitably break it eventually ......  MY2014 SD4 XS
Ipanema Sand

MY10 TD4-e GS Manual
Lago Grey Now retired after 8 trouble free years