stop/start

A question about : stop/start

Can you please tell me if you can turn off or over-ride a stop/start facility on any/all cars with this function? Thank you.

Best answers:

• Usually yes you can disable it. But you may have to disable it before every journey.
• You generally can, but depending on your driving style you may never activate the function anyway - you have to take your car out of gear, footbrake on, and foot off clutch.
• Some "eco" branded cars you cannot override the system. It activates/deactivates when conditions are correct.
  My Octavia Greenline has this sort of system with no way to override (although non-greenline Octavia do have an override). My Skoda shares the same DNA with VW Bluemotions so i imagine these are similar.
  Out of interest, what is your reservation? I have never heard a reasonable explanation for not wanting these systems. All people say is "i don't like them" but no one can explain why.
• You can on our Mercedes, but as others have said it doesn't take much to ensure the system kick in even though it is operating.
  I have found no reason not to use the system. It works and doesn't impede me in any way.
• Fiat 500 driver, there is a button on the dash to disable but you need to press it before every journey.
  Mine also doesn't kick in until the car is warm but I mostly keep it turned off simply because I can't get my head around that stalled feeling lol
• Only ever sat in one car with stop/start and that was a 3L. There was a switch on the dash called Eco which controlled Stop/Start and also cut the BHP from 70 to just 41.
  No wonder it achieved 117MPG and is still the world record holder for miles per gallon on an actual road.
• Good post Richard.
  Just to add, the starting charging systems on these vehicles have no doubt been designed to cope (well thats what they will tell us), but i don't hear of any makers putting money where mouth is by offering 10 year warranties on the system and its components, and i fully expect the cost of replacement starters etc to far outweigh the savings made over time.
  If people want stopstart and thinks its good, great, buy into it and use it, but some people can't accept that not all of us are actually impressed in any way by these latest techonologies, just something else, unecessary, to go expensively wrong...electric parking brake another example.
• Which of course means that more cars will be scrapped when they are otherwise fine, just because something vital has gone wrong and it will cost more than the car is worth to put it right. Ironic when the whole idea of stop/start is to help the environment.
  Meanwhile, the Series 2 Land Rover, most of whose environmental costs are decades in the past, chugs on, being repaired as needed, usually by the owner.