Force500 said:

My question to you would be how often do you use your stop start??

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To be honest, I wouldn't even know how to disable the Stop/Start on our TA. It now operates as it should, so when we stop at lights etc it does its job.

People go on about bigger batteries, well that's fine, but we've got what the car came out of the factory with and clearly it does what it is supposed to and I have no intention of forking out money for no reason when I have a CTEK charger that can recondition or provide a top up over a few hours if required.

If anyone therefore knows the procedure to disable the Stop/Start on our TA, please feel free to divulge the info, but as the system now works exactly as it should, I doubt I'll need to actually consider disabling it.

You can simply turn it off manually when you start the car up, it's then off for the duration of the journey this will help the battery charge up to it full capacity.


I know these are fiats but Volvo run a separate battery that hold 6hours worth of s/s life leaving the main battery well alone but what they fail to tell city driver is that it also takes 8 hours to fully recharge so eventually the main battery will kick in to start the car

Force500 said:

My question to you would be how often do you use your stop start??

I'm asking because stop start rapidly reduces the life of your battery, battery's are working harder these days think of all the times you sat in traffic the cars switched off but yet the radio/heaters/lights are still on, what's running all these things? The battery.

A bigger battery is needed to run all this. I'm not saying this will completely solve the problem but a bigger battery and turning the stop start off every now and then will prolong the battery life and give it that much needed charge.

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500's already have a bigger battery and alternator fitted to cope with this

Force500 said:

You can simply turn it off manually when you start the car up, it's then off for the duration of the journey this will help the battery charge up to it full capacity.

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I haven't even read the handbook on the car to be honest. Turn it off where exactly? I see no big button in our TA that says S/S off. We just have the ECO button, the hazard warning button and the rear fog button. Do you disable S/S from the menu? I went through the menu yesterday to reset the clock because it was 5 minutes out and I didn't see any option for disabling S/S.

I guess though I might be being a bit thick here and it is staring me in the face......

frupi said:

I haven't even read the handbook on the car to be honest. Turn it off where exactly? I see no big button in our TA that says S/S off. We just have the ECO button, the hazard warning button and the rear fog button. Do you disable S/S from the menu? I went through the menu yesterday to reset the clock because it was 5 minutes out and I didn't see any option for disabling S/S.

I guess though I might be being a bit thick here and it is staring me in the face......

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there should be a button near the rear window demister button.

oh and read the manual

306maxi said:

there should be a button near the rear window demister button.

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Oh.... guess we'll have a look when the missus gets back from shopping. Don't know why we wouldn't have ever noticed it before though? Helps if one RTFM though I suppose.....

I suppose though we were so fed up with the S/S over the last few months, that we weren't that bothered about it anyway, but now it works just fine, then I guess it'll just stay on. I personally don't like the S/S function, I turn it off in my works van all the time. As for our TA, I like drive it once or twice a month and then just locally up the road. Missus obviously drives it all the time and got on fine with S/S in the old POP too and is now fine with it again in the TA.

306maxi said:

there should be a button near the rear window demister button.

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Ahhh, so I shy back in embarrassment and bow to thee oh knowledgeable one :slayer:

I just took a look in the car and noticed said button for the first time in 9 months of ownership sort of disguised amongst the colour of the instrumentation located under the climate control panel just to the left!

Now I'm afraid to push it lol! Considering the S/S didn't really work properly from the day we bought the car due to the faulty heater flap motor.

The wife hasn't noticed it and I'm not pointing it out to her lol!

306maxi said:

500's already have a bigger battery and alternator fitted to cope with this

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They do have a bigger alternator but this makes no difference as you could have an alternator that's as big as the moon but it will only fluctuate betwwen 13.5 and 14.5 volts

The battery is taking the big hit everytime the car is in stop mode as it's draining at a rapid rate (ok maybe rapid is the wrong word)

Force500 said:

They do but they still are not big enough to cope with the demand that is needed,

Best option is to have a bigger battery fitted when it eventually dies.

This is going to sound like I am back tracking but a bigger alternator is not always the best solution as it can over charge the battery coursing the plates to bend/worp this corsing the battery to suddenly die.

So in the long run fiat didn't really think the idea through that well.

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No no no no. Modern alternators don't do this, they're smart and will stop charging the battery when it's fully charged.


I seem to remember jrkitching pointed out a few weeks/months ago that there are some negatives to fitting a larger battery as well. One which seems obvious to me would be that a larger battery will lose more of its power whilst standing, so the alternator will be working harder for longer to replace this lost power. If a car is mainly driven on shorter journeys then a bigger battery will never be fully recharged.


It doesn't take that much power to start a hot engine anyway, also Bosch would never give any warranty on any of the componentry of the whole S&S system if Fiat were fitting too small a battery. That's how things work in the manufacturing world. The S&S system is designed to safeguard the battery anyway, hence why people get S&S unavailable messages.


The issues with start & stop are numerous, but I think the system itself is fairly well designed if a bit fussy (see Frupi's climate control issue causing S&S not to work properly), the problems seem to stem from dealer incompetence, dealers not preparing cars properly (they really should charge the batteries properly before handover) and dealers simply not being willing or able to troubleshoot issues.

306maxi said:

No no no no. Modern alternators don't do this, they're smart and will stop charging the battery when it's fully charged.


I seem to remember jrkitching pointed out a few weeks/months ago that there are some negatives to fitting a larger battery as well. One which seems obvious to me would be that a larger battery will lose more of its power whilst standing, so the alternator will be working harder for longer to replace this lost power. If a car is mainly driven on shorter journeys then a bigger battery will never be fully recharged.


It doesn't take that much power to start a hot engine anyway, also Bosch would never give any warranty on any of the componentry of the whole S&S system if Fiat were fitting too small a battery. That's how things work in the manufacturing world. The S&S system is designed to safeguard the battery anyway, hence why people get S&S unavailable messages.


The issues with start & stop are numerous, but I think the system itself is fairly well designed if a bit fussy (see Frupi's climate control issue causing S&S not to work properly), the problems seem to stem from dealer incompetence, dealers not preparing cars properly (they really should charge the batteries properly before handover) and dealers simply not being willing or able to troubleshoot issues.

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Look at my edited post I realised that when I sent the post you quoted

306maxi said:

...One which seems obvious to me would be that a larger battery will lose more of its power whilst standing, so the alternator will be working harder for longer to replace this lost power.

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That's sound thinking, and it will affect fuel consumption too.

Theoretical considerations suggest overall economy will get slightly worse as the battery ages, since it will self-discharge at a greater rate and the alternator will have to work a little bit harder each time you've left the car standing overnight.

If you do a regular journey & reset the trip each time, you'll notice a difference (for the worse) if you ever need to leave the car standing unused for a week or two.

There may be a point at which the extra fuel burn running with an older battery is sufficient to justify replacement on cost grounds, even if it is otherwise functioning satisfactorily. Anyone fancy trying the math?

You lost me after 'Theorectical'. As I'm just a tad mathematically challenged, I'll have to take your word for it Good explanation, well presented!

Stop/start equipped cars have a different battery than a normal car. Have a look at Euro Car Parts and compare them and their prices. A standard battery, no matter how big in comparison to the proper stop/start item will have a very short life if used on a stop/start car.

portland_bill said:

Stop/start equipped cars have a different battery than a normal car. Have a look at Euro Car Parts and compare them and their prices. A standard battery, no matter how big in comparison to the proper stop/start item will have a very short life if used on a stop/start car.

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I disagree.


My car has been pretty much used as a S&S would be, stopping pretty much at all junctions. I have an even smaller battery than the S&S ones, it's been flattened twice and it's still going 5 years later.

306maxi said:

One which seems obvious to me would be that a larger battery will lose more of its power whilst standing, so the alternator will be working harder for longer to replace this lost power. If a car is mainly driven on shorter journeys then a bigger battery will never be fully recharged.

It doesn't take that much power to start a hot engine anyway, also Bosch would never give any warranty on any of the componentry of the whole S&S system if Fiat were fitting too small a battery.

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I'm now in the testing phase of running a 0.2 Ah supercap (an AA battery is 2Ah!) bank as the starting battery. Even 0.2Ah has enough juice to start the car with no problem from cold (the reason for big CCA batteries is their woeful cold weather performance, and well, performance in general).

Being so small, the alt has basically nothing to do but run the car itself and the voltage drop from starting the engine is restored the moment the alt comes on line (not like the OEM setup which could take 80km to top up the battery). The set up will also out last the car, and I can still listen to the radio for half an hour without problem.

I won't have S/S with it because the chemistry is too different, but overall it's a 900gram battery with reduced open road fuel consumption.