This could include idling in:
- Shopping centre carparks
- Traffic jams
- School zones
- Drive-thru's
Benefits would be fuel consumption and environmental friendliness
How Long Should You Idle for before Turning off Your Car?
Comments
Idk but I feel like the wear/annoyance of having to constantly turning my car on and off if I'm stopping for 60s would negate the fuel savings….
Maybe I'm just not as stingy as I thought I was lmaoPerhaps F1 has one of those automatic start/stop vehicles?
Vehicles with Stop Start systems require a Stop Start battery. Conventional batteries are not suitable for such vehicles and attempting to use one would not only cause premature battery failure. Stop Start batteries are specially designed to handle the constant cycling and frequent high power bursts which are characteristic of Stop Start systems. When the engine is switched, the battery will continue to power all electrical components including the headlights, radio, air conditioner and wipers and will also then deliver the power to start the engine again when required.
Probably not recommended if your car isn’t a start-stop type system.
More simple start/stop system (eg. No energy regen) uses a bigger efb battery with higher cold crank amps.
I will be more concerned with starter motor failing prematurely.
Once warmed up, I tend to switch of the car if it idles for more than a few minutes.
i only do it when i am sitting at the 2 am maccas run for more than 5 minutes, which isn't too uncommon. still faster than hungry jacks.
Waiting for an apple pie?
nope, it's usually nuggets that take the longest
unless its an old school turbo dont bother
just turn it off
Lately I’ve turned off a few times where I know I’ll be stopped for more than 30sec or so, based on the 7seconds in engineering explained. I don’t always switch off, just sometimes. Two reasons, to save fuel and because it’s a noisy diesel and the quiet is more pleasant.
While it does save fuel. It is easier on the car to let it idle. Based on the idea that heating and cooling is what damages cars. Citation needed.
Would turn off based on a long amount of time.
what? engines stay hot for atleast 1-2 hours after getting to operating temp
Citation certainly needed
It’s not going to heat or cool significantly in a few minutes.
I turn mine off if the wait is more than 15mins, otherwise just let it idle.
Depends how many times you need to start and stop your car to move it. In a traffic jam for example I wouldn't turn it off unless the car has auto start/stop. However if you're parked outside a friends place waiting for them to get changed for more than a minute, I'd turn it off, unless you want to keep the A/C running.
Unless your car is designed to stop-start on its own; you shouldn’t be turning off your car if you’re waiting for less than a minute or 2
The fuel saving in a small engine vehicle would be very little compared to the wear components would sustain from constant re-starts.
Also you’d probably find your car battery would need changing much sooner than usual
I have a stop/start car that tells me how much fuel I've saved from the stop start. After 30,000km/2.5 years of mostly city driving (well, Canberra driving), allowing the stop/start to activate whenever it wants, I've saved just over 4 litres of fuel (of course this doesnt capture me turning the engine off if I'm waiting for someone to come out of the house or whatever)
Now 4L per car x a billion cars is a lot of fuel saved. But 4L for one car over 2.5 years of driving isnt exactly going to be a saving that causes me to spend a great deal of effort. a bit like climate change really…my individual effort means little, but if a billion people made the same effort it might add up to something.
Your car can speak?
Kitt?
.
4L saving and an extra $300 for the special battery replacement.
It does not get better than that.
Exactly.
Also with cars that don’t have that stop start feature; how much extra fuel is used to re-start the car would probably cancel out that 4L saved anyway
The fuel to restart a modern EFI vehicle is equivalent to idling for around 7 seconds. Engineering explained has a good video on YouTube.
if you’re being conservative, 30seconds should more than cover it.
This! Whilst 4L is albeit a very small amount for that much driving (I reset mine with every tank and the saving is about 0.5-0.8L per 60L tank for Sydney driving)
Sydney… Going from one end of the CBD to another is a solid 30 mins journey.
I just preemptively turn it off as I'm rolling to a stop. If it turns out I don't have to actually stop I just slide her into second and clutch out. I also refuse to use my brakes and just do engine braking whenever possible. It means I sometimes redline into second on the highway exit (real sharp turn very early off highway), but that's more so the roads design than anything I'm doing wrong.
It's kind of silly because I hate wasting my brake lights lifespan, but I use headlights all the time.
I do have this weird problem though where my cars all fall apart pretty quick. Must be a family curse or something because everyone that learned from Papa haven't had a manual car last longer than 2 years.
The actual amount saved switching off the car (for ones that are designed for it) is really so insignificant to the point that the extra cost of components (particularly when needing to replace) overcomes any financial benefit.
Nearly all modern Jap (and probs other makes too) with S/S need EFB batteries which have a slightly shorter lifetime (with typical S/S use) and cost around double to purchase.
In my case for my Outback, my OEM battery is heading towards replacement (Jap Factory Panasonic batteries are amazing, mines lasted 7 years now), and having a look at pricing, an EFB is circa $500 whilst a regular (incompatible) battery of the same size is half that at $250.
Given you already have the car, you're committed to an EFB battery. However, an EFB battery is quite a bit stronger, given the design needs for frequent restarting, and thus without using the S/S (manual deactivation) it'll last quite a bit longer, to the point that the minimal savings from fuel would be outweighed by a longer lasting battery.
Probably whatever feels better. Warm starts are not hard on the engine, battery etc.
I found with my motorbike it was actually significantly more relaxing waiting at a long light with the engine off (even with quiet stock exhaust).
Mine is a Hybrid,so as soon as you stop, the motor is not turning over,everything is running off the Lithium batteries.
might save some just turning the aircon off and open a window.
My car idles using 0.7L/hr, turn on the aircon and it ups consumption to 1.1L/hr, a 50% increase at idle.
Check engineering explained on youtube, he said that idling over 7 seconds use more fuel than the amount of fuel required to restart the car.
What I do is if the car is cold (about first 10-15 mins of driving) and I need to stop, I'll let the car idle because cold starts causes the most wear on the car. Once the car is up to operating temp, I shut the car off anytime I feel like I'm stopping for more than a minute.