Quote:
Originally Posted by EcoCivic
A killswitch would be a good idea if you plan on killing the engine regularly, it's much easier and safer than messing with the key and would save substantial wear on the ignition switch in the long run. But first, I would do some testing to see if killing the engine rather than letting it idle is significantly beneficial for your driving style. For what it's worth, when I tried EOC, I saw a slight drop in my average MPG if I killed the engine when it was still cold, presumably because doing so significantly delayed warmup. By a narrow margin, I seemed to get the best results with EOC by killing the engine only after the coolant was fully warm, but we're talking about +/- about 1-2 MPG, so easily within testing variance.
193-197 degrees coolant temp is about 10 degrees hotter than I see with an OEM thermostat, but still perfectly fine. Perhaps someone installed a hotter thermostat. The OEM fan switch is supposed to activate at 93 degrees C (~199 degrees F) according to the service manual, but since the fan switch is on the thermostat housing and sees cooled return coolant while the temp sensor sees hot supply coolant, that seems to translate to the fans activating at about 204 degrees F indicated coolant temp on my car. So as long as you aren't seeing 200+ degrees, the fans shouldn't be on.
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I sincerely appreciate all this info! That's great to hear that the fan doesn't turn on until ~200+ degrees, I don't think I've even seen the car go past 200 more than a handful of times due to how short my trips are.
I believe an EOC kill switch would definitely be an improvement for me, as my average coasting speed in neutral is at max 30-40kph (19-25mph). Neutral coasting typically results in an indicated 5-8L/100km (47-29mpg) on my SGII. My engine usually doesn't even get fully warmed up on my short trips, so I don't think it will negatively impact that aspect of my efficiency.
IF I end up doing a kill switch, I also worry about the degradation of the wires/electronics over time, potentially causing issues starting or issues with the immobilizer.
It's frustrating because there is only so much efficiency I can squeeze out of this car while doing such short inefficient trips. It would be nice to get 7.8L/100km (30mpg) in the city, hopefully, I can achieve that once the weather improves.