Auto engine start/stop and effects on engine wear?

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Hey guys, I recently leased a new 2017 Ford Escape Titanium with the 2.0L Ecoboost engine, twin-scroll turbo, 4WD, it's a lot of fun!

This car has a feature that my 2016 Fiesta ST didn't have and that is an auto start/stop function that shuts the engine off when stopped. Now this is a lease so I don't exactly care about long term concerns but if I decided to purchase it after my lease is up, should I be concerned about significant engine wear?

The engine oil cap indicates a 5W-30 but I'm sure it's the Motocraft synthetic blend so I'm betting that a nice 5W-30 synthetic or maybe something like Castrol Magnatec could be good to keep wear to a minimum if it's something to be concerned about.
 
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The latest news around here is that the Magnatec 5W-30 is now fully synthetic. It would also seem to be a good choice for these auto start-stop vehicles with the clinging ester Castrol puts in it.
 
How synthetic is it ? All this not synthetic etc about M1 and crickets when Shannow posted an interesting chart with Mobil 1 base fluids (what Amsoil said) and good comments on NOACK.
So, no other oil will be able to cling while one waits for the light to change green ? Let's don't let marketing types run with this stop/start thing wrt to motor oil ...
Start up (not so) wear has been
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here enough ...
 
I have seen taxi service Prius cars on Copart with 4 and 5 hundred k on em.
 
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It is synthetic enough for government work. Castrol Magnatec is a very good oil has evidenced by how well it has held up in GDI motors and turbo boosted motors as well. Truth be told I would bet that Castrol Magnatec is the best bang for your buck oil on the shelves at Wally World.
 
Don't know if engine start stop makes a difference when engine is already warm.

You wouldn't want to stop and start a totally cold engine a ton of times every day.
 
In one way it doesn't matter because pumps are volumetric and you have an ADBV so oil is always at the bearing, but...

In my experience the feature can be turned off, though usually the map prevents the feature from operating below a preset temp (probably thermostat temp?) to prevent an excess of cold starts. This feature saves unnecessary wear on bearings, but in turn places more strain on the battery, alternator and starter motor.

To deal with the extra wear on these components they are bigger/beefier/overbuilt compared to conventional equipment, so they last 'long enough' but cost more to replace when they fail.

Ultimately, it depends how many miles you do to determine if the fuel saving outweighs potential associated costs..
 
Originally Posted By: dwendt44
I was under the impression that the stop/start feature could be turned off.
Check with the owner's manual.

My 2¢


+1 Turning off the stop/start feature would be the first thing I did after putting on my seat belt and starting the engine.
 
Originally Posted By: demarpaint
Originally Posted By: dwendt44
I was under the impression that the stop/start feature could be turned off.
Check with the owner's manual.

My 2¢


+1 Turning off the stop/start feature would be the first thing I did after putting on my seat belt and starting the engine.


+2 Fortunately, my wife's 2017 BMW with this feature defaults to off. It will never be turned on.
 
If you plan to potentially buy it, I would research how to permanently turn this "feature" off. The cars with the auto shut off have bigger starters, so by turning the shut off feature off, you will have a beefy starter that will most likely never fail. That alone would enough for me to turn it off.

No need to speculate about engine wear when we know for a fact other components suffer from repeated On/Off cycles.
 
Originally Posted By: dwendt44
I was under the impression that the stop/start feature could be turned off.
Check with the owner's manual.

My 2¢


Agreed....IMO it causes a lot of extra wear on not just engine parts but starters and electrical parts as well.
 
I think that it would be a good idea as long as it only was activated when the engine is warm, it' can't be good for the engine to be constantly shut off and started again in cold temps, also warm up i imagine would take much longer.
 
Originally Posted By: FordCapriDriver
I think that it would be a good idea as long as it only was activated when the engine is warm, it' can't be good for the engine to be constantly shut off and started again in cold temps, also warm up i imagine would take much longer.


These systems do not activate for several reasons, on the Acura system, all of these will turn the system off:

-engine not up to operating temp
-very cold temps
-A/C on/defrost on
-battery low on charge
-drivers seat belt not being used (this one surprised me)

There are actually about 12 different conditions in the data list that will prevent the system for activating. Pretty much has to be ideal conditions to activate, which for here in Ottawa, only happens in the spring/fall. We get lots of complaints about the system "not working" in the winter, and in the summer when it gets hot.

If the engine is warm, you are not doing any extra harm to the engine by shutting it off for 10-30 s are restarting, all critical components are well lubricated. The only thing these systems is hard on is the battery and starter motor. On our cars with start/stop, Acura uses a larger capacity AGM battery, so would not really worry about it.
 
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Originally Posted By: mightymousetech

If the engine is warm, you are not doing any extra harm to the engine by shutting it off for 10-30 s are restarting, all critical components are well lubricated.


While other than in a real cold start, you do not have to worry about oil being delivered to the valvetrain or the cylinder walls, also a warm start means bearing wear. Starting from a dead stop, there is boundary friction and mixed friction, until eventually the crank speed is sufficient to hydroplane. So any start means wear, and unnecessary starts are therefore unnecessary wear.
 
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Originally Posted By: turboseize
While other than in a real cold start, you do not have to worry about oil being delivered to the valvetrain or the cylinder walls, also a warm start means bearing wear. Starting from a dead stop, there is boundary friction and mixed friction, until eventually the crank speed is sufficient to hydroplane. So any start means wear, and unnecessary starts are therefore unnecessary wear.


Papers from Honda, and Mahle (bearing division) make exactly that case.

This the design changes that they make in the bottom end to accomodate this...
 
I think UPS has hard data on the stop engine/no idle law that has been on the books in CA for commercial trucks for some time. I need to find the info but I think starters took a hit but everything else was fine.
 
Originally Posted By: Shannow
Originally Posted By: turboseize
While other than in a real cold start, you do not have to worry about oil being delivered to the valvetrain or the cylinder walls, also a warm start means bearing wear. Starting from a dead stop, there is boundary friction and mixed friction, until eventually the crank speed is sufficient to hydroplane. So any start means wear, and unnecessary starts are therefore unnecessary wear.


Papers from Honda, and Mahle (bearing division) make exactly that case.

This the design changes that they make in the bottom end to accomodate this...


How about the early adopters? What happens to them?
 
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