It is dangerous in an auto, I totally agree. Twice now I have arrived at my final destination and stopped, but have been a couple of minuets before getting out. During my getting ready to get out the Start/Stop system has shut the engine down without me realising. So when I go to leave the car the engine is off, and without giving it a second thought I open the drivers door ----- and the engine restarts !

1 hour ago, Guy Heaton said:

Stop start?  Pointless gimmick, actually dangerous when in an auto car.

Dangerous ?  In what way exactly ?

10 hours ago, unofix said:

It is dangerous in an auto, I totally agree. Twice now I have arrived at my final destination and stopped, but have been a couple of minuets before getting out. During my getting ready to get out the Start/Stop system has shut the engine down without me realising. So when I go to leave the car the engine is off, and without giving it a second thought I open the drivers door ----- and the engine restarts !

When you park up do you leave the car in neutral or park with yours being an auto and does it make a difference between the two ? 

Hi Wino, if I've come to the end of my journey then I select Park. I don't very often select neutral as there are very few occasions that it would be of any real use. In regards to the car restarting as I open the door both times the car was in park. On the plus side at least its not possible for it still to be in 'D' but I do see that it must be possible on some American makes due to the number of funny video clips of people getting out and their car driving off !

You are at a junction. SS has switched off the engine. You want to pull out.  Unlike a manual, where if you keep the clutch depressed and first gear selected it will keep the engine running, when you want to pull out the engine has to start, and the auto has to engage drive.  These delays are dangerous.

Fortunately Ford has made it that a light pressure on the brake doesn't engage the SS, you have to press a little harder.

1 hour ago, Guy Heaton said:

You are at a junction. SS has switched off the engine. You want to pull out.  Unlike a manual, where if you keep the clutch depressed and first gear selected it will keep the engine running, when you want to pull out the engine has to start, and the auto has to engage drive.  These delays are dangerous.

I've experienced the same thing driving VW group cars with DSG, which are often pretty slow off the mark anyway.

There are several devices available in the States to enable you to switch S/S off permanently, like this:

https://www.autostopeliminator.com

Never seen anything advertised for UK though.

 

I find stop/start in my new Kuga, which is automatic, works brilliantly. My car also has an auto hold parking brake.

So when I stop the car, I can take my foot off the foot brake and the car stays put in drive, without any need for me to keep braking or manually applying the electric parking brake. Assuming the car is up to temperature, the stop start kicks in and the engine goes off. When I’m ready to move off, if I squeeze the throttle a tiny amount, it re-starts the stop start, without releasing the auto hold brake. Then when I want to move off, a little firmer pressure on the throttle releases the auto hold brake. 
 

Not sure how that compares to other cars, or manual versions of mine, but I think it works perfectly in mine. 

On 3/22/2021 at 6:38 PM, wordchild said:

Hi William and all,

I'm sensing I'm in a minority in this thread in quite liking stop start and hoping mine keeps working  😉

You mentioned you've tried the battery management reset thing  - that's what I've needed to do to keep stop start working. When you've tried it does the battery light (within the rev counter) flash a few times? If so that's confirmation that the battery management software is reset. But I think it only takes effect if, after the reset, you switch off and back on again. Apologies if you knew all that already tho...

surprisingly i managed to get it to function after a pretty decent day driving so probably down to time i spend driving why it dosent always function, and also when i tired to reset the battery sensor i never saw the light flash so i dont think i did it fast enough

I've been having trouble with this too. So bit of background for you...  1L 2019 Fiesta- my engine gave up the ghost on a trip to Tenby, a cylinder had gone. Had a brand new engine fitted in June. Broke in the engine, went on a trip to Swansea at the end of July (1.5 hour trip each way) and then a day after getting home the spanner light came on and car lost power, noticed my start stop had gone off also. I restarted the car and it was fine but rung the garage and he told me to bring it down. He scanned it but no faults came up. Car kept doing this  intermittently, the longest I went without it happening was 10 days and they it will happen 2 times straight after each other and then will drive normal and light goes off again once I restart the car. Had a mini service after 1000 miles to check oil filters etc last week and the mechanic still couldn't find out what was causing the car to do this. I've taken it in today and mentioned the start stop so wondering if I need a new battery or what this could be! Worried he's going to call me and say he hasn't found anything again but I can't keep driving around like this when my car can just stop at any time! I haven't been on a motorway since the end of July our pure fear!