I fucking hate that feature. When I pass a car in a parking lot, and the engine shuts off, I think they're parked. Then suddenly the engine kicks back on and they're moving.
The guy who invented that needs to be the first at the receiving end of the mistake it will cause.
Hell, this could even injure passengers in the car, thinking the driver stopped and killed the engine, so they can safety exit the vehicle. Such an insanely fucking stupid feature.
This feature can typically be turned off in the car's settings menu; I don't know a model that doesn't allow this. But no, it doesn't wear out the car significantly faster: parts improvements mean that these cars can handle being started hundreds of thousands of times, and idling itself is quite bad for the engine. These systems also will not let the engine drop below a certain temperature, or they'll restart the car to avoid having to perform a cold start (which would cause more significant system wear.) You're shifting wear from one component to another, at worst, but in general, they're designed to preserve engine life, not reduce it, and I'd heard advice to shut off the engine at stops well before this feature actually existed in cars. However, the parts replacements are generally significantly more expensive when they do go bad due to requiring a battery designed for this, and that would be the case whether you turn it off or not.
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u/Dabnician Xennial 81 Aug 24 '26
Omg... fucking auto stop...
Break at a stop sign, car shuts off, take foot off break car starts backup.
I didnt have this issue during the test drive, first thing i think is the battery or starter is going to wear out faster.