I just discovered a tip for the Auto Start/Stop function. I have found that I need to depress the break pedal very deeply to get the engine to stop. It is very uncomfortable to keep the pedal in that position at a stop light. However if I have activated the Hold button as well, I can release the break pedal and the engine stays off. When the light turns green, I can then press the gas pedal and proceed as normal. I don't remember reading this anywhere else. Hope this helps.

 

Get in a habit of doing three things every time you getting ready to start driving.
1) Pres the break pedal 2) Push Start to start your car 3) Press your Start/Stop, to disable your start/stop for the remainder of your drive that is, if you care about your engine

 

whats wrong with the use of the start/stop engine function?

 

It would be faster to respond to the question "what isn't wrong with the auto start/stop"

The happiest moment of my life was the day I installed an automatic turn off device for this. Well, perhaps I exaggerate a bit, LOL. There are many things on new cars that seem like a great idea on paper, but in execution they are the epitome of "Meh!". Like run flat tires, on paper great idea, in practice, not so much. The beautiful Lexus Infotainment screen another example. Beautiful screen with brand new interface, cloud based intelligence and OTA updates. In practice, well, it has its moments, good and bad. The start/stop saves a few drops of fuel and cuts down emissions, sounds good to me. Except in practice it requires beefed up starter motors to survive (not to mention the starter motors now have a pre-programmed death day where a CEL is set if you use the functionality a lot over the years), additional computer functions to track crankshaft/camshaft positions thru start/stop cycles to enable the fast startup, additional electronics/capacitors to prevent the rest of the vehicle's electronics from getting whacked by the sudden draw from the starter motor. Just a bunch of extra things happening to get this all to work and then it just puts more stress on the engine, the starter, and especially the battery. As the battery ages and wears from constant use it rapidly becomes less effective.

A minority of people like and are perfectly happy with all these paper-great, execution-questionable features, that's fine. I was one of them at one point. First car I had with start/stop (outside my hybrids of course) was a 2020 Crosstrek. I thought it was amazing and cool. 6 months later I installed an automatic start/stop OFF switch. When wife got a Forester, doing this was job one. AS/S on Subaru's is particularly rough. So here comes the NX, wow, its so smooth starting compared with the Subaru system, maybe I'll keep this on. Nope, by 9 months later I was sick of it too, in goes the automatic OFF device, LOL.

 

Its a horrible idea.

Hard on the starter, battery and your nerves.

I always turn it off.

I believe the computer is programed to keep count of the number of times the car goes into the start / stop mode and after a certain number of cycles the computer wants you to replace these components because the computer now considers they are at the end of their life. In this mode the battery and starter is now considered a normal wear item just likes brakes.

 

When we got our '22 it's brake pedal also needed to be pressed unusually hard to get things like the auto start/stop to work along with just pressing the start button to start the car. Our dealer worked with someone upstream to come up with a fix to make it so you don't have to press as hard. She still disables the stupid start/stop thing, but at least it got rid of having to press the brake as hard.

 

So what does Toyota Hybrid power-trains use to start their motors? Isn't the engine in the 350h and 350 also incredibly similar? Should a hybrid driver just put their car in park when they're at a red light and rev their engines so the engines don't stop? Or perhaps Toyota sees that a $99 battery as expendable as most should be replaced within 5 years?

 

It uses a massively more powerful motor that is integral to the hybrid system (MG1) that is constantly meshed with the engine via the eCVT (no solenoids shoving toothed gears together) powered by an even more massively powerful battery (hybrid traction battery) that can spin up the engine far more faster, far more accurately that a conventional starter motor (most conventional starters spin the engine to maybe 200-300 rpm and the initial ignition has to lug the engine up to idle as oil pressure builds back up, the hybrid motor can spin the engine up to and past normal idle rpms before ignition bringing up oil pressure and reducing the initial stress in the process), completely separate from the 12V system too. Its like Thor having an arm wrestling match with a toddler. in some cases the hybrid system will even keep the engine rotating under electric power even though the engine is not technically running (no fuel or ignition).

 

And did Toyota use a conventional starter in the new 350? Or is this all just assumption?

 

Definitely, the NX350 uses a conventional externally mounted bolt-on starter with a solenoid that forces the starter gears onto the torque converter flex plate to spin the engine. Its the same starter used in other Toyota's with the non-hybrid A25A or T24A engines (ie NX250, RAV4, etc). Some vehicles that use the same engine as the NX350 (T24A) do come with a hybrid system (RX500h, some Toyota trucks) and in that case the starting system is different than both the NX350 or NX350h. These cars don't use the hybrid eCVT, but instead use a large single hybrid electric motor (vs the 2 in FWD or 3 in AWD traditional Toyota hybrids) between the conventional automatic transmission and the engine controlled on each side via a clutch system (these systems allow use of conventional AWD or 4WD systems that can put more power to the rear wheels). The engine is started by the clutch engaging the hybrid motor to the engine to spin it up. In that case, no need for the conventional starter.

While conventional, these starter motors do have a higher duty cycle rating than a non-start stop car, but they function exactly the same. It is interesting that Toyota felt it necessary to code in a pre-determined starter replacement requirement after so many starts. Although in practice that time period shouldn't be too dissimilar to the typical life of a non start-stop starter motor in other cars depending of course how often the auto start stop is actually used. You don't see that on the hybrid systems and is another example of the difference in capabilities between how a hybrid starts an engine vs a non-hybrid with start/stop. The other side of the coin is, a starter replacement for the NX350 is relatively simple and not excessively costly. An engine starter type issue on a hybrid would be 10X the cost as that means the transmission is toast (but less likely to happen).

 

Here is a video for you to watch about Start/Stop You can stop watching after 1:05 as Scotty talks about other irrelevant stuff.