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Why won't my Range Rover Sport's stop-start work on the parking brake?
I have a new model Range Rover Sport 3.0d HSE Dynamic. I have to say I love it. I traded a Discovery 4 (amazing residual after three years) and recently sold my Cayman S. It fits perfectly between the two for me. This is the first automatic I've had with stop-start though, and as an active member of the IAM, I'm a bit confused. I always try to apply the parking brake if I'm stopping at traffic signals or in traffic for any length of time to avoid blinding the driver behind me and to avoid cooking the brakes, say at the end of a motorway slip road with ‘feeder’ traffic lights. As you know, the stop-start only works on the footbrake, encouraging both of the above. Last point on the subject. Say I've been driving down through France, as I intend to do, on the Autoroute, pull into a fuel station and there’s a queue. If I stop on the footbrake and it kills the engine, does it cook the turbos?
Asked on 7 December 2013 by DM, Sidcup
Answered by
Honest John
Most manufacturers use this stupid arrangement. The best don't. With a Mazda Skyactiv automatic you can move the selector freely between N and D without having to touch the footbrake, and i-stop switches off and goes into i-eloop whenever sensible, whether in D with your foot on the brake, in N, or in N with the parking brake applied. That's one of the things I like so much about Mazdas. They really thought about everything, and don't force you to do something counter-intuitive and unnatural. From memory, I think Fords are the same. Unfortunately, most are like your RR Sport. The stop-start should have sensors that prevent it switching off if the turbo is too hot. Or it may have an independent oil pump that continues to pump oil through the turbo bearings for a couple of minutes when the engine is switched off.
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