Stop/Start

[sarahjo89]

hii,

Just wondering if anyone could help me? I bought a used 59 Cooper last December when it was just under a year old. The dealer told me about stop/start etc but said it probably wouldn't work when i drove it away as it was cold and icy and it doesn't work in cold temperatures.

Anyway, as the months went on the weather got better but my stop/start still didn't work. I checked the handbook and saw that it doesn't work in certain conditions etc, but it is now 11 months on and it has only worked ONCE and that was around August time. I do a lot of rush hour driving to and from work, where i rarely get over 15/20mph but i have done normal driving too - driving from Manchester to Stoke (not on motorway) but it still didn't do it.

Last month rang up the service number for the local dealer and the lady advised me to keep an eye on it and mention it when my car goes in for a service in December this year. She said if I took it in they would do a diagnostics test - if it was a fault with the car they would fix it for free. If it was due to how I drive, they would charge me for the diagnostics :-( been keeping an eye on it and it still hasn't worked. But i have also noticed when I am stopped at lights for example and have my foot on the clutch, sometimes the revs seem to drop like it's going to stall but then goes back to normal!? Confused.

I have it booked in for it's first service on 26th Nov and was going to mention it to them. Has anyone else had/know what the problem is? I don't want them to fob me off by reeling off the list of conditions it doesn't work in, make out it's not worked due to how and drive and expect me to pay a diagnostics test.

Also, on another note - my dealer said the car had a TLC pack when I bought it. I looked through my documents last night and couldn't see any TLC paperwork? The service woman said I just needed to leave my service book on the passenger seat as it is my first service...do they give you the TLC pack on the first service or should I already have it?!

thanks for any help!
sarah

[Angib]

My experience is that the battery needs to be in tip-top condition for the stop/start to operate - a poor battery will start and run the car just fine, but not be good enough to persuade the stop/start to work.

Rush-hour commuting is an ideal way of never charging the battery to perfect condition, but it's surprising that Manchester to Stoke didn't persuade it to start working - though you don't say if there were other factors, like cold weather.

Mine, right now, will use the stop/start after I've driven it a long distance (>50 miles) at motorway speeds but around town or rural driving it won't.

Think of the stop/start as an expensive battery condition gauge - like mine, your battery will probably need replacing in the next year or two!

[sarahjo89]

Battery is an option, do you think that may explain why the revs drop and it feels like it's stalling sometimes? But surely it should last longer than this - i got the car with about 6900 miles and it's only on 12700 now and isn't 2 years old until middle of Dec.

Yeah I expected the Stoke trip to make it work. It was the middle of May, not hot or cold. Hardly any traffic for 90% of the journey. But weirdly the only time it worked was on my way back from Trafford centre, where I went through manchester city centre to pick my other half up from football and got stuck in football traffic on my way home....only about 20 mile journey. I asked my boss as she had a 58 cooper, her stop/start worked straight away even when she was driving into work. Don't understand it =(

I don't know whether to wait and see if the service make a difference or whether to mention it when I drop it off. If it's faulty I want it fixing, but if it's just me being overly paranoid I don't want to fork out money for the diagnostics. Maybe I should try some longer journeys after my service.

Thanks for your response!

[Cooper S Jon]

why are you worried because it doesn't turn the engine off..

mine gets turned off as soon as i start the car..

[sarahjo89]

The same reason I'd be worried if my lights wouldn't turn on. If it's meant to do something and doesn't do it then there's clearly a problem so I'm asking for advise

[timp]

TLC - you should have a booklet (or at least I've got one for my 59 Dooper)
Stop/Start - do you have a lot of other stuff running? HRW?, lights, heated seats - all that sort of stuff will drop the battery voltage below the threshold needed for stop/start. That said, my 22k miles 59 car still stop/starts fine buy my daily commute is 30-odd miles each way so it gets a decent run.

[blade929]

You wrote above

"But i have also noticed when I am stopped at lights for example and have my foot on the clutch, sometimes the revs seem to drop like it's going to stall but then goes back to normal!?"

I am sure you already know, but the Stop/Start won't function if you have your foot on the clutch anyway. You need to be Stopped, gear in Neutral and have NOT got the Clutch Pressed.

[sarahjo89]

Hahaa yeah I'm not completely stupid and I know my foot has to be off clutch and in neutral. It was just an example of something else I thought wasn't quite right?

Rarely have anything else on. On way home from work now it's dark so I do have lights and heaters on to warm car up but then turn the heaters off/down really low when warm enough. But in the summer when I didn't need heaters/lights and hardly used air con it still didnt work.

Most of my daily driving is only about 10 miles each way and in a lot of traffic, but other times when it's not busy and driving 30/40 mph it still doesn't kick in. I know some people find the stop/start function annoying, but I'm frustrated that after almost a year of having the car, it has worked once.

TLC-slightly worrying that I don't have a booklet. Although the woman at the service when I rang her and mentioned it's a tlc service...wouldn't she have it on the system?

=(

[Angib]

Quote: Originally Posted by sarahjo89 (original)

TLC-slightly worrying that I don't have a booklet.

Not according to my service advisor - who advised me to throw the booklet away since they don't pay any attention to the paperwork nowadays.

[sarahjo89]

Oh, if I don't need it that's ok. Just thought I would as thought they needed to see it and tear bits out of it? That's alright then =)

[Mattstorm]

The stop start in my opinion has a mind of its own. I've recently had my Mini checked for this. My journey to work is 25 mins on 60mph A roads and sometimes my stop start will not work even though all criteria are met. I also noticed in the book there is a symbol which is supposed to appear on screen when you press the de-activation button. In my book next to this symbol it says "stop start deacitvated due to button in centre console" when I press this I get no symbol, also my stop start was not working. Mini told me you are not supposed to get such a symbol so the book is wrong and my stop start is fine, no faults and the reason it didn't work is because there are alot more criteria for it to work than whats in the book. Apparently I had some environmental blockers on my system which when he read them out did not make sense in terms of how I drive etc.. So in other words, the system is weird and I wouldn't worry about it.

[sarahjo89]

Yeah i don't think my button shows any symbols either, because I was pressing it thinking i'd accidently knocked it getting in the car and de-activated it by mistake but nothing showed up when i pushed it. so has your's worked at all? I just don't want it to not be working due to something which might later affect other things, like some people have said it might be a poor battery. I don't even know how to charge the battery otherwise I'd give that a try! Environmental blockers? Maybe i'll ask the service person on Saturday and see what advise they give me. Pretty pointless trying to get it sorted now considering the cold weather will set in and it then it won't work anyway. Thanks!

[miniblo]

A girlie at work has a 2010 Cooper D and her start stop works all the time...

The 2010 Cooper that I test drove and will be bringing home this saturday didn't do it once on the test drive.

True, if it is supposed to do it then it should, or at least the exact conditions or factors that stop it working should be published.

Am I bothered that it didn't work though - no probably not - I'm from the old school when your car cutting out in traffic meant there was something wrong with it

[Mattstorm]

Yeah mine sometimes works but sometimes it doesn't when I think it should. When I went in to Mini they showed me a printout of all my blockers and how many of each had occurred. I was none the wiser afterwards. They did tell me that the battery goes through a cycle of charging from 60% up to 85% I think and it fluctuates between the two, if the car thinks your journey isn't going to be sufficient and its on the low side then it won't cut in. The car also resets during a sleep cycle which I think is about 6 hours. If you take it for a good drive after work then leave it over night the following morning take a longer route to work and after a few miles come to a stop and give it a try, it should work. I drove 13 miles home once and it didn't work on 7 occasions, turned it off and left it over night, the next morning I did 2 miles then stopped and it kicked in. I'm quite close to Manchester so weather wise we should be quite similar and its still warm enough at the moment for it to work.

If you did have a problem with the battery you will probably get a warning on the screen too.

[timp]

It would be good to see a definitive list of all the things that need to be a certain state for the stop/start to work - sounds like there is quite a few, any one of which could scupper it!