What do you mean consumers don't want better MPG? I want the best MPG I can get, consistent with what I need my truck to do.

 

If you had an F-350 to tow a 16k lb FW wouldn't you want to get 10 mpg instead of 8? That's a 25% increase and could be a lot of money on a long trip.

 

While it is true that true genius capitalism is to produce something people want before they even realize they want it, e.g., Motorola and Apple cellular phones; the home computer; etc. but arguably not many would put auto stop/start in that category. Automobile OEM have over the last couple of decades been pressured more by government rules and mandates that by consumer demand. And whiles those rules originally were developed in government and OEM collaboration, collaboration was mostly replaced by government dictated goals in the latter years.

 

what I don't like is after the engine shuts down a few seconds later the ac shuts down.I have a black truck and need all the ac I can get!

 

Just for chatty chat, let's say everyone with a start/stop motor can 'save' 1/2 gallon of fuel every year. I could be way off and I am no expert. Sure the numbers will vary all over the place but forget about that for a sec. I doubt it would be even that much really but let's say that's a 'best' case. I have no clue how many vehicles are out there that use this technology but let's say its a million and let's also say avg gas cost of $3.00 gallon. We can then say this technology has 'saved' $1.50 per year, per vehicle in excess gas consumption. Yippee! But we can't say that we've saved that much fuel because so many owners turn it off (maybe 1/2..?) so that leave 500,000 vehicles saving 1/2 gallon (best case). That works out to 250,000 gallons times $3.00 per gallon so thats $750,000 in fuel savings per year. The other 'savings' is in emissions, at least so we think. An engine that is not running is not polluting right? What we don't know is if there is an emissions 'spike' that is on start up or if there is no change. The real savings of harmful pollution is much harder to measure because its a function of how many times the engine shuts off during their trip compared to a vehicle that does not shut off. How does all of that savings in pollution compare so say a dozen diesel pickup trucks that have been 'deleted' & tuned to roll coal at will.

We can probably guess that the technology to develop these reliable start stop systems took some engineering time and each manufacturer had to do their own version of it, so there is a huge cost right there that is getting added to your MSRP. We can also guess that because the starter is now having to start the engine a lot more times that a regular engine that it will wear out much sooner, costing the consumer quite a few bucks to get that changed out later on. We also know that if the engine is not spinning, there is no oil pressure and that during start up there is a very short period of no oil pressure until its had enough time to build up. The lack of oil pressure for that very short period of time, times the number of extra starts could likely lead to some additional wear over and engine that is only started and stopped one time during a drive cycle. This might be a very small extra wear but its still early to tell. So, we have very little gas savings and an unknown amount of pollution savings and a pretty significant cost, all that is paid for by the consumer.

Maybe the "greenies" could call it a win. Sure, I'm all for saving planet earth. How about we start with all the disgusting things we are putting into the sea? How about the massive number of super fund sites all over the US. (Look it up you will be shocked). Lets get the worlds largest population to clean up their air polluted by their massive uncontrolled factories before we shove this start stop crap savings down our throats. We painstakingly save a 1/2 gallon of oil each year only to see tens of millions of gallons dumped into our oceans by BP and drunk super tanker drivers. Making decades worth of start stop savings look like a drop in the bucket. You can triple or quadruple the savings but even that is nothing compared to other pollution offenders on planet earth. How about pollution caused by senseless wars or even by nature like volcanoes.

Sorry for my rambling on but thats what I see in auto START / STOP.

Have a nice day.

 

This feature also, generally speaking, isn't doing the battery any favors. At all.

 

There's a lot that I could say here but there have been so many poor horses beat to death on this subject in various forums that I'll just remain silent for now.

 

If you're going to do calculations like this I think the numbers are pretty important! So what do the "experts" say?

I've googled some and come up with little quantitative info. I did find this in wiki, no idea how accurate it is?

"For non-electric vehicles fuel economy gains from this technology are typically in the range of 3-10 percent, potentially as high as 12 percent. In the United States, idling wastes approximately 3.9 billion gallons of gasoline per year." (with references to Edmunds and Road & Track)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Start-stop_system

I posted above asking if anyone has any real data on the break even point. That's pretty critical information to help me decide if/when to use the start/stop.

 

It's always been the case where it involves some folks with a lot of disposable income that they generally aren't concerned with saving money on fuel.

 

I would guess that 1/2 gal is a gross underestimation.

 

I would have to agree.

Just for a chuckle, I ran a report on my checking account for the last 12 months. Between my wife and I we spent ~$6500 on gasoline. Using the 3-10% start/stop savings figure from the wiki link above, let's go on the low side of that and say a 5% savings. That would be $325 a year savings. Not earth shattering, but not bad. Further estimations: assuming an average of $2.50 per gallon, that would be 2600 gallons. 5 % of that would be 130 gallons saved, per year. Some estimations used there for sure, and there's definitely a lot of variables, but that's at least starting with some real numbers.

 

Optomistic "up to XXX!!!" predictions are always ... predictably optomistic.

Battery life, and mileage figures, (for electric vehicles too) come to mind.

Someone who routinely does a lot of stop and go driving in heavy traffic, these systems would be beneficial but any monetary savings would have to be bounced off first to the increased complexity and $$ cost to the truck itself, and probable increased costs for parts replacement and repair.

How much $$ are these fangled new starters anyway? It's conceivable this whole operation could end up a wash at best, over several years operation or, even dip into negative territory. Did they figure out a way around torturing the battery for all these stop/restarts?

Anti-lock brakes, power windows, and security systems (among other things) generally have never particularly benefited me weighed against their malfunction, this has caused plenty of aggravation and expense that was not welcome.

I know this ain't Burger King but all the mandatory bells and whistles is a bit over the top.

 

Agree. That's why, for my set of calculations, I opted to use a savings value towards the low end of the quoted range.

Not a definitive answer, but I looked at Rock Auto for a stater for a 2018 F-150; for the 5.0 and the 3.5 eb they only list one starter each.

They were both Motorcraft, btw. $114 for the 3.5, $161 for the 5.0. I'm assuming these are rebuilts, but I didn't see that noted anywhere.

For reference I looked the 5.0 starter for a 2016 - it was less expensive by a little - $142.

Decide for yourself what that means.

 

Why argue about it. Just bypass it if you don't like it.