The major reason city driving is inefficient is that repeated acceleration through the gears from a dead stop to the speed of traffic burns a lot of fuel. Then, the fuel energy the car converted into speed is wasted by using the brakes to stop. As I've posted before, my 3.5L 6 cyl Toyota used a measured 38 ounces of fuel per hour during warm idle while having its fuel system checked. This works out to .64 ounce per minute, or about .04 of an ounce in the seven seconds that is said to be the break-even idle time for a start/stop system to be beneficial. MyToyota will idle about 1.5 minutes on a single ounce of fuel and I bet an Acura will do even better. . Bottom line for me is I'm not buying the argument that stop/start saves a significant amount fuel on individual vehicles. I believe it exists only to take advantage of the unrealistic EPA city driving test that is done in a lab.

 

I started this discussion, and I am not a nuclear physicist or a rocket scientist or anything else some of you other people are. I do not care if the car idles "rich" or "lean" or in between. My question again is........on a tank of gas, how much is being typically saved when using the auto idle stop feature? Is it 8 oz? If it is 8 oz, this is the equivalent of about 22 cents per tank? If so, is that really worth having slower starts (once the auto idle stop feature has turned off the car)? And is really worth taking a chance on wearing out some components of the car prematurely, leading to costly repairs?

 

 

Let's be honest: the regulation manufacturers are trying to meet are NOT a product of you saving money. On the contrary, they are inspired to decrease emissions across the board. If every TLX owner used the feature most of the time, there would be a huge saving for the environment.

And (!) you get to keep your bigger, performance oriented engine. Sounds like a win-win.