Icspres

I'm not the one missing the point here, my friend. Everyone understands this. Every single person reading this thread realizes the start stop new EPA mandated (ostensibly) emissions equipment, or like me if they didn't before they do now. I'm the consumer. I care about what matters to ME, not the Auto Industry. If there were a single ICE car manufacturer producing cars that didn't have this crap, I'd be strongly prejudiced toward them because I think this tech is very likely a net negative for the environment as well as the consumer.

I actually stopped thinking about it at all once my wife decided this was the car, that's why I stopped participating but piqued my interest again tonight for whatever reason. I do think that that it's under thinking to keep reverting to the static analysis of how huge the 5% is to the automaker. We won't know for a decade whether the cost to the consumer far eclipses that 5%. Common sense tells me it will. But again I freely admit I could be wrong.

Fair enough. I freely admit my knowledge of mechanics is ancient and I figured I'd get an answer to this effect.

I get it, in a static analysis . But if the over-engineering of the requisite components increases the vehicle cost and the start stop affects overall customer satisfaction and driveability or even reliability over an extended period of time, causing people to throw their cars away sooner, in a dynamic analysis it's a net negative on the environment.

Rhetorical, but have vehicle prices increased by 5% as a result of the beefed up transmission, starter, etc? And still I assume the start stop will get rougher with age, just common sense. I grew up a long time ago, but I grew up believing the most damage a motor takes is at startup when you get a modicum of ring wash from unburned gas. I get this is ancient history, but still if as the engine gets older, 100k-150k miles and the motor takes a bit more of a bump to start firing again at a stop light, a little more unburned gas, build up on the valves, clogging of injector? Makes me think every car out there, they all have start stop, are going to start needing valve jobs or new injectors or some other weird, not recently heard of major service we're not used to. You see this on some cars, unexpected big service items like the waste gates on last gen bimmers, major expense at 60-80k miles that nobody who bought them new ever saw coming. It again just seems to me it's all a net negative.

You know what bugs me about this, I assumed when I was first looking into this when I started this thread that the net gain from something this intrusive would have to be in the 10-15% range, right? I mean, to be worth the trouble? Nope, 5%. The EPA estimated overall mileage gain for vehicles with stop start is 5%...at time of purchase. Plain common sense tells me that it's a net loss, no way all the tech involved and whatever modest extra wear and tear, the fact that the start/stop function is bound to be rougher over time isn't going to lead to vehicles being thrown away 5% sooner. My wife is still on track to take delivery of her Aviator though. Whatever.

According to my dealer the behavior in the GT is identical to the Black Label that I'm purchasing.

Off topic, but my kids are really excited about heated and coold second row controlled by their very own touch screen. Kinda cool.

So my wife chose the Aviator. The start stop never activated during our test drive. Turns out if it's too hot, it won't engage because the compressor has to stay on. If it's too cold it won't engage because the engine needs to stay warm. I don't think it's going to bother her at all. So there you have it.

Agree the sales associate, though seemingly a Sr Assoc, probably isn't terribly technical and no idea how motivated she is regardless if they're going to sell every Aviator they get, which I'm sure they will. Maybe I'll get lucky and they'll have a hybrid there as well. I have confirmed though that the Aviator does have the excite setting and it does disable start-stop. Depending on how many motions are involved, roughly similar to the GLS button push hopefully.

Freely admit the sales associate could have been wrong, but with an $80k sale on the line, she's insistent that the behavior of the GT start-stop is identical to the rest of the lineup.

Copy that. You'd think that in stop and go traffic though, hybrids would be more on battery power and not starting every time you take your foot off the brake, but apparently the Aviator GT does.

I was surprised to hear from my dealer that the GT behaves identically to the black label, hybrid has no effect on the start-stop behavior.

Great to hear. Thank You. It's on our agenda for today. I'm still concerned that five years from now it will not be as smooth as it is new. All of this CAFE stuff is supposed to reduce our carbon footprint, but for the estimated 5% increase in fuel efficiency, I've got to expect the cost in service and components, long term satisfaction is going to lead to greater carbon footprint. I'll bet this feature alone is responsible for a good year or two decrease in average time a vehicle spends in service. But you can't get out of it. Our backups are a new MB GLS450 or '17 GLS63, both of which have Eco-start. Everything does now, it seems. Again, thanks for the review. I'm looking forward to our test drive in a couple hours.

I doubt I'm the first person who's thought it. You just keep proving my point.