Eoc
 

does anyone else find that it'd be useful to have your turn signals work while EOC? It'd be cool if auto manufacturers would support EOC in their vehicles with supplemental electric vacuum for braking and instant pedal on. imagine the savings nation-wide.

I had full use of my turn signals in my Saturn. As for instant pedal on, that's basically how my Prius and other hybrids work.

yeah i have signals too when i flip it to the on. having it in the on position lets it track the mileage and have signals. but the instant on thing i guess that will have to wait till i get a prius

88HF -

Agreed. The "mild hybrid" option doesn't save as much as the Prius, but it is doing almost all the things we do manually (aka the Saturn Aura and Saturn Vue). Engine off at a stop, engine on when the accelerator pedal is pressed, engine off when possible, and such.

I just wish they offered it in stickshift,

CarloSW2

Turn signals on my Saturn work in EOC with the key in "run". Not in "off" when sitting at a red light waiting for green so I can make my turn. I wish turn signals would work regardless of key position. Hazard lights work that way, off, run, or engine running. Why not turn signals? I guess it's to keep doofusses that unintentionally leave their signals on from running down the battery when parked and vacating the car. You know the type... they leave their turn signal on for miles at a time, some of them weaving through traffic, making it painfully obvious there's a nut behind the wheel.

Anybody else find that MPG drops 0.1 or more with the key left in "run" in a long stop in EOC mode? I'm in the habit now of turning the key from "run" to "off" two seconds or so before coming to a complete stop. Otherwise, trip MPG drops a tenth or two while stopped with the engine off. Equally odd is that if I slow to the stop and turn the key off just before stopping, a few seconds after I've stopped, FE goes UP 0.1 or 0.2 before SG2 turns off. I have the display update rate set to HIGH, not to NORMAL or SLOW if that helps any. I certainly don't mind FE going UP when stopped, with key off. Sure beats FE going DOWN with the key in "run".

It would be relatively simple electronically to convert your signals to always bepowered, and not much more complicated to add a 'pedal-on' feature. It's just a matter of how much complication you are willing to deal with.

A pedal-on feature obviously requires some safety interlocks that depend upon the state of the motor, the ignition, and the gear selector, but it wouldn't take anything to rig up a microswitch that engages a timer latched starter relay. On an automatic, coupled with a zero speed engine kill circuit, this could be a very cool feature, eliminating the need to be in neutral or park to restart. For a manual, I don't see much point in it beyond the convenience of not having to remember to start it again.

An electric vacuum pump for the brakes is also a very simple installation.

I like all of these ideas...
 

I like all of these ideas -- especially the electric vacuum assist. I recall driving a mid-80's U-Haul straight-truck (I think it was the "extra-large" size GMC chassis with the manual transmission and manual choke). If you pressed the brake pedal, it sounded like an electric motor kicked-in and you had brakes before startup.

...also, turning the key off while signalling is a minor inconvenience, but could be a quick fix.

My only question is the ability to start an automatic in gear. I suppose you're really not supposed to EOC in "Drive", and from a standing start, wouldn't that kill the starter? Maybe I'm confused --

I'd like to wire-up a kill switch on, or near, the gear selector. Auto-start sounds like it would be convenient for throttle-pedal starts -- a quick blip engages the process, and you could still hold the brake on inclines...

RH77

I don't believe that starting an automatic in drive is hugely overloading the average starter. At zero rpm, the torque converter provides no resistance and probably doesn't provide enough to keep the motor from starting as the rpm from the starter increases.

And lest anybody get the wrong idea, I'm not advocating EOC with an automatic. Every auto I have had experience with would not last long doing that.