Posted on 05/26/2025 6:45:29 AM PDT by dennisw
(NewsNation) — The EPA administrator has promised to end a contentious feature in many automobiles: the automatic start-stop feature that temporarily shuts down engines at red light stops.
Lee Zeldin says the start-stop function, which automakers began installing to reduce emissions in return for federal incentives, annoys most motorists, who consider it “the single worst feature in their motor vehicle.”
“They want it eliminated,” Zeldin told Blake Burman on “The Hill” Thursday.
Democrats say EPA illegally canceled hundreds of grants aimed at boosting ‘environmental justice’ To that end, he said the EPA will seek to revoke its approval of credits that were granted in exchange for the technology’s installation.
The Obama administration originally incentivized start-stop more than a decade ago to improve fuel efficiency. By 2022, an estimated 65% of vehicles in the United States had the feature.
Zeldin suggested the function wouldn’t be so annoying if owners had the option of disabling it wholesale rather than having to do so during each individual trip.
“If it saves a little bit in gas, what is it doing to my starter? What is it doing to my engine? Is it safe?” he said.
The former Republican congressman from New York talked exclusively with NewsNation Thursday after appearing before lawmakers this week to discuss budget and grant cuts his agency is seeking to make. The EPA’s fiscal 2026 budget would be cut by more than half as part of the Trump administration’s efforts to downsize government.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
“We wish that we could at least have an option to turn it off permanently.”
Then why purchase the car? If it had the wrong engine, not roomy enough, bad sound system, or too low to the ground, or a bad chassis with a poor ride, you wouldn’t buy it. There are a number of car companies that have vehicles that don’t have the technology. Lexus, toyota, mazda, subaru, honda, kia, nissan, chevrolet, jeep, and ford are among them. A few even with suv’s with small or midsized trucks or larger. It’s your money. Get what you want. And if enough people don’t purchase the cars because they don’t like the feature, then they sit on the lot and the companies lose out on the money...yours. Maybe they’ll take the hint.
wy69
My 2015 F150 SuperCrew has the feature. I'm still on the original battery. It takes merely a button push to disable it.
OBAMA IS NO AUTO ENGINEER
It uses more fuel to restart the engine than if it were left idling.
I can also imagine someone flooding the engine while trying to restart it, not that I have actually seen that.
HOW ABOUT THE BATTERY BEING LOCATED UNDER THE REAR SEAT?
I CHECK ALL MY FLUID LEVELS REGULARLY-————
THAT WOULD REALLY PISS ME OFF
I was able to disable it with a bluetooth OBDII code reader and an app on one of my cars. If you don’t have a blutooth OBD port tool get one, they’re cheap and turn your smartphone into a scan tool. You can go in and turn off a lot of stupid stuff in the settings. I was able to turn off seatbelt chimes, daytime running lights, make all the doors unlock with one press of the fob button, have the headlights stay on after I park for longer, etc. A lot of the annoying nanny state stuff can be turned off with a scan tool.
And then there is “turbo after cook” on turbo engines.
“And then there is “turbo after cook” on turbo engines.”
Excellent point! Which of course is bad for the oil and the turbo bearings both...
Not letting a Turbo cool down at an idle for a few minutes before shutting the engine down is 90% of premature Turbo Bearing failure. It can actually prematurely damage the waste gate and seat too. They are glowing bright orange in there if you shut them right down...
My wife’s 2016 Jeep Grand Cherokee has this annoying feature. We had to replace the battery a year ago, and found Jeep’s solution was to add a separate, second battery just to run the starter motor. Cost over $400 to replace both batteries. Totally NUTS!
I don’t know if this works on my newer truck or not:
https://youtu.be/lwflQuGuKTE?si=wkPt5mOfKoeMxlwy
You may want to poke around YouTube and search for an Escort hack.
I find I can feather the brake after stopping or near stopping to keep the engine running. Also it seems that the final rate of deceleration affects whether the engine stops.
Best way to put a stop to this foolishness is to refuse to buy a vehicle having this feature & let the dealer know this is the reason.
My apologies to you sir. In a question about it, the answer given was that someone from Toyota originated the idea & I didn’t know that. It makes sense that an inventor or government official would have originated it.
Does that also mean the government could also shut down your car if you disobey them?
Cars today Are far too complicated Making them Excessively unreliable And horribly expensive to repair.
The insurance rate On a new vehicle For me Would exceed the cost Of All of my current home, farm and vehicle insurance combined.
for me, it is the starter wear that is the bigger concern.
Does added wear and tear add to the costs incurred by the rental company? Do they pass that cost onto their customers?
Don’t care?
Damned thing nearly got me into a wreck in a rental ‘cuz it’s so stupid slow starting! Absolutely it’s a hazard, and auto insurance ought to be charging higher rates for customers whose cars have this. Maybe A LOT higher.
I went to pull out into traffic from a stop, and — nothing. Just... zilch. Dead air.
In any other car, ZERO issue getting quite safely into traffic with the substantial gap available to me. Not with this “feature” enabled.
I took my foot off the brake and hit the gas in a cadence that would be perfectly fine in any normal vehicle; even a 20’ box truck. Instead, the stupid car — with my foot off the brake now buried deep in the accelerator demanding action — rolled feebly out into the intersection as a seeming eternity passed, oncoming traffic loomed, gobbling up the last couple hundred feet between us, beginning to feather their brakes, and an otherwise easy opportunity morphed into an increasingly dangerous SNAFU.
The starter kicked the engine to life in the last fading spilt second and I made full demand of all 325 turbocharged horsepower the damned thing could muster — along with a helping of traction control — to correct for its laggardly performance.
Never again on that week long trip did I forget to DISABLE that infernal “feature” whenever I got in.
I WOULD NEVER OWN a car that had this feature if it could not be DISABLED; preferably PERMANENTLY. Absolutely NEVER.
Heh. You’ve kinda touched on why I hate automatic transmissions. However, I did prefer it when I lived in Seattle and spend time in bumper to bumper traffic on the freeway during my commute.
But I have to admit that I never had a problem with a rental car not starting at lights. Usually I didn’t know it was even happening. But yeah, I tried to turn it off when I remembered to do so.
Honestly, I often turn off the engine at lights and in stopped traffic, but only if it’s going to be a while or a known very long light.
Does added wear and tear add to the costs incurred by the rental company? Do they pass that cost onto their customers?
Interesting take on the automatics; I’ve never found myself lacking immediate response except a couple times driving with a transmission in need of an overhaul.
I have a dual clutch automatic that sometimes is slower than I need it to be getting out of the hole after stopping to make a right turn. I brake, stop for an instant, then hit the gas, and the transmission is still finding first gear.
Never had that sort of unresponsiveness happen with any torque converter-equipped automatic.
...
I do agree that engine shutdown is truly not a problem when it’s at the driver’s command and control. Being from L.A. I’ve had a few occasions to just shut down in traffic, but always you could see when it was time to restart and be ready to go when you needed to.
As I think about it, I often double-pedal driving an automatic, so — particularly when it’s a quick stop-and-go sequence, I’m getting into the gas at the same time my left foot is coming off the brake. With the stop/start sensing tied into the brake pedal position, I can see the system just being architecturally unable to restart the engine in time to deliver power at the desired moment.
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