Submariner1
Senior Member
- Joined
- Sep 3, 2016
- Messages
- 4,694
- Reaction score
- 788
- Location
- Windsor Berkshire
- Your Mercedes
- CL500 2009 5.5
i dont like it ,most modern engines stop pretty much in the same place on flywheel ,ring gear so much stop start wears starter ring gear starter and other stuff , i cant think of a reason why i would want these items to wear out faster than previous models . and what of the carbon footprint of producing those items against the fuel saving, if i am stuck in long traffic lines i,am able to reach down to the key and turn the damn thing off .until they do away with that simple devise !!!!!!!!
A guy I know in F1, said he thought it was one of the worst engineering concepts that has come to market in his lifetime. Purely to pander to the mfg’s eco figures.
His take was its bad for the longevity aspect :-
1. Most bearing wear top and bottom end is at startup. Why increase that by 10 fold.
2. Hammers batteries, and solenoids
3. Horrible repetative wear on starter cogs and gear ring. He also said most engines come to rest at pretty much the same place give or take 2 or 3 cogs. So its concentrated wear in the same place.
4. Extra Bore wear, as the oil film has started to seperate down.
5. Crankshaft twisting, although minute, why multiply it by a factor of 10. In a normal car it would never show in normal engine life cycle but x10 or x20 ... only really long term tests will prove its not an issue.
6. Wear to auto transmission take up ... he lost me here. But basically if the engine is happily idling, there is no take up shock or something like that. If some component is happily rotating under very little duress, many of the bearings are effectively floating on a film of oil.
Turn off the engine, and that film is squeezed out, and the first “dry rotation” is not good for the engine.
7. More unecessary complex stuff to break e.g. overcoming the situation where engine power is cut and then needs to restart before the crank is stationery. Do you have a delay? .. or speed up certain elements to seemlessly mesh it. Fine when it works perfectly, but as it wears even the slightest out of sync coukd produce horrible wear.
8. Maybe OK if you have a 7 year mfg warranty, but on MBs do they really care if it dies in year 6?
(IMO Of course they dont give a rats!).
My take, its hard enough to keep these Lovelies running sweetly, with no repairs.
Why take on a load of complex extra stuff thats harmful to the engine and delivers relatively no real world benefit. Or if it does save some folks some petrol, is it enough to outweigh some huge repair bill down the track?
Even as an old codger ... if one has to spend money on these new super toys .. at least get something that helps you every day.
Like Auto parking ... its fantastic! Even if you are an ace parker, this helps avoid kerb scuffs, parking dinks, and reduces stress.
What I really dont like as a second purchaser is I have no idea if the first original owner, fastidiously turned it off every time?
Be interested if STAR could report .. No of starts from original day one? And if so could that be reset? I.e. “clocked”.
When I see figures like an average engine will start 50,000 times in its lifetIme and a SS will start 500,000 ... ; my stupid logic is thats 450,000 more starts or Nine times the wear!
I wont sweat about it, as I will definitely get MB Teir one warranty on my next, no doubt “start stop” car!
Last edited: