[ezaircon4jc]

I have a friend/neighbor that was a mechanic for the USPS. I asked him about wear & tear on the starters of their vehicles as they are always, well, starting and stopping. He said the starters were the most replaced part on the USPS residential delivery vehicles.

[G30M]

Originally Posted by ezaircon4jc

I have a friend/neighbor that was a mechanic for the USPS. I asked him about wear & tear on the starters of their vehicles as they are always, well, starting and stopping. He said the starters were the most replaced part on the USPS residential delivery vehicles.

this guy talks for 30 mins to make 3-4 points, can you tell me what he said?

starter wears out but is there wear on the engine?

[Chappers 71]

On my G31 it’s coded to remember last setting, which is usually off, if I’m in eco mode I tend to have it on.

[ppointer]

Originally Posted by sorin1987

Noob question but why are people coding it out? Just so that you don't have to press the button to disable it when you start the car anymore? I just press both the START and Disable ASS at the same time. Are there other benefits of completely disabling it?

+1 on @Joe-BMW33 reply. My '22 doesn't have the disable button, and there is no standard way to option it out through iDrive. Sport mode will take care of it, but my wife never chooses sport mode and she hates ASS.

[NGT2]

It’s mostly useless. It has to be a very specific traffic situation to really save you anything. It’s just a bullshit trick to make regulators happy.

[Chappers 71]

Originally Posted by NGT2

It’s mostly useless. It has to be a very specific traffic situation to really save you anything. It’s just a bullshit trick to make regulators happy.

It helps meet the emissions regulations & only bothers people like us

[ezaircon4jc]

Originally Posted by G30M

this guy talks for 30 mins to make 3-4 points, can you tell me what he said?

starter wears out but is there wear on the engine?

What has been said above; it's a scam to meet CAFE. I'd imagine that if it's harmful to the starter, it can't be easy on the flexplate.

[Neusser]

Originally Posted by NGT2

It’s mostly useless. It has to be a very specific traffic situation to really save you anything. It’s just a bullshit trick to make regulators happy.

It's mostly useful. Over here, people would typically turn off their cars in traffic jams, a hassle that is no longer necessary. My wife even did this in the US before we decided to pull up and move to Germany (where she is from). It was engrained. Her father was an automotive engineer. I realize this concept is entirely foreign to people who've never thought much about it.

About the only place it is not useful is in stop and go traffic where it de- and reactivates in too short a time span, which is annoying and, ofc, rather ineffective.

One of the reasons I can get such great average consumption is that the engine switches off at longer lights.

[NGT2]

Originally Posted by Neusser

It's mostly useful. Over here, people would typically turn off their cars in traffic jams, a hassle that is no longer necessary. My wife even did this in the US before we decided to pull up and move to Germany (where she is from). It was engrained. Her father was an automotive engineer. I realize this concept is entirely foreign to people who've never thought much about it.

About the only place it is not useful is in stop and go traffic where it de- and reactivates in too short a time span, which is annoying and, ofc, rather ineffective.

One of the reasons I can get such great average consumption is that the engine switches off at longer lights.

👍

[Knifeedge2k1]

It does what they claim (saves gas and reduces emissions) by definition because if the engine isn’t running it obviously doesn’t do either.

It will absolutely add more wear/tear with it on than off. There’s no way you can get around the fact that when the engine is off, there’s no oil pressure. Granted a warm/hot start isn’t as bad as a cold start when it comes to bearing wear…but it isn’t good either. No coating is going to last forever. Will using ASS automatically mean you will need to trash your engine prematurely? No. If you do loads of highway miles you might have ASS kick in only a handful of times per tank of gas but if you’re in start and go city traffic exclusively it might be hundreds of times or even over a thousand times per tank (which is like a year or two’s worth of starting/stopping).

Ultimately whether you want to use it is up to you.

“Starter wear” isn’t the thing that I care about. Starters aren’t really that expensive….bearings however are. Is it a silly consideration? Probably. Am I REALLY going to experience bearing failure before I trash my car? Probably not but I also don’t really care about the 0.5-1.0liters per hour I’d be saving.

Is it wasteful? Yes. But I also drive for fun, which is by definition 100% waste so the tiny amounts ASS affects is just mental masturbation in the grand scheme of things.

[Neusser]

Originally Posted by Knifeedge2k1

It does what they claim (saves gas and reduces emissions) by definition because if the engine isn’t running it obviously doesn’t do either.

It will absolutely add more wear/tear with it on than off. There’s no way you can get around the fact that when the engine is off, there’s no oil pressure. Granted a warm/hot start isn’t as bad as a cold start when it comes to bearing wear…but it isn’t good either. No coating is going to last forever. Will using ASS automatically mean you will need to trash your engine prematurely? No. If you do loads of highway miles you might have ASS kick in only a handful of times per tank of gas but if you’re in start and go city traffic exclusively it might be hundreds of times or even over a thousand times per tank (which is like a year or two’s worth of starting/stopping).

Ultimately whether you want to use it is up to you.

“Starter wear” isn’t the thing that I care about. Starters aren’t really that expensive….bearings however are. Is it a silly consideration? Probably. Am I REALLY going to experience bearing failure before I trash my car? Probably not but I also don’t really care about the 0.5-1.0liters per hour I’d be saving.

Is it wasteful? Yes. But I also drive for fun, which is by definition 100% waste so the tiny amounts ASS affects is just mental masturbation in the grand scheme of things.

They've beefed up most of the relevant components. I wouldn't worry much about it unless you are in constant stop-and-go traffic, where it is ofc annoying and pointless.

For everything else, it does the job well.

[Knifeedge2k1]

Originally Posted by Neusser

They've beefed up most of the relevant components. I wouldn't worry much about it unless you are in constant stop-and-go traffic, where it is ofc annoying and pointless.

For everything else, it does the job well.

It's all about tradeoffs

Whether it is worth it is something that you decide on an independent case by case basis

The benefits are fuel and carbon savings (actually same thing), the magnitude of which depends on your driving conditions.

The costs are all the potential /actual wear and bla bla bla. Extra complication/weight in the system (obviously this isn't remedied by turning it off, we're talking about design stage tradeoffs for this point).

Personally I don't think the tradeoffs are worth it and I think these systems, especially earlier iterations (though somewhat true for all of them) were kinda half assed to meet regulatory targets. A PHEV or the older type hybrid(prius) really truly were designed with this in mind so you know EVERY component was designed with this user case in mind.

On a normal ICE car especially one who's engine was not a clean sheet design probably didn't have as much of it designed with this use case. Sure they can do simple changes like upgrading the starter or changing the bearings for something of a different spec. But fundamental things can't be changed. How efficient is the cooling/oiling system operating@0 rpms? How long does it take to build up oil pressure? This one might sound stupid but start stop operation is such that you go from engine@0rpm to IMMEDIATELY on load in less than a second (even more so if you have a heavy foot)... That's like 10 turns of the crank...

To me the tradeoff is characterised by at best minor gains and costs which are either also equally minor... Or really really bad. It's a lobsided cost/benefit.

[Alscoob]

In my last F31 340i & the 330d before that the ASS was terrible, slow to kick in with the cranking of the starter and would activate it self just when you were wanting to make a swift exit out of a junction, so could just make what would have normally been an okay move into the opposite. I had it set to remember the last setting on start up which ended up with it being off all the time.

Move forward to the G31 LCi and there is no button to turn it off, however if you select any sport mode it will disable it, so on coming up to a junction I just knock the gear lever into sport and as I pull away put it back to normal. Yes a bit of a faf but becomes second nature over time. Also being MHT the starter is not the traditional type it's more an electric motor slight wirr not a typical starter clunk engage, so if it has activated it is virtually seamless when it starts and is, by comparison to older systems, very quick and quiet. It is definately a pain if you are in slow / stop / start traffic as it's forever cutting in & out, so in those situations I just leave it in sport mode.

Is it worth it? big question, but when it's working and combined with the coast function and a long run I think it is. Certainly allows me to achieve (so far) a max of 41mpg (uk) on a reasonably long run mix of A roads & motorways which is amazing for a 540i, could never get that from the F31 340i. So I've accepted the function and use the option of sport to control it given that it will improve mpg overall. The system is definately far more refined than it used to be.

[Joe-BMW33]

I’ll note that when the car is new, the restart is smooth, but over time, they develop a delay and hesitation. Already noticing this on my X5.

[Neusser]

Originally Posted by Knifeedge2k1

It's all about tradeoffs

Whether it is worth it is something that you decide on an independent case by case basis

The benefits are fuel and carbon savings (actually same thing), the magnitude of which depends on your driving conditions.

The costs are all the potential /actual wear and bla bla bla. Extra complication/weight in the system (obviously this isn't remedied by turning it off, we're talking about design stage tradeoffs for this point).

Personally I don't think the tradeoffs are worth it and I think these systems, especially earlier iterations (though somewhat true for all of them) were kinda half assed to meet regulatory targets. A PHEV or the older type hybrid(prius) really truly were designed with this in mind so you know EVERY component was designed with this user case in mind.

On a normal ICE car especially one who's engine was not a clean sheet design probably didn't have as much of it designed with this use case. Sure they can do simple changes like upgrading the starter or changing the bearings for something of a different spec. But fundamental things can't be changed. How efficient is the cooling/oiling system operating@0 rpms? How long does it take to build up oil pressure? This one might sound stupid but start stop operation is such that you go from engine@0rpm to IMMEDIATELY on load in less than a second (even more so if you have a heavy foot)... That's like 10 turns of the crank...

To me the tradeoff is characterised by at best minor gains and costs which are either also equally minor... Or really really bad. It's a lobsided cost/benefit.

The gains are worth any minor tradeoffs in component longevity, IMO. I use noticibly less fuel when stop/start is on, and the kind of driving for which I leave it on is boring anyways.

[NGT2]

Originally Posted by Neusser

The gains are worth any minor tradeoffs in component longevity, IMO. I use noticibly less fuel when stop/start is on, and the kind of driving for which I leave it on is boring anyways.

I’m not saying you’re wrong, I’m sure you’re correct in your use case. But you’re probably the only person I’ve ever seen say this. The gains for most are minimal to zero. And when the car is off, the climate control doesn’t work well. So if you’re sitting stopped for long enough to actually save money, I hope you’re in a very friendly climate that requires little use of climate control.

It’s a feature they’d have never put in if it didn’t help artificially boost some regulation economy numbers. Not saying that makes it useless for everyone. But it’s not a feature that would otherwise be worth engineering.

[Neusser]

Originally Posted by NGT2

The gains for most are minimal to zero. .

So turn it off.

[NGT2]

Originally Posted by Neusser

So turn it off.

I do! But you can’t on later models. Our X7 won’t turn it off unless it’s in Sport mode

[Neusser]

Originally Posted by NGT2

I do! But you can’t on later models. Our X7 won’t turn it off unless it’s in Sport mode

Then I guess you will have to drive in sport mode.

[NGT2]

Originally Posted by Neusser

Then I guess you will have to drive in sport mode.

Haha I do!

Although sport mode in a X7 40i isn’t exactly like in a G30

[Joe-BMW33]

Originally Posted by NGT2

Haha I do!

Although sport mode in a X7 40i isn’t exactly like in a G30

The real question is - does the wife drive in sport mode as a means to kill it?? I know she is the primary driver. On the X5 which is primarily driven by my girlfriend, she doesn't even know ASS is there or how to go into sport mode!

I agree with everything you said on ASS. It's amazing what some people latch onto and dismiss as acceptable wear and tear but complain about digital clusters as just something expensive that will break. Contrarians just to be contrarians.

[NGT2]

Originally Posted by Joe-BMW33

The real question is - does the wife drive in sport mode as a means to kill it?? I know she is the primary driver. On the X5 which is primarily driven by my girlfriend, she doesn't even know ASS is there or how to go into sport mode!

I agree with everything you said on ASS. It's amazing what some people latch onto and dismiss as acceptable wear and tear but complain about digital clusters as just something expensive that will break. Contrarians just to be contrarians.

She knows it turns it off. She does it when it bugs her. It is a better system than my old 2018 540, so sometimes you don’t even notice it.

The 2020 M50 we drove DID still have the off button. Which means I could could it out with Bimmercode…