Hello...

I had a question about the autostop function. We have owned our 2005 HCH for a couple of weeks now. Obviously, when coming to a stop (for a red light, stop sign or stopped traffic), the autostop engages as your miles per hour gets to around 10-15 MPH all the way to zero.

Here's what I was wondering: After coming to a dead stop, we noticed that if you pick up your foot and let's say go about 1 to 10 miles per hour and then there's more traffic and you brake to 0 MPH again, the autostop does NOT re-engage. Is this supposed to happen? At what speed do you need to re-attain before autstop works again?

Questions, comments, suggestions?

Thanks

Yes, this is normal behavior. You can't get the autostop to re-engage unless you get up to about 8 or 10 miles per hour.

I'm sure the honda engineers had a reason for making it work this way, but I wish it wasn't so, because I find myself in this situation more than I would like (in slowly creeping lines).

There are special tricks for turning off your engine in those situations, but none is automatic, and I've found them to be more trouble than they were worth.

Basicly I go for the first marker line in the speedo. If you pretty much go that fast (5mpg or so?) then auto-stop should kick in. I usualy need a gap of about 4 or 5 car lengths to get up to that speed without slaming on the gas pedal.

My hydroponics experiment

You ever notice how hard it is to lip read cartoon characters?
"Crazy is what the sane call Delta Flyer"

If I'm in a stop and go situation as described I won't just let her run, I'll shut her down in an instant.

If the line moves a few car lengths I'll restart but only just enough to nudge her to barely moving, but enough momentum then reboot & roll to the next point.

No IMA Assist needed. (Or wanted)

I often go through 5-10 minutes of this at a specific non-functioning busy intersection 10 miles into my trip. If I just let it run I'll drop up to 10 of my hard-earned MPG's before it's through. I just can't take it so with the above method I'll loose 1-2 MPG.

I think I've read on other boards that the autostop will re-engage after about 15 secs after you stop if you just had to creep forward. I'm not sure about this in practice though.

I've never seen it happen.

My hydroponics experiment

You ever notice how hard it is to lip read cartoon characters?
"Crazy is what the sane call Delta Flyer"

I've had it happen many times but is unreliable at best.
I usually wait 10-15 seconts after completely stopping to see if it will go in.
It doesn't happen for me in a traffic jam though.

I had the auto-stop after being stopped thing happen last week for the first time (HCH '05, had since October), and it freaked me out. Never happened before or after. I'd really love an automatic auto-stop button (maybe after you're still for 10 seconds it works to cover whatever safety concerns they've got).

Auto stop is the coolest feature this car has, IMO. I agree that it's kind of a pain to not be able to creep when traffic inches forward. Does manually shutting the engine off then restarting it so often put wear on the starter, or do any other damage?

Keep in mind that repeated numerous restarts can wear down the battery- not that any damage occurs but a battery that gets low will tax your MPG.