Rough Start/Stop System - 2015 Porsche Macan S Long-Term Road Test

Edmunds.com

Rough Start/Stop System - 2015 Porsche Macan S Long-Term Road Test

Most new cars and trucks have start/stop systems these days to save fuel. Some are seamless, but the system in our Porsche Macan is too intrusive for my tastes.

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ebeaudoin

Does the system default to "On" with every restart? Also- I'm concerned about the presence of an "Off Road" button in this car...

allthingshonda

Europe, more than anywhere else, uses auto stop/start but their manufacturers have the worst implementation. American auto makers seem to do it better than everybody else. The Asian companies don't seem to like it at all except on hybrids.

joepatch

ebeaudoin said:

Does the system default to "On" with every restart? Also- I'm concerned about the presence of an "Off Road" button in this car...

No, the system will default to OFF if that was the mode you had it set in when you last drove the vehicle.
Not sure what your concern is about the Off Road button, but the Auto Start/Stop will not work if the Off Road button is engaged.

joepatch

Should also note that the Auto Start/Stop feature in the Macan does not work well when the outside temps are below freezing. In fact, the feature did not work for me at all over the last few weeks when the temps in my region of the US were in the single digits F. But now, as temps rose for the first time this year to above 40 Degrees F, the Auto Start/Stop feature has started working.

et90025

Yes, it will impact your mileage. I had mine ON for 5 months and had a running lifetime mileage average of 17.6mpg. When I had guests staying with me, they commented it felt weird, so I turned it Off. The car felt so much better to drive, that I kept it off for 2 weeks. When I next checked my mileage with the on-board computer, it had dropped to 17.3mpg. I reactivated it and in the last 2 weeks, I'm back up to 17.6mpg. I've been doing the same daily commute of city and highway miles the whole time. The culprit is both the idle time at stoplights as well as the "coasting" function, which is also deactivated when Stop/Start is turned off. At highway speeds, if you lift off the throttle, the car goes into coast mode and decouples the transmission so the engine drops to idle speed. Apparently this all adds up rather quickly to impact the MPGs.

joepatch

Yes, @et90025, I would agree the idle time stops and the coasting function that comes along with Auto Start/Stop noticeably improves gas mileage. In the 9 days I have used Auto Start/Stop, I have seen my mixed city/highway driving go from around 18.x to 21.x mpg.