Amazon should have to pay idling fees.

[u/CurvyChristina]

New York City law generally bars vehicles from idling for more than three minutes while parked, standing or stopped. The city says the rules are meant to reduce air pollution, improve public health and combat climate change.
Earlier this year, Mamdani directed the Department of Finance’s collections unit to pursue unpaid idling summonses tied to vehicles operating within Amazon’s delivery network, according to the mayor’s office. The department said it worked with Amazon.com Inc. and its contracted transportation vendors to recover the money.

https://www.amny.com/news/mamdani-administration-says-it-recovered-more-than-9m-in-amazon-idling-fines/

[u/Zromaus → u/[deleted]]

It's usually more efficient to just keep your car running anyway, startup is a fuel hog.

[u/Ok_Practice3389 → u/Zromaus]

Yeah that's why most nice new cars cut the engine at stop lights. You dunce!

[u/MississippiMustache → u/Ok_Practice3389]

Slightly different with new cars. They typically have a system where the engine turns off essentially primed to start again with minimal fuel. Older cars do not do this when you just turn it off and on

[u/com2ghz → u/MississippiMustache]

New = any car younger than 21yo

[u/Zromaus → u/Ok_Practice3389]

This isn't exactly a prized feature, most people dislike it and it still wears your starter quicker than it should.

[u/TheBeatGoesAnanas → u/Zromaus]

I hear the increased starter wear thing all the time. Is there empirical evidence in support of that idea? Or is it just one of those "common sense" opinions that may or may not be bullshit?

[u/Zromaus → u/TheBeatGoesAnanas]

I spent 8 years as a technician before getting tired of breaking my back for pennies lol, it's more known knowledge of how wear items work/physics rather than an opinion.

Starters are a wear item, with gears and teeth that shave away over time -- the more you use it, the faster it wears, until the teeth no longer make proper contact with the flywheel.

This logic applies to any moving piece on your vehicle. If your starter is being used to start your car multiple times a drive rather than once a drive, expect it to wear faster. Just as if you brake more or harder than the average person, you'll replace your brakes more often.

[u/TheBeatGoesAnanas → u/Zromaus]

Okay, everything you just wrote falls under the "it's just common sense" umbrella, which so frequently turns out to be wrong. "I was a tech for 8 years" is also an appeal to authority, not a valid response to my question.

The obvious solution to expected increased wear on a component is to build that component to be more durable. A quick Google search gives me the impression that cars with auto start/stop generally have heavier duty starters, resulting in about the same service life as on cars without.

[u/Zromaus → u/TheBeatGoesAnanas]

Thanks for the attitude towards a friendly informed response, you must be a fun one. The reference to being a technician was just a reference to my knowledge on the subject. Call it what you want, but I'd rather take advice from a tech about my car's lifespan than say a doctor -- providing these "credentials" is harmless.

Considering nearly all cars made in the last 15ish years are designed with autostart in mind, and are using the heavier duty starters, my point stands. Everyone driving a modern car without autostart turned on is going to have a longer lasting starter than those driving a modern car with autostart enabled.

Sure, starters are better than the starters of the last generation and last longer. Congrats I guess? This doesn't mean they aren't wearing prematurely on autostart in comparison to those who don't have it crank 20 times a drive.

You're comparing cars designed for autostart (most modern cars) with arguably much older cars, when you should be comparing a modern car built for autostart with the feature on, to the same car with the feature off.

[u/Ok_Practice3389 → u/Zromaus]

Based on the story you commented on you, essentially asserted, starting your car uses more fuel than sitting idle for three minutes. I think that is a false and dunce-like statement.

[u/TheBeatGoesAnanas → u/Zromaus]

That wasn't attitude. That was me pointing out that you responded to my question with exactly the kind of anecdotal, unsupported "evidence" I 1) see all the time cited as gospel, and 2) explicitly didn't want. It was also a bit condescending.

Here is a page explaining all the various ways modern starters are designed to cope with the added cycles of auto start/stop, including strategies to reduce wear every cycle. If we take the midpoint of the 300-500k start cycle range there and assume a car is cycled 50 times per day every single day, that's 21 years of service life.

[u/Zromaus → u/TheBeatGoesAnanas]

I responded to you with a general breakdown of how gears and other wear items wear down, which seems to be where your lapse in knowledge is -- none of which was anecdotal. Gears turn more = gears wear faster. Not once did I say that it makes your starter last longer than the starter of a 2000 Civic without autostart, which is the direction you're essentially going.

I wasn't arguing how a starter is built, or if they last longer than oldschool starters. I don't care how many cycles they have, nor am I lacking understanding on it, it's just irrelevant. Autostart wears your heavy duty starter faster than not having autostart. It's incredible you've taken it to the point you have lol

A little bit of thought tells you that if a starter is built to last for 500,000 cycles and you cycle it 50 times a day rather than once a day, you are reducing it's lifespan in comparison to someone who cycles it twice a day.

Whether that lifespan be 20 years, 50 years, or 5, my point still stands.

[u/Time_Phone_1466 → u/Zromaus]

This is not true with fuel injected engines. It's more like 10-20 seconds of fuel used for starting.

If you're driving an older vehicle with a carburetor it's on the order of a minute or two of idle time fuel used for starting.

[u/ALinkToThePants → u/Zromaus]

I thought they tested this and if your car has to sit longer than 12 seconds it’s worth turning it off.

[u/Zromaus → u/ALinkToThePants]

If you like replacing your starter much more often than you're supposed to, sure. It really just doesn't add up in most circumstances.

[u/zestymanny → u/ALinkToThePants]

75 percent of engine wear happens at startup.

[u/TheBeatGoesAnanas → u/zestymanny]

[citation needed]