Lincoln SUV Starter Motor

I have a Lincoln XKC suv, the motor stops when we stop at lights then it restarts automatically.   Does this put wear and tear on the starter motor?  Does anyone have any experience with this?

Of course, but the car and its components are designed for start/stop technology.

Linky

A technology developed by the Starter and Ring Gear Producers Society.

start-stop has been around for a few years now- so far, I've not heard of any serious problems with it.

The cars with it have a different high torque starter than the cars without it, as well as a different battery (AGMs in Fords) so the whole system is designed for it. It also will stop working if it senses the battery isn't healthy enough multiple quick starts, or if there is a heavy draw (high accessory use) or a host of other parameters. It's pretty smart. You can also turn it off if you find it too intrusive, but will have to do so every time you start the car. 

All that would be needed to make the 'conventional' starter/ring gear design last longer is just improve the materials used. 

On a related note, the only worn-out hammers I've personally seen were made of plastic or brass. 

I do think start-stop with the 12v starter is inelegant. The silent ICE starts of motor/generators in hybrids kind of spoil you. The first car i ever owned that silently started its own engine with no gear-meshing noise turns 20 years old this year. Hopefully the belt-drive mild hybrid stuff becomes more common in the very near future so we can get to where we were supposed to be 10 years ago. BEVs are improving faster than the low-hanging fruit of ICEs are being picked. 

Depending on how exactly they implemented start-stop, they may be restarting the engine by remembering what cylinder fires next and using the spark plugs instead of using the starter.

In reply to MadScientistMatt :

Not that likely.  It's really really hard to exactly know where the engine ended up- as the engine can rock backward and it can be interpreted as going foreward.  

And with EFI there is no residual fuel in the motor. Moreso on a DI motor.

The good news is they make bypass setups that completely disable auto start/stop.

bentwrench said:

And with EFI there is no residual fuel in the motor. Moreso on a DI motor.

The Theory that Matt is pointing out is that if you know where you are, and are sure it's fresh air (which it is by the time the engine stops turning), then you could use the DI injector to spray in just enough fuel to light it.  It's like the dream of most DI people a decade ago.  Or one of the major feature dreams for DI.  

93gsxturbo said:

The good news is they make bypass setups that completely disable auto start/stop.

Once you get used to it, it's not a big deal. And it really does save fuel.  After a while, you start to expect it.

My mother-in-law has a Ford Escape that has a version of the start-stop feature that also cuts off the air conditioning. THAT is a pretty annoying implementation in Atlanta heat.

alfadriver (Forum Supporter) said:

93gsxturbo said:

The good news is they make bypass setups that completely disable auto start/stop.

Once you get used to it, it's not a big deal. And it really does save fuel.  After a while, you start to expect it.

The constant starting and stopping noise is very obnoxious and the loss of power steering when the engine cuts out is also not ideal.  Gas is cheap.

In reply to 93gsxturbo :

Ok.  But I see the only reason you hear it is that it's silent when the engine is off.  And given I'm not moving when my foot is on the brakes that hard, power steering isnt' a big deal.  

It's going across pretty much every car out there, so you should bother to get used to it.

In reply to Saron81 :

Thanks for the info, I'll keep it on at least until the warranty expires.

What works best for me is to creep forward if I feel that the stop will be very short.  Start/Stop will not kill the engine unless you come to a complete stop.  Otherwise I let it shut off and do its thing.

In a Mercedes, it's barely perceptible.  In some lesser cars, it's positively obnoxious.

I wonder if these new high torque starters could be used for a fun electric go kart motor. 

In my 104,000 miles I've had it not start exactly once. I got a red screen that said apply brake and shift to park to restart. It annoys most people but I don't even notice it anymore.

I've been working on cars for a while, and have yet to see an issue with the start/stop function on anything that I can recall.

I did actually have somebody complaining that it stopped working on a 2019 Jeep Cherokee the other day. It turns out it does absolutely need an AGM battery for the battery state of charge function to be accurate, since that's what it comes with from the factory. It was disabling the start/stop function due to "low battery charge" or some such error. (Not an actual error code, just information in the data stream when trying to figure out why it isn't working on the scan tool). 

And this AGM battery failed in one year, you say? 

In all seriousness i havent heard of it being much of a service/repair issue either.

On my 20 year old stop/start car the ac compressor was still engine-driven so you would lose ac when the engine auto-stopped, but only IF you had actually hit the cabin temperature the controls were set for, OR you had pushed the 'econ' button.  In general i think most people don't realize that the entire cabin rarely drops to the temperature they set the controls to because they point vents at themselves and then turn the system down before the whole cabin gets cooled. I get it because i demand vents be pointed at me at almost all times, but.. for example if its hot outside and my body starts to get slightly cold i point vents away from myself before turning down the fan speed or raising the set temp because if you actually turn down the fan speed or raise the temp just because some small part of your body that air is blowing on gets 'cold enough' while the rest of the cabin is much warmer, what you do is start 'short cycling' the controls where you frequently have to turn it back up and then down again over and over because you're scoring your AC against a flawed metric.

So basically if people don't like that the autostop is turning off their AC, they should probably set it colder and turn vents away from themselves. I don't know for a fact that every stop/start car will keep the AC running if the cabin is way below the set temp, but that's how they worked 20 years ago.. 

Or you could electrically drive the compressor like most hybrids have been doing for 15+ years so it can operate independently of the ICE, but then you kinda need a decent little battery pack, say 48v, and then if you have that you might as well get rid of the starter and the alternator and have a motor/generator on the belt drive that can start/stop silently.. and improves mpg, and does torque fill, and improves emissions, and shift feel, etc etc etc. Or heck, put it in the transmission and get RID of the entire belt drive. Why didn't anyone else think of this? I guess you could say if you don't like that your car doesn't do something or does a half-ass job of something that hybrids did 15+ years ago, consider shopping a hybrid next time. 

Vigo (Forum Supporter) said:

 In general i think most people don't realize that the entire cabin rarely drops to the temperature they set the controls to because they point vents at themselves and then turn the system down before the whole cabin gets cooled.

Perhaps I'm a luddite, but I pretty much hate automatic climate control for this reason.  Thermostats work well in a house, they suck in cars because you're never in them long enough for it to actually reach the set point.  Even if you were, the varying sun heat means you don't actually want a constant ambient temperature anyway.

As for stop/start, the only car I own that does it is my Audi, and it has a button on the dash to disable it that actually stays disabled for successive starts.  I turned it off the day I bought it and it's never been turned back on since.  Auto stop/start to try to save a few ounces of fuel on a car with a twin turbo V8 is kinda stupid.

It's less about fuel savings than it is emmission.  Having the engine off for a minute or 2 during the EPA testing loop is huge for the manufacturer these days. They keep picking on the ICE engine even though modern cars burn do clean it's a non issue. Wish they focus on something else.....

1988RedT2 said:

What works best for me is to creep forward if I feel that the stop will be very short.  Start/Stop will not kill the engine unless you come to a complete stop.  Otherwise I let it shut off and do its thing.

In a Mercedes, it's barely perceptible.  In some lesser cars, it's positively obnoxious.

OMG are you a creeper?  That annoying person at the red light that can't just stop in the proper space behind the car ahead of them?  Then you spend the whole red light creeping up a foot at time?  The one that makes me loose my day dream time while waiting for the light to turn green.  Damn creeper!*

*all said in jest other than if I am behind you I will say "damn creeper" at you.

Perhaps I'm a luddite, but I pretty much hate automatic climate control for this reason.  Thermostats work well in a house, they suck in cars because you're never in them long enough for it to actually reach the set point.  Even if you were, the varying sun heat means you don't actually want a constant ambient temperature anyway.

Hey, as long as you're not one of the many people who call me at the beginning of each warm season and say 'my ac doesn't work as well as it used to' when it works the EXACT SAME, your technical affinities are right by me.  

I've also met people who never used the 'max' setting on their AC because they think it will wear it out sooner..