Three levels of sketchy stuff you can buy online – Level 1
If you've driven a recent model car, you've probably experienced this. It's highly annoying.
And while you can temporarily turn this feature off, it's not a permanent setting. You have to turn it off every time you drive the car. The dealer won't turn it off for you either (at least mine wouldn't).
What's worse is this feature doesn't actually save much gas. I ran the numbers and calculated that, in a typical year, this saved me just 1.5 5 gallons of gas per year. So it's definitely not worth it for the annoyance and the wear and tear on the starter motor.
Fortunately, you can buy a small device on Amazon that takes about 10 minutes to install and completely fixes this glitch. Does it invalidate your warranty? Probably. But you could easily take it out if that ever became an issue. In any case, it's probably safest to buy one that's highly reviewed and made in a western country.
Sketchiness level: 3/10
If I come in with a defective bumper it's not going to matter if I have the component installed. The only way this matters is in the unlikely event the component actually causes damage. Given how annoying the engine shutoff is, I'll take my chances.
I'm curious what 1.5 gallons works out as a percentage. That auto shut off thing supposedly saves 3-10% of gas at the lower end of estimates when I google it, according to 'experts'. Depends hugely on how much time you spend idling though. Some commutes are horrendous for sitting in traffic.
Call it 5 gallons, maybe.
The percentage would heavily depend on how much you stop, and the length of the stops.
But here's the thing. If you stop a lot, while you do save more gas, it's also much more annoying. 100% of the savings come from annoying the driver. You also cause traffic congestion which negates part of the savings.
Furthermore, you need to stop for 7 seconds to break even. But this thing is always shutting off while queuing at stop signs. So many of the shut offs are actually net negative.
I still always shut off my engine when waiting for a long time such as at a bridge and encourage others to do the same.
But, at the same time, I don't need to have the engine turned off every time I come to a stop sign. That's just overkill.
Anyway, I mention all this because sometimes I worry that some of the things he uses/runs in our office could be dangerous. The main thing that comes to mind is the ozone generator that he uses to "clean" the office. Does anyone know whether those things are actually safe??
Either way, glad you figured it out!