Start/stop

[BigDave982]

Hi all

Not really a problem as such,more annoyance. S/S dont really do a lot. Ive had the car since end of Jan and reckon its worked about twice in yhat time. 

Ive read the manual about how certain paramaters have to be met oil temp etc but as said above it dosent do a lot. 

Normal journey to work is about 7 miles, water temp gets up to normal ok . The most recent time it work was when this journey took extra 20 mins , scared the life out of me when it cut out!!

Today out and about fo 40 odd miles, nope still not working.

The little A sign top of maxidot comes on to show it isnt working as it is supposed to.

 

The pool car at work is a 2014 octavia , not sure what engine but is diesel and on this it seems to work all the time.

As said more of an annoyance as id like it to work in the daily crawl to save a bit of fuel.

Thanks dave

Edited 19 March, 2018 by BigDave982

[bigjohn]

There are a variety of reasons as to why S/S might not work including outside temperature and battery condition/charge level as there has to be a lot of conditions met for it to function

 

My 2014 Superb doesn't seem to Stop/Start on very cold mornings (didn't this morning) but seems to work in the evenings at the moment.  Although it's quite hard to spot when it does function until you hear the starter motor as you dip the clutch.

 

Not sure what model you have but settings on the climate control can affect whether it works (mine is the Bobby basic S model with just air con)

 

[BigDave982]

Thanks formreply, further prodding suggests battery isnt all it could be. 12.3v resting 14.7 running

 

[TLV]

How's the battery doing on your car? Is it EFB, AGM? Start-Stop puts a great strain on the battery. If the battery is healthy, start-stop works often but as time goes on, it works less and less due to the battery wearing.

 

To get start-stop properly working on my car I'd have to buy a new AGM battery to replace my common lead-acid one, but the replacement battery costs more than the fuel it'd help to save in the long run, just for stop-start. My Superb indicates a consumption of 0.6-0.7 litres per hour when idling. It's barely anything. In fact, it's needed to keep the engine warm. If the engine cools down, start-stop will not function anyway. If start-stop turns the engine off, the electronics will be running off the battery. It also takes power to restart the engine. Whatever charge you've used from the battery, you will use extra fuel to charge it back.

 

Take into consideration how much fuel your car takes while idling and how much time you spend waiting at traffic lights. If the waits are long enough, the engine will be started before you start to move again. I barely spend time waiting for the green light. How much do you? 7 miles is a rather short journey. Start-stop only helps to save fuel under rather specific conditions.

 

I'm not sure if it works this way but it's likely the car avoids charging the battery when idling if the battery is not too low. Ideally the car recovers energy to charge the battery when braking. If the battery were fully charged, you couldn't recover the energy to anywhere when braking.

[bigjohn]

22 minutes ago, TLV said:

How's the battery doing on your car? Is it EFB, AGM? Start-Stop puts a great strain on the battery.

 

 

 

Good point , having a EFB or AGM battery is important. As well as stop/start the battery has to cope with the energy reclaim charge spikes which can damage a standard battery (In some cars this can cause an explosion!)

[BigDave982]

Looks like original varta

[TLV]

Skoda has been known to be stingy with the batteries they install, using pretty much the cheapest ones they can get away with. If your battery really is a regular lead-acid one and not AGM or EFB, there's most likely your culprit. If you do end up replacing the battery, make sure to get the car coded, so battery management will take proper care of the new battery, otherwise there really isn't a point in replacing the battery unless the current one is dead. Skipping battery coding should only be done if the replacement battery is identical (same type and amp hours).

 

Take a closer look at the battery to make sure which model it is. If it actually is an EFB/AGM one, it's just too tired for start-stop to work. Decent places that sell batteries can also load test it. Checking the voltage only reveals a part of the story. You can also check the battery voltage while cranking the engine.

Edited 19 March, 2018 by TLV

[TasMan]

Interesting thread. My 2014 Estate has Start/Stop and is on its original battery I believe.  For me the novelty of it wore off, I do approx. 17 miles each way to work and the first thing I now do is switch it off after starting :-)  Maybe I am a bit old school and prefer the engine running, but would like to think it is helping to preserve the battery life and perhaps the starter motor/gearing from excess wear and tear.  The fuel I would save I don't think will make much difference to the 42MPG I get as most of my running is dual carriageway/rural.

[BigDave982]

Im thinking that if the battery is dieing it needs a new one anyway,gonna let me down sooner or later.

Of to euros and then enter the world of battery coding

Oh joy

[BigDave982]

Update

New battery fitted 70ah agm jobbie from euros 138quid

Coded successfully by altering ah and changing serial number by 1as lion brand dont have bem sticker. Left brand at jcb i think it was.

Also i now have the cruise speed on maxidot and fuel quantity to add in mfd.

 

SS now apears to work, only went round the block to test.

Ive read the comments from you guys, thanks. I like things to work as they should and now have the option to turn it off.

 

 

So feeling smug

Apart from dropping battery clamp bolt into the depths.

Edited 20 March, 2018 by BigDave982

[TLV]

When coding the battery, there's three things that should be changed/checked. The serial number (can be pretty much anything that's not the old one, as long as the car accepts the coding.), amp hours and the type of the battery. If your car came with a regular lead-acid battery, it's coded for one. If you didn't change that, the car will not damage the new AGM battery but it will not take full use of it. However, if the car is coded for an AGM battery and you install a regular lead-acid one, that's when things can go boom (battery can get overcharged).

[BigDave982]

8 minutes ago, TLV said:

When coding the battery, there's three things that should be changed/checked. The serial number (can be pretty much anything that's not the old one, as long as the car accepts the coding.), amp hours and the type of the battery. If your car came with a regular lead-acid battery, it's coded for one. If you didn't change that, the car will not damage the new AGM battery but it will not take full use of it. However, if the car is coded for an AGM battery and you install a regular lead-acid one, that's when things can go boom (battery can get overcharged).

A varta agm came off,im guessing the original, new one slightly highr capacity so changed accordingly

[TLV]

If it was an AGM, then yes, no need to change the type. Glad to hear things worked out for you. Not exactly cheap, but at least it was an easy fix.

 

I've been considering getting an AGM battery to replace my lead-acid one, but it's not dead nor dying, so it doesn't make sense. The car started great even after the coldest night this winter.

[TasMan]

23 hours ago, BigDave982 said:

 

Also i now have the cruise speed on maxidot and fuel quantity to add in mfd.

 

 

Good news all is now well.  I am interested in the coding of the cruise speed and fuel quantity.  Yours is a 2014 Superb ?  As is mine, the lack of cruise speed I find annoying, I only have the green indicator when its switched on.  Was this done through VCDS ?  Does your CC drop out when changing up a gear out of interest ?  Thanks

[BigDave982]

Tasman yes,through vcds. All i did was go to instruments ,adaptations and scroll down through list. 

If memory serves CC was a case of selecting active from inactive .Saw a thread somewhere on here where member said he just turned cc on.

Fuel quantity just needed changing to yes.

Note when stationary my odometer shows mileage, when moving speed setting is shown

 

Yes cruise drops out when changing gear

And yes its a 2014 tdi superb elegance

Edited 21 March, 2018 by BigDave982

[TasMan]

Thanks BigDave...sounds straightforward with vcds.  I have had a couple of Skoda courtesy cars (Octavia, Rapid) where the CC stays engaged on changing up a gear, just shows how things move on with different models/years.

[jafo]

I have 2014 - 64 plate with DSG - and CC will drop only when brake pedal is pressed.

[linni]

6 hours ago, TasMan said:

 I am interested in the coding of the cruise speed and fuel quantity.  Yours is a 2014 Superb ?  As is mine, the lack of cruise speed I find annoying, I only have the green indicator when its switched on.  Was this done through VCDS ?  Does your CC drop out when changing up a gear out of interest ?  Thanks

 

1.     Cruise speed

 

- enter module 17 - Instruments
- click 10 - Adaptation
- select channel from the drop-down menu and scroll downwards until you find  Cruise Control Display
- select "Active" from the new value drop-down meny
- click Do it!

[bigjohn]

5 hours ago, jafo said:

I have 2014 - 64 plate with DSG - and CC will drop only when brake pedal is pressed.

 

On my manual 2014 manual CC also drops when the clutch pedal is dipped. Also Stop start will not kill the engine until the car is not moving, the gearbox is in neutral and the clutch pedal is up.

 

Personally I don't mind stop / start on my facelift but :-

• if I know I'll be on the move quickly after stopping I leave the clutch down (if I remember!) to stop it cutting out.
• I also don't like stop /start kicking in shortly after the engine has started from cold which it will do if I let it when leaving work as there is a set of traffic lights within a few 100 meters of setting off 
• Until I got used to it my mind paniced a bit when I dipped the clutch and I didn't hear the starter, even to the point I was about to restart manually - however the problem was the engine was still running!!!

 

Should I worry about wearing out the starter motor / ring gear? or have the oily bits been beefed up?

 

 

 

Edited 21 March, 2018 by bigjohn

[linni]

I disabled start/stop peranently ages ago. Got too annoiyng.

[jafo]

The only thing wrong with CC is that it is too "sensitive" on DSG - it should work halfway - not when you just touch the brake.

 

Yes, you can learn how much you can press the brake - but you need to be very delicate - too close to the point when clutch is slipping. 

[jafo]

Of course I was talking about S/S

[TLV]

Stop-start only functions when the engine is warm enough and there's enough charge in the battery to definitely start the car. If the battery starts running low while the engine has been stopped automatically, the engine will re-start to charge it back up. If the car thinks it's warm enough to stop the engine, it's fine. It's common knowledge that cold starts contribute a lot to overall engine wear, but not so with hot starts. Cars with stop-start come with better starters as a part of the package to prevent them from wearing out prematurely. If you permanently disable start-stop, you'll still benefit from the uprated starter, especially with cold starts.

 

In my rough guesstimation, stop-start ends up costing more in battery wear than it helps with saving fuel in most scenarios. But the difference is insignificant due to batteries wearing out over time anyhow and difficult to measure since the benefit of start-stop is minuscule and batteries last for years.