[jwa46]

Late Saturday afternoon my new (2500 miles) X3 quit on me at a stop light. Got a message that car was going into neutral. After that could could not shift to drive. Shut it down which put it into park. Got towed to the dealer which (being late Saturday) was in the process of closing down.

Word Monday morning was that the starter motor died and will need to order new one from Germany.

Since I have not seen anything else posted on this problem I'm hoping it just an anomaly that won't repeat itself.

[83883]

Only 2500 miles... interesting. Can you expand on why the car quit? Did you have auto-start-stop active at that time? So was ASS just stopping at the light as normal, and then wouldn't restart? Or did something else happen?

I had errors for a few weeks on the starter motor on my '21 M40i (non-mild hybrid). It failed to start a few times and then after 20 seconds or so, I would retry and it would start just fine. The starter was replaced under warranty at 35k miles so your starter failure is not unheard of.

[jwa46]

My theory is this. Auto start-stop was active at the time and it was probably in stop mode. When the motor died it could not re-start and went to neutral. I actually didn't notice if it was in stop mode. My main focus was shifting into drive (which was unsuccessful) since the light was green.

I don't know why the motor failed. It must have just been a bad one. Lately there has been a odor in the garage that smelled like gas. I'm thinking now it might have been the motor slowly burning up.

[Joralemon st.]

Fear of THIS is why I always disable ASS...

[bocabimmer]

Originally Posted by Joralemon st.

Fear of THIS is why I always disable ASS...

Me too. Albeit I don’t think under 5k miles was the cause in this case.

I was thinking though… while it’s less wear on the starter to keep the engine on, how much wear are we saving on other components (engine intervals, transmission, fluids) by shutting it off.

[chhappy7]

Originally Posted by bocabimmer

Me too. Albeit I don’t think under 5k miles was the cause in this case.

I was thinking though… while it’s less wear on the starter to keep the engine on, how much wear are we saving on other components (engine intervals, transmission, fluids) by shutting it off.

I guess this would really depend on how much someone spends stopped at stoplight or a deadlock on highway. But I'd imagine even on highways (unless in LA where it is crazy last I remember from when I lived in CA), people are usually creeping and not just completely stationary so it probably wouldn't be shut off for that long anyway.

I always thought ASS was just something that manufacturers put in place to pretty much boost their MPG rating for the standardized course where MPG gets tested.

[GDEvans]

Originally Posted by Joralemon st.

Fear of THIS is why I always disable ASS...

I sold my Audi with auto stop/start after 80,000 miles. I had never disabled the ASS. It never missed a beat, and was still on the original battery.

[Joralemon st.]

Originally Posted by bocabimmer

Me too. Albeit I don’t think under 5k miles was the cause in this case.

I was thinking though… while it’s less wear on the starter to keep the engine on, how much wear are we saving on other components (engine intervals, transmission, fluids) by shutting it off.

I'm not sure, but it just drives me crazy. In my '15 X1 — the AC's performance would drop significantly when ASS would enable. Doesn't happen in the '21 X3, but I still don't like it )))

[Joralemon st.]

Originally Posted by GDEvans

I sold my Audi with auto stop/start after 80,000 miles. I had never disabled the ASS. It never missed a beat, and was still on the original battery.

I'm sure. But reading a post like this — gives a bit of justification to my OCD methods

[bocabimmer]

Nonetheless, at the end of the day I want my power delivered to me immediately without any chance of delay waiting for a starter.

There’s probably many other items (read: electronics) on the car that will drive me to sell it long before any major engine components.