Say Hey,

One thing this new dude has notice.

Quite possilbly a advantage worth taking. While out & about doing another experimential assement of what makes these wheels tick I tried this. When making the slow down for those in town stops, I have used the tranny like I would the foot brake as I coast slower toward the stop sign(s), down shifting when the tach shows under 1000 to 1500 rpm's. Really gets the "Green side of the Bars" lighting up, which is always "Way Cool".

But what is really different is this. With the motor running hot, the "Auto Stop" does not in engauge. At least not yet, and I have done this at least a couple dozen times. I crawl to a stand still in low gear, just as if I applied the foot brake, and proceed through the intersection at a normal pace upshifting to keep things fluid & even without pushing the revs to high to make the fuel saving deal work out ( something I would have never done in those so-called-other-kind-of cars, lol )

Having done this, also has me curious to what advantage the "DSL" can be used on the open highway, if at all. Sure one can slip it in & out of neutral/drive in some manner & at sometime. But is there any chance of something going nutz ( as in damage ), say when the mpg light rates out @ 100%, and engaging the tranny w/o getting the gas to come back with the right timing. Or what good does it do anyway to coast, if say, the engine is still pulling gas through the injectors. Now if Honda would have an "Auto Stop" on the fuel when the "DSL" placed in neutral.

Never the biggest of fans in the yrs. past slipping by the shift, the bands of an automatic trans. Practices early on can lead to problems later on as age & wear rear their uglies . Applying the words "High-Tech" in the case of these cars, not to mention the "HCH II" is basicly a fresh out of the blocks vechile, and I think most can see what I am coming at. It would be great to know the exact peramiters & limits a guy can take note of.

Thoughts/Comments apperciated.

John

p.s. A snap shot ....



.... but of course.

mine must come to a complete stop before AS engages. if i then let off the brake and accelerate to less than 8mph and brake again, AS will not reengage.

Note to Self: Stay out of assist!

If you're in any gear other than "D", autostop will not engage (owner's manual should have a blurb on this). I use this to my advantage when in heavy stop/go traffic in local city centers that have a lot of congestion and stops, but at the same time, I know I'll get through the mess in a couple of minutes or less.

I had an experience you may be interested in (in case you try this one day).
I stopped at an intersection in a neighborhood that was on a hill. Turning left, down the hill, with no traffic, I decided to coast while still in auto stop (lightly released brake pressure without engaging the ICE). This worked great, as I started to increase speed as I went down the hill (in auto-stop).
I made it to about 50km/h (Canadian, eh!), then had to slow down as I approached a stop sign. At about 30km/h (speed of a playground zone in Canada), I lifted my foot fo the break (to see what would happen).
Well, that wasn't a great idea- when the engine engaged, I was going at a higer RPM (I would guess between 1500-2000). This caused the transmission to lurch (it felt like a rubber band trying to grip onto a moving pulley- hey- sounds like CVT to me).
It wasn't a pleasant feeling and made me glad I didn't lift my foot of the brake at 50km/h or faster.
So, a word to the wise (and curious)- don't do it- you could cause some damage (or if you do, make sure you hit the gas hard to speed up the engine before it actually engages).

I actually reported this on a Honda survey as a potential bug with auto-stop. It should know the speed I am going and engage appropriately.

Jonny - Read the manual on this as it explains it and Ralph_dog you need to re-read the manual. You can be in Drive *OR* Neutral and the Auto-Stop feature will work when you have several factors going your way: A/C is off, Defroster is off, battery temp is not too cold or too hot, foot brake is being applied, were above 8 mph before slowing down to below 7 mph. This is all mentioned in the book. Your car does not have to be at a complete stop for the Auto-Stop to work and if this is the case then take it in for service as it should engage at 7 mph (slow down slower and check rather than slamming on the brakes which makes the time between 7 mph and 0 mph unmeasurable).

Now, once you ARE in an Auto-Stop mode you CAN (sometimes) turn ON the A/C or Defroster and you will still be in Auto-Stop. This is a great feature so you can keep the A/C or Defroster clearing windows but not have the Engine idling - a hidden feature some of us have discovered.

I too have costed after slowing into Auto-Stop mode and the economy is fantastic but I generally shift into Neutral and let the RPM settle before shifting back into Drive as this lets the car manage the engine load better (or the rubber-band-snap-back maneuver).

Jonny - it other threads on here you will find all your answers (why coasting in Neutral only attains a 32 mpg average for the day but the same trip with the car in Drive the whole time attained 48 mpg -- because in Neutral the valves are not being shut on that third cam profile while in Drive they are). Drive, experiment, read, repeat.

--> Averaged 685 miles/week and 49.0 mpg in first year (35.7k miles from Aug 7, 2006 to Aug 7, 2007)

Flash - what are you talking about re: A/C. Auto-stop works just fine with the A/C on. Only if the A/C is at max power will AS not work. As one who never turns A/C off in the heat, I can attest to literally hundreds of A/C on auto-stops, without having to turn off the A/C, then put it back on. The only time A/S doesn't come on for me is when the defroster is running (which I can't really verify too much, since I've used it once), and when the engine is cold. Once it warms up, A/S works again.

I've never had A/S not engage due to A/C. Ever.

Jordan - I will try this today. I know for a fact that the A/C is on when the Defroster is on so this skewed my thinking. I was probably thinking of when I had the Defroster on, turned it off when coming to a stop, then turned it back on. Will you try this for me and see if the AS does not occur when the Def is on and then do it again and before coming to a stop turn off the Def but once AS is engaged turn on the Def and see if the car stays in AS. I rarely turn ON the A/C as it has been pleasant temps since I bought the car in August.

--> Averaged 685 miles/week and 49.0 mpg in first year (35.7k miles from Aug 7, 2006 to Aug 7, 2007)