Stop/start cars left in gear.

[krobbo]

kazste said:

A post earlier stating the car will know its in gear made me remember that a friends Audi will show you what gear you are in so presume that this would be the case. This then leads me to think on a hot day in a traffic jam you could leave the car in first to stop it restarting itself. This would mean you keep air on running as opposed to turning the engine off properly.

This is of course ignoring the whole running out your battery issue.

As far as I'm aware with the Mazda system, doing this would require the engine to be manually restreted with the button, same as if the door is opened while the stop start is activated. I have no idea if BMW's system works the same.

[Swanny87]

kazste said:

My car is a mini and a bmw, which I presume is roughly the same software, engine will restart either on its own depending on parameters or with the clutch depressed. It does not seem to drag if in first and then clutch pressed so suspect it needs to be fully disengaged was just wondering if anyone has had it start in gear.

A post earlier stating the car will know its in gear made me remember that a friends Audi will show you what gear you are in so presume that this would be the case. This then leads me to think on a hot day in a traffic jam you could leave the car in first to stop it restarting itself. This would mean you keep air on running as opposed to turning the engine off properly.

This is of course ignoring the whole running out your battery issue.

I ended up in gear with the stop-start system on in a Fiat 500 for a while (not sure why it was in gear as I don't usually do that). It started beeping quite loudly at me to take it out of gear! I imagine if you just left it beeping it would be like a scene out off 2001 Space Odyssey; it starts slowly dying as the battery drains

[Mr2Mike]

Superhoop said:

The systems are a bit more savvy than you're giving it credit for - if you put in gear, the car would know it's in gear and therefore auto restart would be cancelled.

How does it know? A switch built into the gearbox?

[kazste]

The more I think about it modern cars definitely would know it is in gear. My car for example shouts at me if I'm not in the most economic gear as do a lot of cars so they definitely do know which gear they're in which leads me to think it would start alarming if it needed to start the engine as per the poster above, and would only start when in neutral.

[xRIEx]

kazste said:

The more I think about it modern cars definitely would know it is in gear. My car for example shouts at me if I'm not in the most economic gear as do a lot of cars so they definitely do know which gear they're in which leads me to think it would start alarming if it needed to start the engine as per the poster above, and would only start when in neutral.

Not all of them 'know' the actual gear but calculate it from speed and revs, so only 'know' when moving. 370Z knew the gear (possibly for the synchro revmatch thing to work), the Qashqai I briefly had used speed and revs.

It can't be too difficult to have a switch for in neutral/not in neutral, bikes have had them for decades.

[GoTea]

I feel the VWs also calculate which gear you are in from comparing engine and wheel speed. There is always a pause when you select a gear before it shows on the dash.