[Arragonis]

Hi all,

I have used Engine on coasting vs fuel cut off when I lift off the pedal. I have done some research on an empty road into what works and what doesn't when my engine is off and the car is moving. Basically it comes down to brakes, steering and lights.

Important note to anyone doing this - check your steering column lock is free when your engine is off with the key. I did this stationary first.

Brakes - assistance is gone and without it you could probably stop the car a few times, but you need to body-build (yourself) to make it work in a hurry. Moderating the effort is harder too - its like getting into an older car (I have an MGB w/o assistance so I'm OK with it).

Steering - PAS goes. But none-PAS in my car is 5-10x heavier than PAS. Any sharp adjustements needed, like avoidance and so on is not going to happen. The engine weighs a lot in this car (1.9 litre, turbo etc.).

Lights - mine go off with the ignition so at night (I'm as north as St Petersburg here) its not an option in the total dark.


As a supplementary question I would like to ask about turning your engine off at lights. I hit a lot of them that just cannot be "timed", so I've started to do this - seems to work well. Except Ford have launched the new Focus Econetic with Stop-Start (excellent as it gets into Band A in uk.gov taxation which was reserved for Hybrids - I feel happy about this as driving one annoys Gordon B who cannot collect tax on me ;-) but one of the changes they specified was an uprated starter.

So, question is - does my own stop-start regime risk breaking the starter ? I have had cars of >200K miles and despite a lot of them having Lucas (aka - Prince of Darkness) electrics I can count the number of starters I have replaced on the fingers of no fingers. Nope, never. I don't stop for anything more than 5 mins so the radio and sidelights will be OK - I think, and this is usually after a longer battery charging journey. And the battery is "man" enough to start my 1.9 Diesel from cold.