Who has a 2018 F150 w/V6

Just got a 2018 F150 to drive. Dealership forgot to put the owner's manual in the glove box. After about 20 mile drive I pull up to a red light. The truck shuts off. I am thinking my luck new truck with 50 miles on it and it shuts off.

My question is if you have one of these trucks how do you like the auto shut off and on when you stop the vehicle holding the brake down.

I am wondering what the battery life is going to be.

i just got a '15 with the same. there's a button on the dash to turn it off. or switch to trailer mode and that will turn it off. but you have to do it each time you start the truck, it doesn't turn it off permanently.

i'm not crazy about it because it seems you would go thru more starters and batteries that would negate any gas savings. supposedly they do put heavier duty batteries and starters in the trucks with this feature.

That's why I will never own one of these new trucks. All these bells and whistles that some tree hugger engineers thought were a good idea turn out to be nothing but a headache.

Might check out a Ford truck forum to see if anybody knows how to permanently disable the feature.

GoldDot40 said:

Might check out a Ford truck forum to see if anybody knows how to permanently disable the feature.

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I got this..


Buy a Ram

you know, I was actually thinking about this post. My wife bought a hybrid CMax to go to work, and a grocery getter. She has 48,000 miles on it now. The starter on that thing must start that engine 20 times from home to work. Every time you let off the gas to go around a curve or coast down a hill, the engine shuts off. Then when you step on the gas and exceed what the battery powered side can provide, the gas engine gets restarted.

We haven't had any issues with anything on the little car, and it has averaged almost 41 mpg over that 48,000 miles.

I wonder if the technology has improved that much. I do know the starter doesn't wind and wind... when you hit the gas, the thing is running and ready to go

I have always heard that restarting an engine uses as much gas as it uses when idling for a minute. Not sure if that's true, and even less sure if this particular feature uses more gas to restart, but it's something to think about.

Just sounds like to me that it's one more thing to go wrong.

NE GA Pappy said:

I got this..


Buy a Ram

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Company owner's son in law sells Fords.

Truck to drive and credit card to fill it up, not complaining, just asking.

Your post made me curious so I googled it and found the following info:

• The feature is called "stop-start"
• It works best and provides the largest gas savings benefits when used in stop and go city driving. You will realize little or no benefit in highway driving.
• Likewise, it works best in mild climates where the a/c is not often used.
• The gas savings is highly dependent on the type of car but ranges from around 2% up to in some cases about 10%
• Everything is "beefed" up...starter, battery, and all components that are normally used when the car is running. It also has a special on-board computer that knows how and when to shut off or re-start the components.
• No mention is made or how much extra wear this causes on the components, nor whether these components cost more money than conventional components (like the starter) if they require repair.

A good article can be found if you google "edmunds stop-start". I would post the link but I didn't vet all the comments, and don't want to abuse the forum rules.

Good luck...

NE GA Pappy said:

you know, I was actually thinking about this post. My wife bought a hybrid CMax to go to work, and a grocery getter. She has 48,000 miles on it now. The starter on that thing must start that engine 20 times from home to work. Every time you let off the gas to go around a curve or coast down a hill, the engine shuts off. Then when you step on the gas and exceed what the battery powered side can provide, the gas engine gets restarted.

We haven't had any issues with anything on the little car, and it has averaged almost 41 mpg over that 48,000 miles.

I wonder if the technology has improved that much. I do know the starter doesn't wind and wind... when you hit the gas, the thing is running and ready to go

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Had a Kia Optima Hybrid for 5 years that we loved, especially the 40mpg. A month and a half ago the "stop driving immediately" message came on, so I pulled it over into the nearest parking lot. Both the main engine and the hybrid drive belts were shredded. Had it towed to the dealership and the service tech said it looked like the alternator / generator needed to be replaced. No biggy, until I learned on those units, because of it's duel function it would run a minimum of $1000, and nearing the 7 year mark the hybrid lithium ion battery would need replacing for around $4000. About a year earlier had to replace the cranking battery at $600 because it's not an average over the counter unit due to the increased cranking amps needed on the hybrid system.

We traded it immediately prior to repairing it on a non-hybrid Sorento SUV and I couldn't be happier. Don't get but around 27 to 30 mpg, but the cost offset and actually having a full size spare tire for long trips is much more gratifying to my peace of mind than saving a few mpg and having no spare tire at all.

It was a fun car to drive and enjoyed the mpg's but prolly will never do another hybrid again. Hard to beat a good ol' gas engine without any tricks to it.

After reading all of the above comments about this ABSOLUTELY STUPID IDEA, I will add my two cents worth as well.

In July 2016, I rented a new JEEP Grand Cherokee to drive on vacation to our place in Florida. It was a terrible decision as NOBODY even mentioned this crazy "stop/start" feature on this vehicle before I left the rental agency.

As I was driving through Jacksonville on I-95, the traffic had slowed and then came to a brief halt, then as I pushed the accelerator to go again, nothing happened as it just stopped right there in the middle lane of I-95. I was trying to be able to coast over to the right side emergency lane by using the slope of the highway and doing my best NOT to get smashed in the process. That happening dang near got my family killed as traffic had to slam on their brakes to keep from running all over me. It took a few seconds before it would crank up and begin to accelerate again. It happened again when I got off of I-4 about 30 miles north of Orlando while I was making a right turn. This vehicle would not start up again. Finally when it did, it was stuck in low gear and the transmission was whining like crazy as we moved at maybe 5-10 mph for about 100 yards and I pulled into a hotel parking lot and tried to figure out what the heck was going on. I finally got it re-started and went to pull back out onto this street and it did the exact same thing. I spent another 10 minutes cussing it. Then after this, the vehicle seemed to work better except with this crazy stop/start thing that I hated.

I managed to use this vehicle while in Florida because I would have had to take it 27 miles to turn it back in and I was not promised another Luxury vehicle that could hold two sets of golf clubs along with our normal belongings for vacation. I was definitely NOT a Happy Camper. I called the agent here in Augusta that had handled my rental and he actually owned one of these same vehicles and he was able to tell me how to cut this feature off after each time that I started the vehicle. I just had to remember it so I taped my business card onto the dash area that said,"CUT- OFF" on it and helped me to get back home alive.

Thankfully, we made it back home with only one more problem as such and when I turned it back in to Enterprise, I gave them the keys and they gave me my copy of the bill and it was at NO COST with their apology to me. Then they drove me back to my house immediately. I have rented a lot of cars from Enterprise over the past 30-35 years now and they have taken really great care of me in various cities across the country and even in extreme emergency rental situations.

I will have to admit that I lost my religion several times on this vacation venture. I have rented one other Ford SUV vehicle that had this feature and I was able to cut it off each time before I pulled out onto the highway. I have rented several Toyota over they years and NONE of them have this STUPID feature either and I hope they never do. I love the Toyota Camry's because they will run 75-100 mph just like running 40 mph and the gas mileage runs about 32-36 mpg on most trips too. The good news is that even as tall as I am, I still have plenty of leg room in the Camry's. I have owned 4 of them over the years as well.

Personally, I would like to have about 3 minutes with the IDIOT that came up with this crazy idea because they would NOT exist when I finished with them. I hope to NEVER have to use one of this vehicles like this again.

I have a 2016 with the 2.7 ecoboost and have learned how to manipulate the system without having to push the button every time. When you come to a stop, slightly turn the wheel or gently apply the break (with practice you’ll learn how much to apply). Every now and then I’ll push the breaks too much or forget to slightly turn the wheel and it’ll cut off but it happens rarely. Be glad Ford gives you the button to disable it, I’m told GM vehicles with start/stop don’t have a way to turn it off.

I bet you can buy a high dollar programmer to disable it.
I know with the GM V8s that cut back to 4 cylinders, you can reprogram them to be full time V8.
Seems some company will be along to do the same with this

This is all about the car maker fleet CAFE fuel economy standards. They can squeeze a few more MPGs out by using the start-stop feature.

I travel and rent a lot of vehicles. Most 2016 and newer have this feature. It's a little unnerving first time it happens. Last was a Jeff Cherokee. There was a button on the dash to turn off the feature, but as indicated above, you had to do that every time you started the car.

EAGLE EYE 444 said:

Personally, I would like to have about 3 minutes with the IDIOT that came up with this crazy idea because they would NOT exist when I finished with them. I hope to NEVER have to use one of this vehicles like this again.

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If you get that 3 minutes, throw in what were they thinking when they decided to have the tailgate lock when the doors lock. Its a Ford tailgate, how long is that lock going to work.