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55 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

 

Why do farmers only turn the engines off once they are parked back in the shed.

 

 

In our case it was because, more often than not, the tractor battery was so knackered that once you'd started it in the morning you didn't dare turn it off, because it wouldn't have been able to restart...

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I can believe both of them.

It annoys the hell out of me when I see delivery drivers doing it.

And Taxi drivers.

School run Mums and Dads.

Ambulences

Neighbour's friends

Road Crews.

 

Such an easy thing to do, but very few bother.

I turn my engine off when I am at a red light.

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2 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

I can believe both of them.

It annoys the hell out of me when I see delivery drivers doing it.

And Taxi drivers.

School run Mums and Dads.

Ambulences

Neighbour's friends

Road Crews.

 

Such an easy thing to do, but very few bother.

I turn my engine off when I am at a red light.

 

Have to leave mine running as it crashes the Bluetooth streaming for a couple of minutes of I turn it off ??

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5 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

[...]

I turn my engine off when I am at a red light.

 

Last century, in Berlin,  (1984) I'd regularly get shouted at by pedestrians passing my car while  I was waiting  in a traffic queue 

"Motor Aus! " (Switch Off!)

And I'd reply just as tartly -

Quatsch! Maul halten!  (Rubbish! Shut yer face)

 

Takes more fuel and  causes more emissions,  more wear,  knackers the battery (I was told by my boss way back then) to restart the car than allow it to tick over quietly. 

 

Is it any different now?

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56 minutes ago, AnonymousBosch said:

Takes more fuel and  causes more emissions,  more wear,  knackers the battery (I was told by my boss way back then) to restart the car than allow it to tick over quietly. 

 

Quite a few years ago a US student did a little project on this, measuring the injector operation on a Japanese car idling and stopping and starting. There were a few assumptions (e.g., that the same amount of fuel was used on each injection) but the conclusion was that overall there was a fuel saving for stopping the engine for more than 0.7 seconds. That included the extra fuel needed to recharge the battery after the following start but, of course, couldn't say anything about the wear to the mechanical bits or the battery.

 

6 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

Ambulences

 

AIUI, ambulances have enough electrics running that stopping the engine for long might be a bad idea. It'd be awfully embarrassing not to be able to start again because the defibrillator, or whatever, has drained the battery.

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4 hours ago, Ed Davies said:

It'd be awfully embarrassing not to be able to start again because the defibrillator, or whatever, has drained the battery.

That can be dealt with in other ways, maybe a simple autostart after a set period of time.

Ambulances are now often dotted around the major roads, rather than at a station.  One major parking place for them down here is at Chiverton Cross.  The locals get fed up with them ticking over, though they do understand the reasons why.

There has to be better ways.

4 hours ago, Ed Davies said:

couldn't say anything about the wear to the mechanical bits or the battery.

VW did some research about this before introducing their stop/start system.  They found no appreciable difference in longevity.

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Just now, SteamyTea said:

VW did some research about this before introducing their stop/start system.  They found no appreciable difference in longevity.

 

From 2005 until last year I've owned various Toyota hybrids.  They were all really reliable, despite them stopping and starting the engine many, many times during every journey.  They had the engine stop/start thing so refined that there was no way to tell inside the car when the engine stopped or started, other than by looking at the central display.  They'd cracked the smooth starting problem by having the car start on one cylinder at a time, with the exhaust valves held open on the cylinders that weren't firing.  They also did away with the starter motor, and started the engine using a direct drive electric motor on the crankshaft, that doubled up as a generator, so was permanently coupled to the engine all the time.

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On 03/09/2019 at 22:04, SteamyTea said:

I once drove my old Chrysler Alpine about a mile and a half on the starter motor.  Just got it rolling, jammed it into second gear and turned the key.  Got me home.

And no, I had not run out of petrol, was the ignition coil.

 

And another thing, how many drivers use their handbrake when stopped at traffic lights? 5%?

 

theyre not going to switch off their engine if they’re not even in the habit of that.

 

 

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8 minutes ago, daiking said:

And another thing, how many drivers use their handbrake when stopped at traffic lights? 5%

I am in split minds about that.

I am not sure of the figures now, as it is 40 years since I studies automotive engineering, but back then, a secondary brake (hand brake) had to be capable of applying 14% of the vehicles rated braking force (that depends on age and mass of vehicle).

Applying all 4 brakes via the foot peddle, supplies up to 100%.

There is also the matter of brake cooling.  Depending on the type and style of driving, applying a brake onto a drum or disk can cause either overheating or reduced cooling.  Not so much of a problem these days as brakes are very good (mine have done about 100,000 miles without any maintenance/replacement), but other drivers may not drive like my Mother and overuse brakes.

 

 

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On 03/09/2019 at 21:54, SteamyTea said:

[...]

VW did some research about this before introducing their stop/start system.  They found no appreciable difference in longevity.

 

But what about fuel consumption? Does it really  save fuel? I bumped into this the other day - pretty light on hard evidence - but claims expert status.

Is there any properly constituted research we can read?

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I believe one of the motivations for introducing stop-start systems wasn't fuel saving, but a reduction in air pollution.  The test cycle for emissions included time spent stationary, as this is considered to be a significant cause of urban air pollution, and the manufacturers realised that having the engine turn off during the idle periods of the ECE test cycle reduced their overall emissions.  The fuel saving argument was put forward to sell the stop-start feature to consumers.  Whether fuel is really saved will depend very heavily on the pattern of use, but there are definitely some cases where there is a significant fuel saving, like hybrids, where the ICE can remain off for long periods when driving on congested urban roads.

 

The EU emission test cycles are:

 

Characteristics Unit ECE 15 EUDC NEDC†
Distance km 0.9941 6.9549 10.9314
Total time s 195 400 1180
Idle (standing) time s 57 39 267
Average speed (incl. stops) km/h 18.35 62.59 33.35
Average driving speed (excl. stops) km/h 25.93 69.36 43.10
Maximum speed km/h 50 120 120
Average acceleration1 m/s2 0.599 0.354 0.506
Maximum acceleration1 m/s2 1.042 0.833 1.042

† Four repetitions of ECE 15 followed by one EUDC
1 Calculated using central difference method

 

 

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5 hours ago, JSHarris said:

I believe one of the motivations for introducing stop-start systems wasn't fuel saving, but a reduction in air pollution.  The test cycle for emissions included time spent stationary, as this is considered to be a significant cause of urban air pollution, and the manufacturers realised that having the engine turn off during the idle periods of the ECE test cycle reduced their overall emissions.  The fuel saving argument was put forward to sell the stop-start feature to consumers.  Whether fuel is really saved will depend very heavily on the pattern of use, but there are definitely some cases where there is a significant fuel saving, like hybrids, where the ICE can remain off for long periods when driving on congested urban roads.

 

That is the sort of thing that annoys me.  It is a bit like the smart meter deception.  I would much rather the car manufacturers said the stop start feature is to reduce air pollution than tell lies.

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