MCViewPoint

If you don’t think your engine’s still running, you might forget to turn it off. Well, you might forget to push the ignition button off – because the engine isn’t running right now. It seems to be off.

So you think it is, don’t push Off  . . . and leave the car.

Which starts running again a few minutes after you left.

This can – and is – happening because of Automated StartStop (ASS) the new “feature” many new cars come standard with as a fuel-saving measure. Whenever the car stops, so does the engine – the idea being that a non-running engine doesn’t burn any gas or emit any gas. The gains – and reductions – are almost immeasurably small per car but necessary from the standpoint of regulatory compliance – the fuel economy and emissions fatwas that are becoming otherwise impossible to comply with – without switching over to electric cars, which is another story.

So ASS automatically turns the engine off whenever the car isn’t moving, as at a red light or when traffic stops moving. When the driver takes his foot off the brake and depresses the gas pedal, the engine automatically restarts itself and the car resumes moving.

That’s the theory. Here’s the problem:

ASS can’t tell the difference between stopping for a red light or because traffic has temporarily stopped – and stopping because you’re parking. If you forget to push the ignition button off – which is easy to do when the engine has already turned itself off – the engine will restart after awhile, even if the car isn’t moving (and you’re no longer in it) because otherwise the battery runs down – because electrically powered accessories will still be powered if the ignition is still on.

If the engine kicks itself back to life when the car is outside, it’s no big deal. Gas will be wasted – and emitted – as the engine idles.

But if it idles for hours in your garage, it could be a very big deal – if the gasses emitted find their way into your house…

Several people have already been killed by the gasses emitted from cars left unintentionally idling – a modern problem that first arose when keyless/push-button ignition system came online in mass-marketed cars in the early 2000s…

People in a hurry or not paying attention no longer had to shut off the engine in order to remove a physical key. It was now possible for them to assume they’d shut off the engine – because they thought they’d pushed the Off button . . .  and walk away from a still-running car.

If you’ve had a chance to drive a car with pushbutton ignition, you already know all about this. Some systems require an extended push to register the driver’s intentions. If you don’t push – and hold – the button long enough, the engine sometimes stays on. Or it comes back on (if you press the button too long).

You have to make sure the engine is in fact off in a way that was never necessary when keys were used to turn an engine on – and off.

ASS has compounded this problem by actually shutting off the engine  . . . temporarily.

But the ignition is still on – and if that’s not very deliberately turned off, the engine will come back on…

Be seeing you