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.
The first time I experienced this “feature” was in a rental car in Florida. I honestly thought there was something wrong with the car. Why was it stalling out at every stop? I pulled out the owner’s manual and then was able to figure out what was going on. Very annoying. I bought a certified used 2019 CR-V last year because it was the last year that Hondas did not have this.