With these cold temps, my auto-stop doesn't kick in and I watch a good trip go south as I'm stopped.

Now, I put her in Neutral and turn the key back a click. When it's time to go, I just turn the key forward a click, put her in drive and go.

Is there anything wrong with this procedure?

 

Nothing at all, you car does the exact same thing during a real auto stop. The only possible negitive is that your engine is losing heat during the stop in the cold. You might get chilly and the engine might run at slightly less efficiency till it warms back up again.

 

One trick in the HCH I is to turn off the fan. It helps the auto-stop to function any time the car is warmed up as long as the other conditions for auto-stop are met (battery pack temperature okay, etc.)

 

This morning its was ~31 F (coldest so far this winter). My FAS refused to kick in for a long time, even when the temp gauge showed the engine at normal operating temperature. Usually FAS works once the gauge reaches 4 bars.

 

Hmm, your FAS refused to kick in? Funny, my car has never, ever managed to defeat a FAS attempt by me. Try as it might, the engine stubbornly refuses to remain on after I turn the key counter-clockwise.

As for the regular autostop (RAS?), Tom's right about the fan trick: if your fan speed is set to "off", no matter what else is going on with your climate control system - vent open, whatever - the car will always (at least in my experience) autostop, given the engine, battery, and cat are sufficiently warm. We've had some mornings in the mid 20s lately, so I've been able to more fully test this hypothesis.

 

I had a scooter in high school that had a pretty unreliable FAS. I'd sometimes try to shut down the engine at traffic lights, but the **** thing kept running. This was usually a wet-weather phenomenon. When the bike got like this, the only way to shut it off was to pull the wire off the spark plug!

At least you don't have to do that with a HCH!

My HCH *eventually* has RAS in cold weather, but it takes quite a bit of drive time before I see it.

 

I meant RAS, not FAS. ****ed index finger keeps hitting the wrong key!

 

I don't do the FAS at stops anymore. My trip MPG drops a couple MPGs after I start her back up. So it's pointless.

I'll start turning off my heater before I get to a stop, to see if auto-stop comes on more often.

 

I find the RAS always works eventually even in temps below 20F. However using the defrosters will defeat it. As long as the heater is set to Auto it works just fine. Just need the ICE to get to full operating temp first.

 

My AutoStop was working tonight, even though the Civic's Temperature Gauge showed 1 Degree and the Climate Control was set to HI (AC was turned off). It would stay in AutoStop for up to 45 Seconds, then the engine would come back on. This worked only after the engine temp reached near normal (a long time...). But I was surprised that it worked at all since I believe the manual said it would not work below 10 degrees or if the fan speed was on high, which it is when the Climate Control is at Max.

Of course, the cold weather is causing low mileage...FE is showing 39.5 MPG, lower than at any time in four tanks after 350 miles. I also noticed that it is very difficult (impossible?) to get it into cylinder shut off mode with electric assist at any speed...can't do it anywhere that I can when the temps were up around 30 degrees. But, I can't complain...it's still better than the Sub (13 MPG in this cold weather).