Engine Start/Stop System
 

Believe it or not, I got the car a few weeks ago, for some reason (maybe extreme low temp, or i always have the heat on, located in boston area so it was brutal in the past many weeks) the Start/Stop System never kicked in. Today it was almost 40 degree, and i was driving my car, i noticed that the little A sign turned green and had "ready" note right next to it. so here's my question:

- It was very noticeable when the engine restarted, and it's not very instant. It made my initial acceleration very NOT smooth. Do you guys have the same feeling?
- When the engine was shut off, it seems that my steering wheel is also locked up - is it normal?
- Anyone from northeastern area had the same thing that in the past weeks this function never kicked in, until this warm week?
- I personally really don't like this feature and got annoyed immediately when i realized that it defaults back to "ON" even though i shut it off for my last trip. What do you guys think about it?
- What are some of the best practices regarding this function?

Thanks in advance!

I have mine programmed off since the car was one week old. It can be done with VCDS.

-Eli

yeah i've just read from many places about turning it off with VCDS. gonna dig a bit deeper on it for sure. Did you deactivate it because you had some experiences with it that you hated during the first week, or you came in predetermined to have it off asap after having the car? Just curious on what people's thoughts are on this thing.

Can you tell us more specifics on how you disabled it, what setting so we can duplicate it ?

I now bump the transmission in sport mode after I start which then leaves it off so that's what I use, and of course
in dynamic it's auto disabled as well...

I find it annoying as well. Due to weather, I have to keep my car in Comfort mode; however, I have noticed that when I barely depress the brake petal to keep from moving the auto shut off mode deactivates. Also when it was brutal weather and I had my heat and heated seats on full blast it didn’t turn off the engine.

I also figured that as long as you leave climate control system on, the start/stop system almost never kicks in, especially if you leave defrosting on. and yes, going other driving modes deactivates it as well. I don't mind leaving the climate control system on all the time, so the feature all of a sudden doesn't bother me that much......

not that i hate the purposes behind it, it's just that when the engine kicks back in,it's too noticeable....

In the Boston area as well. Have not yet ever had the system turn on (thankfully) and I got the car back in September...

yeah i hope it's true that as long as the climate control is on, start/stop is off, so we can easily keep it that way....

well it's not true I had AC on (am in California) and it does the start/stop. Likely the heated seats and such draw more current than the AC so defrost and heated
seats keep it from functioning but just the AC doesn't

I went into it open minded. I did not like it at all. The lag when pulling into traffic is unnerving.

As far as disabling this feature with VCDS....

Go to module 08-Auto HVAC, Adaptation, scroll to AC comfort parameters for start/stop. The stored value was 5. Change this to 0 and save. This will keep auto start/stop OFF as long as the climate control system is ON. (Who turns it off?)

-Eli