Auto-restart when in park?

Christopher F. · 01-21-2010, 04:28 PM

Something I've been noticing with my I2.
In a parking lot, I'll be pulling into a space and the auto-stop kicks in while I finish rolling in/stopping. I can sit there, and auto-stop is fine. As soon as I put it into Park, it starts the engine back up.

Why would it wait until you're obviously in park to crank the ICE again for a split second before you turn it off?

**MN Driver** · 01-21-2010, 05:34 PM

I'm not an I2 owner, but many people with the I2 have been taking their key out of the 'on' position before putting their car in park to prevent the restart. Not staying in auto-stop when it already is in autostop would a big annoyance in my opinion, it would be nice if there was a 3 second delay to the refire when in neutral or park to allow a key-out to occur. I'd assume the reason for it to be running in neutral or park is to prevent the battery from going dead if the accessories are on or air conditioning or heat is active that it can do its thing, but with its configuration when you want to park it and be done seems a little odd considering the objective.

insightfulone · 01-21-2010, 08:14 PM

Welcome to the club. This has been discussed in other threads, its a design flaw. Basically the best you can do is train yourself to turn key off first, then shift to park. See the manual to set your doors to unlock on ignition off rather than shift to park, or you'll be locked in.

joecvt · 01-22-2010, 12:29 AM

Not a design flaw....To move the shift lever from Drive to Park, you have to go through the Reverse selection in doing so. To go into reverse, a hydraulic reverse clutch has to engage within the CVT....In order to do so, the engine must be running for hydraulic pressure to build up. Basically, the CVT does not "know" if you plan on going from Drive to Reverse or Drive to Park (not a mind reader) so it defaults to engine startup. If it waited for a few seconds to see if you really wanted reverse before starting up the engine, there would be many more complaints on how long it takes to go from Drive to Reverse.

It doesn't take much battery power to restart the engine or much gas.

JoeCVT = Just your average CVT owner

fokkerdmr · 01-22-2010, 10:42 PM

Well, maybe not a technical design flaw, but certainly a usability design flaw.

The ability for the car to wait the .500s for the driver to cruise through the gears from D to P passing by R is certainly well within the ability of the software. I can see that the car doesn't know if you're going to sit there for 20 minutes and run down the battery, but why can't it start back up after 3 minutes of heavy load (e.g. fans, radio, lights, etc)... Its just dumb.

Dave

joecvt · 01-23-2010, 11:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fokkerdmr

Well, maybe not a technical design flaw, but certainly a usability design flaw.

How is it a usability design flaw if the engine auto restarts when going from Drive to Park? That statement doesn't make sense to me. What can't you do with the car when that happens?

You may not like it because you may think that it is somehow wasteful of gas or electric power from the battery (or both) but that certainly does not create a usability problem.

If you watch this forum daily, you will find several complaints about how long it takes for the CVT to engage into "gear" (especially on cold days) and now a potential solution in this posting is to program the controllers to wait a half a second when going from Drive towards Park (possibily wanting to use reverse) before the controller takes any action. If you recall in my earlier post, the Honda CVT needs hydraulic pressure to switch between drive and reverse. It only makes sense for Honda programming to allow this to happen as soon as possible and still have Auto Stop in Drive.

I would rather not have to wait any longer than I do now to be able to use the gear (or direction) that I selected.

The amount of gas and battery power used to restart the engine is barely measurable.

JoeCVT = Just your average CVT owner

Cobb · 01-23-2010, 11:46 PM

I have come acustom to using the key to the acc position in drive or nutral, then shifting to park and pulling the key out when done.

If I am at a light after turning to acc, I shift to nutral, turn the key to on and wait a few for the light then refire. When its cold I dont do it if I am the first car as it can take 3 seconds to move when in drive and the cold engine light is on.

jmatero · 03-16-2011, 02:50 PM

Has this been addressed with 2011's?

Zwolfe · 03-16-2011, 04:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jmatero

Has this been addressed with 2011's?

Nope. My '11 EX does it. Drives me up the wall. I hate it. One of the very few things that irks me about the Insight.

joecvt · 03-16-2011, 08:12 PM

I don't think the "issue" will ever be addressed....The engine restart "problem" (as some say) has been designed that way since the first Honda hybrid CVTs (2001 for the US market).....It is not a scenario that Honda needs to fix....In order to go from D(rive) to P(ark), you have to go through R(everse) and the engine must start for Reverse....Some people want it to be reprogammed to pause a bit if R is selected before restartng to please those who don't want it to restart while going to park....If Honda does that, there will be far more people complaining about how long it takes to go into reverse (and that could be considered a safety issue compared to what you have now)....All you have now is a minimal amount of electric power used and a minimal amount of gas used.

JoeCVT = Just your average CVT owner