Soldato
Wut?
Are you sure it's not just kicking into neutral to coast?
Are you sure it's not just kicking into neutral to coast?
Do you have start stop system turned off?
- Thread starter Lither
- Start date
Man of Honour
Kill fuel supply to shut it down, chuck some in whilst turned off then spark to get it started?
Pretty much, kill fuel and spark. Make not of which cylinder stopped at or near TDC and has some residual compression then chuck some fuel and spark in there to restart it
Soldato
Neat
Not sure how I'd feel about that. The DSG/PDK cars I've been behind the wheel of just did the kick to neutral and that felt weird enough.
Yeah it's a bit weird.
The one other neat thing it does is that it starts the engine, even if your foot is still on the brake pedal - if it sees the car in front move. That is useful.
Soldato
- Joined
- 10 Oct 2006
- Posts
- 3,567
I turn it off mainly due to the vibrations you get when it restarts the engine but it also annoys me you can feel the cabin/seats change temperature before the system decides it needs to restart the engine to maintain the temps.
This is where PHEVs are excellent silky smooth transition when starting the engine.
This is where PHEVs are excellent silky smooth transition when starting the engine.
Associate
I have it on my Mazda 3, well used to. Since lockdown it's only been driven once every couple of weeks and the battery never gets enough charge to enable start/stop. Will need to change the battery at some point as even after a long drive it doesn't enable. I normally press the button to disable it when in stop/start traffic as I can't imagine it's good for the car or battery starting and stopping every 20 seconds. The company pool cars I used are auto BMW 1 / 3 series which are super annoying having start stop enabled as the engine would stop when waiting to pull onto roundabouts. At least with a manual you can hold the clutch down to keep the engine running.
![[TW]Fox](/data/man-of-honor/2009.png){kind=avatar}
Yup, you can add starter motors and power steering to that list too, just irritating for people who are not pro drivers.
Caporegime
Depends, if it's busy and I'm doing a ton of roundabouts one after the other (I'm in MK, so this is pretty common) I'll have it off. I often have to be pretty quick off the line on some of these roundabouts.
Having the handbrake stick on for a second when trying to pull away is nothing like a starter motor or power steering & you know full well it isn't.
It doesn't use the handbrake, it uses the footbrake and it immediately disengages seamlessly as you pull away.
The only situation where it's ever been anything other than either useful or not noticeable is when you're trying to roll backwards.
I don't know how it works on a technical level, but in the Fiesta & Kuga I drove with the feature it felt like a sticky handbrake, it certainly wasn't seamless.
Perhaps you're confusing hill start assist with automatic handbrake - many do. Some implementations of auto handbrake are more frustrating than others.
Hill start assist doesn't use the handbrake, it delays the release of the brakes until you apply throttle. I've never driven a car where this wasn't seamless and it's been around a good 15 years or so now at least. It is not part of an electronic handbrake system (Indeed, I have driven cars with it that have a conventional handbrake and, more annoyingly, driven cars without it that have an electronic handbrake).
Hill start assist doesn't use the handbrake, it delays the release of the brakes until you apply throttle. I've never driven a car where this wasn't seamless and it's been around a good 15 years or so now at least. It is not part of an electronic handbrake system (Indeed, I have driven cars with it that have a conventional handbrake and, more annoyingly, driven cars without it that have an electronic handbrake).
Soldato
I do wish you wouldn't always default to being sarcastic when your opinion doesn't match that of others, it's not very becoming.
I too very much dislike hill assist, and no I'm not confusing it with auto handbrake. Hill assist + electronic throttle just does not feel natural to me and they have always felt inconsistent to me. So I've (where possible) disabled it and this includes on my current STi. My first Subaru actually had it fitted but it was cable operated, as was the throttle, and so it did feel a lot more direct and consistent.
But hey, I don't like how throttles respond on a lot of cars due to the throttle maps being all over the place for emissions and artificial sports modes, so maybe that's a factor that most people just don't seem to notice.
No part of driving a car is natural, it's an inherently unnatural process. We could argue all day about electric v cable throttles but that's not really relevant to the point at hand - unless you're actively trying to roll backwards (IE parking on a hill) I cannot understand how you'd even notice hill start assist is there? There is no drag as you pull away...
Soldato
I hated that on the Ford I had. It would always release slightly to late and you get a big jolt.
First thing I do is disable all this crap and have as little ECU interference as possible. It always seems to be buggy or laggy in some way.
Soldato
In the majority of cases for me it was most noticeable on a flat road, or with a minimal incline. More often than not coming up to traffic light controlled local roundabouts that I know roughly how long it will be until the lights change.
Coming to a stop, clutch down, brakes on. Keep clutch down and 1st engaged because the lights will be changing very soon. Go to pull away, light throttle and car moves on bite point, hill assist still biting so more throttle applied whilst bringing clutch up further. Before you know it the car either kangaroos or you launch off into the distance unintentionally.
Now I will concede, I have not experienced hill assist in any "premium" brand cars or even automatics for that matter, but I have noticed it in most cars I have driven with it.
*edit* - I lie, I didn't like it in the automatic Jeep I had for a few days once too
I just don't like how it feels
