Auto Start/Stop Option

You guys (BJ & Xmen) are both wrong. BMW added the ASS function to ge their CAFE numbers as low as possible. Same reason for the switch to turbo 4's. They as a company could care less about gas mileage or environmental impact. But the govt and consumers do, so like a good company that wants to stay in business and make a lot of money, they do what they need to do.

Originally Posted by samualcc

While I usually enjoy your posts, the facts about pollution are pretty clear. China is number 1 and we are number 2. It is only recently that China pulled ahead of us. But the US is the number 2 culprit when it comes to air pollution in the world. It becomes even worse when you break it down per capita. We are number two again, behind Australia (which is just strange).

These are the most polluted countries in the world, places where you need to wear a surgical mask or your life expectancy drops in half:

1. Mongolia
2. Botswana
3. Pakistan
4. Senegal
5. Saudi Arabia
6. Egypt
7. UAE
8. Iran
9. Nigeria
10. Kuwait

http://www.cnbc.com/id/44781282/Worl...uted_Countries

BJ

Originally Posted by The X Men

I agree, the US produce more pollution per capita than Indonesia, India, China or any third world nations and the internal combusion engine is the number cuase of CO2 emission, in the U.S. 60% of carbon monoxide is caused by on road vehicles.
I get a good chuckle when Americans like BJ who think they are doing their part for the environment by donating money when poor kids come to their door, or by separating their recyclables on pickup day and sending their kids to the country club on cleanup day.

You are talking strictly about CO2 emissions, and in the US 90% of CO2 emissions have nothing to do with my automobile. "Transportation" as a category includes all the buses, trains, trucks, airplanes, and ocean cargo as well. The rest have to do with Electricity, Industry, Chemical Plants, etc.

Let me know when you intend to stop buying products at malls, when you intend to put solar panels on your house, when you stop using FedEx, and when you stop using deodorant. Then you can challenge my lack of interest in ASS.

BJ

Cars are a major cause of pollution as are many aspects of modern life. There is little that we do that does not generate some form of pollution ande as a city dweller I am sure I contribute a significant amount whether I like it or not.

Over the last 50 years or so the US has done a lot to eliminate a lot of sources of pollution but there is still a long way to go,
If you live in a congested area like I do you get used to pollution, whether it is air pollution or noise pollution and you learn to ignore it but it is still there.


There are some interseting facts about car polution here:


http://www.evsroll.com/Car_pollution_facts.html

One intestesting fact is that in the US idling in traffic uses over 8 million gallons of gasoline per day. Exactly what percentage of the total amount of gas burned each day I do not know. Cars also polute in other way such as leaving particles of rubber on the road as tires wear out. At one point when cars were using asbestos brake linings Asbestosis was an occupational hazard of toll booth attendants as the air in the toll plazas was polluted by the asbestos particles that were genated as the cars entering the plaza came to a stop.

I have not driven a car with automatic start stop but it is probably like RFTs and Electric Power Steering, new technologies that are a good idea and will probably be in all cars in the future but that require a bit more development.

CA

Originally Posted by bradlexxxxx

We just recently took delivery of a 2013 X2 28i with the new N20 engine; also equipped with ASS (not sure on the generation). The problem I have with ASS is three fold:

1) If you drive around town where there are a lot of stop signs, you end up experiencing a whole lot of stop-start action. At a stop sign, you only stop briefly. If you're obeying the law, you come to a complete stop, which means you must wait for the car to "settle". If you combine this with taking just a moment to check for oncoming traffic in both directions, you end up with a very brief stop-start cycle that is very apparent from the passenger area (the whole car shudders). My father insisted that something was wrong with our brand new car after experiencing it only one time.

2) Even if the first matter is simply an annoyance, I have now experienced more than one occasion where the engine failed to start in these abrupt engagements. This left the car in D, unable to restart until you follow a specific procedure: apply brake, engage P, press start button. This procedure seems simple, but when you're sitting in traffic trying to figure out why your car isn't moving when you press the gas pedal, it's incredibly frustrating.

3) The stop-start procedure is disruptive to the passengers in our X3 with the 8-speed auto transmission. When the engine disengages, I can feel the car settle back. When it restarts (often triggered while I'm still stopped because of climate control needs), I can feel the car lunge forward. It's unsettling and elicits strange looks from the people around me at the signal light. Call me self-conscious, but I really don't want people staring at me at signal lights because my car keeps turning on and off.

Originally Posted by sekxxx

It interferes with my regular driving because my car has stalled twice in traffic the first three weeks I've had the car. I now always shut it off when I start my car. To me, getting slightly better gas mileage does not equate with the possibility of not knowing when I'll have to manually restart the engine but knowing for sure that sooner or later, I will. That possibility occurs not because of anything I've done but because the manufacturer has provided a feature that defaults to a system that occasionally fails to work.

I know that pushing a button to override this feature when I start the car is no big deal. But I do know that I shouldn't even have to do that. For that reason, I definitely want the update to the last user mode.

Originally Posted by Frogxxx

I found that I was dreading coming to a stop to see how much the engine would shake the car when ASS stops the engine. Sometimes it's as smooth as silk and I think hey, this is great, and then other times it's so violent that I think the engine is going to rip itself out of the mounts. Plus, as was said before, the car lurches when this happens and everyone it the cars feels it.

Same on restart; sometimes it's really smooth, and other times it's really rough. No real pattern.

Then, once, I was in a intersection ASS stalled the engine on restart.

I was stopped in the intersection, ASS kicked in, I let my foot off the brake, and the engine stalled. The iDrive bings with a fault saying that ASS failed, I had to scramble to re-press the brake, push the start button, then press the throttle to go and end up just reving the engine. Looked at the shifter and realized that the car put itself in NEUTRAL! My adrenaline is pumping like crazy while I selected drive while getting honked at by people behind me. This is not something I want to repeat and definitely not something I want my wife to deal with!

So, I coded my car to remember the last ASS setting and I leave the dang thing off; I couldn't be happier. I don't worry about my engine stalling or shaking, or lurching any more.

If BMW can address these issues, I'd be the first to re-enable ASS, but not the way it works now.

Originally Posted by lawxxxx

Wow, this is crazy. And this isn't the first story I've heard like this. It's only by sheer provenance no one has been seriously injured or killed due to this. The fact that they have to program in a message that says "A.S.S. failed" means it shouldn't even be an option. If this were to happen at an intersection in which you are on a slight downhill you may find yourself rolled into the middle of the intersection trying to figure out what's wrong with the car.

BTW, if they can figure this out on golf carts why can't they do it on a $50k car?

The above conversation is from another BMW forum.

Frightening.

BJ

This discussion reminds me of an infamous "discussion" about Daytime Running Lights and one reason they shouldn't be mandated.

Assume that every car in the US was mandated to have DRLs. That would use 400,000,000 gallons of gasoline (or diesel for that matter) per year. That's a lot. It works out to about 2 gallons per car per year. It also works out to around 18-20 million barrels of oil per year (accounting for the percentage of gasoline in each barrel of crude.)

We're talking about a small effect. But it is measurable and an estimate of how much it could save. If you're interested in the DRL argument (it also digresses into a top vs. bottom posting argument, sigh): http://www.varioustopics.com/chrysle...pposed-24.html

Originally Posted by boltjaM3s

The above conversation is from another BMW forum.

Frightening.

BJ

Definitely sounds like a feature that is not ready for prime time.

I have to go to BMW Manhattan for routine service tomorrow. I assume there will be an F30 or two there for me to check out,

CA

ASS is weird, no doubt but they just came out with a new update that keeps the ass in the last setting. So, if i turn it off, it will stay off till i turn it back on, that includes turning the car off and back on, ass would still be disabled till i turn it back on.

Originally Posted by MonkeyCMonkeyDo

How close are you to Yorba Linda? If you need to get it programmed properly go to Integrity Motors.

And to add to Auto Start-Stop, mine only complaint was the little jerk the car made everytime it shut off.

Thanks for the recommendation. I told them not to do the update. I would wait for awhile. I really didn't have any confidence in their actual work if they had trouble understanding the service bulletin.

Originally Posted by rdle_F30

Thanks for the recommendation. I told them not to do the update. I would wait for awhile. I really didn't have any confidence in their actual work if they had trouble understanding the service bulletin.

Good call. Everything I am adding to the car that isn't going to be done predelivery I am having integrity do.

Originally Posted by bradlexxxxx

We just recently took delivery of a 2013 X2 28i with the new N20 engine; also equipped with ASS (not sure on the generation). The problem I have with ASS is three fold:

1) If you drive around town where there are a lot of stop signs, you end up experiencing a whole lot of stop-start action. At a stop sign, you only stop briefly. If you're obeying the law, you come to a complete stop, which means you must wait for the car to "settle". If you combine this with taking just a moment to check for oncoming traffic in both directions, you end up with a very brief stop-start cycle that is very apparent from the passenger area (the whole car shudders). My father insisted that something was wrong with our brand new car after experiencing it only one time.

2) Even if the first matter is simply an annoyance, I have now experienced more than one occasion where the engine failed to start in these abrupt engagements. This left the car in D, unable to restart until you follow a specific procedure: apply brake, engage P, press start button. This procedure seems simple, but when you're sitting in traffic trying to figure out why your car isn't moving when you press the gas pedal, it's incredibly frustrating.

3) The stop-start procedure is disruptive to the passengers in our X3 with the 8-speed auto transmission. When the engine disengages, I can feel the car settle back. When it restarts (often triggered while I'm still stopped because of climate control needs), I can feel the car lunge forward. It's unsettling and elicits strange looks from the people around me at the signal light. Call me self-conscious, but I really don't want people staring at me at signal lights because my car keeps turning on and off.

Originally Posted by sekxxx

It interferes with my regular driving because my car has stalled twice in traffic the first three weeks I've had the car. I now always shut it off when I start my car. To me, getting slightly better gas mileage does not equate with the possibility of not knowing when I'll have to manually restart the engine but knowing for sure that sooner or later, I will. That possibility occurs not because of anything I've done but because the manufacturer has provided a feature that defaults to a system that occasionally fails to work.

I know that pushing a button to override this feature when I start the car is no big deal. But I do know that I shouldn't even have to do that. For that reason, I definitely want the update to the last user mode.

Originally Posted by Frogxxx

I found that I was dreading coming to a stop to see how much the engine would shake the car when ASS stops the engine. Sometimes it's as smooth as silk and I think hey, this is great, and then other times it's so violent that I think the engine is going to rip itself out of the mounts. Plus, as was said before, the car lurches when this happens and everyone it the cars feels it.

Same on restart; sometimes it's really smooth, and other times it's really rough. No real pattern.

Then, once, I was in a intersection ASS stalled the engine on restart.

I was stopped in the intersection, ASS kicked in, I let my foot off the brake, and the engine stalled. The iDrive bings with a fault saying that ASS failed, I had to scramble to re-press the brake, push the start button, then press the throttle to go and end up just reving the engine. Looked at the shifter and realized that the car put itself in NEUTRAL! My adrenaline is pumping like crazy while I selected drive while getting honked at by people behind me. This is not something I want to repeat and definitely not something I want my wife to deal with!

So, I coded my car to remember the last ASS setting and I leave the dang thing off; I couldn't be happier. I don't worry about my engine stalling or shaking, or lurching any more.

If BMW can address these issues, I'd be the first to re-enable ASS, but not the way it works now.

Originally Posted by lawxxxx

Wow, this is crazy. And this isn't the first story I've heard like this. It's only by sheer provenance no one has been seriously injured or killed due to this. The fact that they have to program in a message that says "A.S.S. failed" means it shouldn't even be an option. If this were to happen at an intersection in which you are on a slight downhill you may find yourself rolled into the middle of the intersection trying to figure out what's wrong with the car.

BTW, if they can figure this out on golf carts why can't they do it on a $50k car?

Bumping this as it fell to the end of Page 1. Multiple F30 owners in another forum reporting unexpected stalls. If you're not going to get the firmware update at the dealer be cautious in using the ASS feature until it's been sorted.

BJ

Regardless of your thoughts of how much pollution cars are actually responsible for, manufacturers have a mandate to increase average fuel economy to 35.5mpg by 2016. They're going to do what they have to in order to get there. So, while ASS may be a little ahead of its time and it will likely experience the learning curve BJ mentions (both for the OEMs and for the drivers), it's here to stay. For what it's worth, I'd take ASS over a hybrid or electric car any day.

Originally Posted by boltjaM3s

Bumping this as it fell to the end of Page 1. Multiple F30 owners in another forum reporting unexpected stalls. If you're not going to get the firmware update at the dealer be cautious in using the ASS feature until it's been sorted.

BJ

AFAIK, the updated firmware only applies to 335i's. I had stalls/shudder in my 328i. I have not seen anything about firmware updates for the 328i.

Originally Posted by FrogmanF30

AFAIK, the updated firmware only applies to 335i's. I had stalls/shudder in my 328i. I have not seen anything about firmware updates for the 328i.

I'm getting the ASS coded to 'last user state' so that once I hit "off" it'll stick in the settings for good. That's what I meant by firmware update. I have an L328i.

BJ

Originally Posted by boltjaM3s

Multiple F30 owners in another forum reporting unexpected stalls.

Four of them. Eight if we include your double post.

A few anecdotal stories does not a crisis make.

(I experienced one stall in my 335 prior to getting the software update. It was terrifying. The car did not move. I was forced to restart the car. Oh, the button push was terrible. I could have died . . . . . . etc.)

Originally Posted by Elk

Four of them. Eight if we include your double post.

A few anecdotal stories does not a crisis make.

(I experienced one stall in my 335 prior to getting the software update. It was terrifying. The car did not move. I was forced to restart the car. Oh, the button push was terrible. I could have died . . . . . . etc.)

I owned an E93 for three years, not a single stall. Never. Not once.

I owned an E90 for three years, not a single stall. Never. Not once.

In fact, the last car I can think of that I owned that stalled on me was a 1980 Honda Prelude with a two-speed transmission that was a piece of junk that only my meager 1990 salary could afford. Since then I've been in 12 other cars/SUV's/minivans and none have them have stalled. Never. Not once.

So when I read that a handful of F30 owners in cars that are less than six months old are experiencing stalls due to ASS, yes, that makes me very concerned. Cars simply don't stall anymore, especially $50,000 German luxury cars. And due to the nature of ASS, these stalls are happening at the most inoportune times. At red lights, at busy intersections, off of stop signs, darting across lanes of busy traffic. Not talking about a stall in a mall parking lot or the driveway here.

BJ

Yes, we all appreciate your love of drama. Most of us would quickly pass out hyperventilating as you do.

It is an incredibly trivial issue to address when it occurs. If you are placing yourself in dangerous driving situations, this is a flaw in the warmware installed between the steering wheel and driver's seat - not a vehicle flaw.

No one suggests stalling is acceptable, and we expect BMW is working on it, but a healthy dose of perspective is appropriate.

Originally Posted by Elk

Yes, we all appreciate your love of drama. Most of us would quickly pass out hyperventilating as you do.

It is an incredibly trivial issue to address when it occurs. If you are placing yourself in dangerous driving situations, this is a flaw in the warmware installed between the steering wheel and driver's seat - not a vehicle flaw.

No one suggests stalling is acceptable, and we expect BMW is working on it, but a healthy dose of perspective is appropriate.

Thanks Dad.

Not sure where you live, but some of us live in big towns near huge cities and the daily drive is not a slow-moving, relaxed experience. Everyone's in a huge rush, everyone's distracted, no one takes pleasure in driving, everyone's speeding, that's life in the big city. I got my F30 fully aware of ASS and it's upside/downside. I've been living with it for a week now and it's simply not safe for the environment I'm in. So tomorrow morning I'll be the first one getting the code tweak at my local BMW dealership and I won't have the problem anymore. As it stands now, I can't let my wife drive the new car. Tomorrow solves that.

Big picture, there will be problems with the car industry's implementation of this system and they will lead to something tragic. That's not drama; that's just an unfortunate fact. No matter what the car or who the driver, no one expects an engine to stop working as a 'feature', no one has dealt with the potential for a stall for over a decade, and no one is prepared to deal with the steps involved in a re-start if they're under the pressure of cars bearing down on them.

BJ

BJ,

I am getting the distinct impression that you don't like the Automatic Start Stop feature.

CA

Originally Posted by captainaudio

BJ,

I am getting the distinct impression that you don't like the Automatic Start Stop feature.

CA

LOL, yes, good assumption.

My problem is solved tomorrow morning so no worries from me. But I fear for what others will do. You live in Manhattan, you know what it's like, you get the idea. You wait, there's a brief window to make your turn, you hit the gas, and....and....and....that second or two of no-power-time can cause someone to a) miscalculate and not clear the road, b) hesitate and brake and wind up jutting out into the road, or c) stall in the middle of the road.

We've got enough issues and distractions to deal with; we didn't need this one.

BJ

Originally Posted by boltjaM3s

LOL, yes, good assumption.

My problem is solved tomorrow morning so no worries from me. But I fear for what others will do. You live in Manhattan, you know what it's like, you get the idea. You wait, there's a brief window to make your turn, you hit the gas, and....and....and....that second or two of no-power-time can cause someone to a) miscalculate and not clear the road, b) hesitate and brake and wind up jutting out into the road, or c) stall in the middle of the road.

We've got enough issues and distractions to deal with; we didn't need this one.

BJ

Never drove a car with that feature (unless you count the 62 Ford I had when I was in college but I thought that was a defect, not a feature) but I can undrstand that it could be annoying.

CA

Originally Posted by boltjaM3s

Thanks Dad.

Not sure where you live, but some of us live in big towns near huge cities and the daily drive is not a slow-moving, relaxed experience. Everyone's in a huge rush, everyone's distracted, no one takes pleasure in driving, everyone's speeding, that's life in the big city. I got my F30 fully aware of ASS and it's upside/downside. I've been living with it for a week now and it's simply not safe for the environment I'm in. So tomorrow morning I'll be the first one getting the code tweak at my local BMW dealership and I won't have the problem anymore. As it stands now, I can't let my wife drive the new car. Tomorrow solves that.

BJ

I live in the same big city as you do and I have been using ASS for 6 months with no problem, so spare me the big city driving lecture. Perhaps it is the operator who is unsafe rather than the ASS system itself. Drivers in bigger and busier European cities have been using ASS for years with no issue what so ever.
Those few stalling problem you posted are from driver with happy feet, who likes to brake, let go of the brakes and brake over and over again. Driver who ride their brake will have problem ASS.
The ASS will go into failsafe mode if you let go of the brakes and reapply the brakes while the engine is trying to start. I believe the second generation of the ASS software addressed that issue.
Even my wife have no problem driving my car with the ASS system, and she is not a car person. You seem to have more problem driving a car with ASS than everyone else or maybe you just like the attention you get here to make up for the lack of it else where.

I have just arrived at the dealer and will be liveblogging as my car is updated to disable ASS via "last user mode".

Checking in with my SA now. Will report back shortly.

BJ

Liveblog update:

SA greeted me with "We'll you're our first to get this update."

He then informed me that BMW will do this re-code for free but if I'm unhappy with ASS being disabled they will charge me to re-enable it.

I burst out laughing.

BJ

Originally Posted by The X Men

I live in the same big city as you do and I have been using ASS for 6 months with no problem, so spare me the big city driving lecture. Perhaps it is the operator who is unsafe rather than the ASS system itself. Drivers in bigger and busier European cities have been using ASS for years with no issue what so ever.
Those few stalling problem you posted are from driver with happy feet, who likes to brake, let go of the brakes and brake over and over again. Driver who ride their brake will have problem ASS.
The ASS will go into failsafe mode if you let go of the brakes and reapply the brakes while the engine is trying to start. I believe the second generation of the ASS software addressed that issue.
Even my wife have no problem driving my car with the ASS system, and she is not a car person. You seem to have more problem driving a car with ASS than everyone else or maybe you just like the attention you get here to make up for the lack of it else where.

+1000
cheers
vern