I heard it may no longer be switchable to OFF in near future new cars unless you select the sport plus mode. Anyone else heard this?

I say.

Regardless of a customer selectable option, it will always be a simple ECU fix. But may cost a buck or two.

They are the most annoying feature on cars today - thanks to the friggen EPA.

Gasohol was what seems to be the most unthoughtful from our good ol' EPA with the bright idea to save gasoline and improve emmissions by including alcohol in fuel. Good for corn farmers, maybe. Influenced by farmers, maybe that too. Less fuel mileage, of course. Less power per gallon too. It takes a much higher volume of alcohol to produce the same horsepower as gasoline.

quote:

Originally posted by Opus1:
Regardless of a customer selectable option, it will always be a simple ECU fix. But may cost a buck or two.

They are the most annoying feature on cars today - thanks to the friggen EPA.

I hate these start stop parts.

My BMW X5h has it, and as soon as I get in I set it in SPORT mode.

Takes care of it, and gets you better steering and accelerator response too.

So true. When I use sport or sport + I want to goose the throttle frequently. So, comfort is best for me.

Yes, it's on all the 2020's I think. I hate the "feature" too. But you can pay extra to fix it on your new car.

Hate the ethanol too. All the problems you cited already, plus it fouls up the carburetors on all my small engines.

When I bought my wife a new Grand Cherokee, I discovered this worthless feature. I read the manual and it said that there were 5 conditions that would not allow it to engage. one was if the hood was not completely closed. Simple fix was to find the bayonet switch under the hood and disconnect the wire. This made a small amber light in the gauge cluster come on, but it is so small as to be easily ignored and that was two years ago. No button pushing every time you get in the car, just start it up and drive. YMMV.

Actually, it has become silly.

Each time I get a new car, I have to spend hours sitting in it changing factory settings.

Apart from automatic gear shift, I don’t want any automatic!

Mercedes (for one) had a simple set up on the steering wheel for many years for setting the trip odometer at least through 2013 (Wife's car). Hit the OK, down arrow and OK and it's set to zero. They nailed it, perfect. Then they changed it to 4 or 5 steps.

Even my Ferrari has the god damn auto stop/start.

My Panamera Turbo had a programmable button on the steering wheel, which I used to disable the stop/go, instead of having to use the infotainment screen. Very convenient.

They must have designed these for women!

Every single feature on a car should be available via voice command. Cheap cell phones have it.

On the UConnect system just about everything is voice controlled. Combined with Android Auto, you pretty much have everything you want via voice.

I use some voice commands, but I still punch buttons too.

So how long is a battery or starter going to last in these things?

The starter is seriously beefed up for start-stop vehicles.

quote:

Originally posted by Opus1:
Regardless of a customer selectable option, it will always be a simple ECU fix. But may cost a buck or two.

They are the most annoying feature on cars today - thanks to the friggen EPA.

What’s an ECU fix?

The engine control unit and the controller area network system which controls everything that happens in your vehicle including start/stop functions.

quote:

Originally posted by Opus1:
The engine control unit and the controller area network system which controls everything that happens in your vehicle including start/stop functions.

I'd like to say this is now illegal. When the autostart first showed its ugliness it was bypassable, unfortunately just like the GPF (gas particulate filters) required on new (european) vehicles, removal is illegal. The reason turbos have made a resurgence is not simply due to power, but also emissions regulations. Same with the hybrid sports cars. Yes there is a significant hp boost (but at the expense of weight), but hybridization allows for meeting scheduled regulations ie future city center allowable vehicles.

The GPF thing is a huge talking point among Porsche and Ferrari enthusiasts and the aftermarket exhaust mfg. The exhaust note is noticeably attenuated with the GPF. And putting a GPF on a turbo car needs some trickery to make it sound good. #Exhaust Sound Matters

Track cars of course do not need to meet these regulations, and one of the evils of Ferrari now going public and producing more cars is that they will have to abide by the emissions regulations. I am not a Lambo guy, but because of their limited number of N/A V12s they will not hit the number threshold for GPF requirements.


The MY '20 812 will be the last N/A V12 Ferrari. 12 up front is what made a Ferrari a Ferrari. The US models are the last without a GPF, the MY '20s already delivered in Europe have GPF.

The only good thing about Covid and the protester unrest is that fn little cnt Greta has been sent back to the kiddie table.

About emissions, I think the Obama push for better air quality started the improvements moving in the right direction. I'll give him that. I live right next to a main road to Hershey Park & Chocolate and noticed the much cleaner air from the highway in just a half dozen years or so. But, now this is approaching the level of unobtainium for gasoline powered vehicles. VW corp. already reached their technology limit with diesel output and just quit selling them in the US unless something has changed in that last year or two that I wasn't aware of. I'm still amazed how clean diesel engines run these days. Hat's off to Benz for leading the way with their low-sulphur technology engines back in 2006-2007.
As much as I believe in clean air, it pisses me off when countries like India & China & many others have such high levels of pollutants being put out into the air.

Custombolt, while I applaud emission regulations, they have also lead to things like Ethanol, exhaust regeneration, direct port injection, and auto start/stop features and designs that are all engine killing and performance robbing responses. New aggressive emission standards have forced engine designers to stand on their heads to invent ways to make more efficient engines while trying to hit emission standards. This also has an undesired effect of making car more and more expensive for the consumer.

As we saw in the case of VW and Audi, trying to hit both efficiency and emission standards is nearly impossible so they simply dialed back performance to hit the target - after they were caught of course.

We have defiantly entered into the law of diminishing returns.