Had the car now for just over a week and generally very happy with it - not convinced about the Keyless entry though (which I did not order but appeared) as it caused Mrs Alex08 distress as she couldn't get the car to lock (!) and wouldn't leave it unlocked in the car park....... How do you test it is locked if your arms aren't long enough to hold the key out of reach?

Anyway my major issue with the car is the start/stop system. I have this on other cars and it is fine - triggers if you have the clutch down and are stationary. However it is different in the RRS - if you have the footbrake on and you are stopped it switches off the engine. Fine, BUT - not when you are stopped to reverse into a parking space and the engine cuts out before you can select reverse. Or if you are at traffic lights and you arrive and stop just as they change - engine has cut out. In both cases it restarts fine but the engine in being cycled unnecessarily. Or you are stopped and put the handbrake on and release the footbrake - engine starts. I don't want to be sitting at lights or in traffic queues with my brake lights on all of the time. I want to be able to select neutral, put the handbrake on and not have the engine start until I select drive with the footbrake on.

In my opinion the system is too sensitive - it should have a 5 second delay before activating when stopped and the footbrake is active to allow for another action, such as selecting reverse.

Anyone else have issues with this? Any solutions other that switching it off completely? Is there a dealer adjustable setting?

Do the mirrors fold when you lock?

Does the engine stop if you stop and leave in drive with the brake on? 

All of what you say is true. I especially dislike the restart when you put the parking brake on and release the brake pedal.

There are a lot of threads on here discussing stop/start (mostly about how to defeat it) but the short answer is to get used to switching it off at the start of every journey as automatically as putting on your seatbelt.

PS. I agree with using the mirror folding to assess if the car is locked. Regards

Malcolm

Yes I pointed the mirror business out to Mrs A but a. she is not trusting of technology and b. thinks the 'folding' mirrors are a joke as they twist a bit.

Posted about the S/S on the Disco4 as well and there seem many MY14 disgruntled owners there with the 'updates' to the system this year. As said, I think the only useful suggestion is to add switching it off to the preflight check list - if for no other reason than to protect a hot turbo from being starved of oil if you have to queue on the motorway.

Turbo? Which engine option is that, then? Mark

SVR in Estoril Blue

SDV6 has twin turbos

Ah, yes, sorry, diesels are not really on my radar. Mark

SVR in Estoril Blue

I suspect that 90%+ of the RRS sales in the UK will be diesels.

Relating to the stop/start issue, I have found that this feature on a petrol engine is much more benign than on a diesel. My Mercedes CL500 (twin turbo) restarted smoothly from the engine off state but I still turned off the S/S every journey. Diesels have a much higher compression ratio than petrols which means that the starter has to work harder to wind it up with associated noise and vibration. Regards

Malcolm

I agree, my dealer reckons about 1% will be petrol.

As for start-stop, it must place extra wear and tear on the starter and the battery and I wonder if there is any evidence their associated maintenance costs are higher and, if so, whether they outweigh the fuel savings. Mark

SVR in Estoril Blue

Start/Stop on any car has to mean trouble, surely? These systems are only there so that they can get their CO2 figures down; isn't it always amazing how some manufacturers manage to get their figure down to 99g/km when anything above 100g/km is the magic figure!? (199g/km in the SDV6 case - 200g/km being the next hike in VED!!)

Totally agree with the comments about ALL the mechanics suffering with these systems. The crank needed on a stone cold V6 3 litre diesel engine is massive. The only thing that you want to do with any cold engine once it's running (especially on a cold winter's day) - is to just leave it running!

And even more so when they're hot. Circulating oil and water in any combustion engine are there for a reason. Shut it off suddenly (eg. coming in to traffic on a motorway) doesn't give the engine what it needs until the thing restarts, during which time.....I don't even want to think about it.

These days we all drive cars with oil in them that has been specifically designed by oil companies so that it literally holds on to when it gets up to working temp. Can't help feeling that there are going to be some looking internals around on relatively young engines in a few years. Let the circulating oil do it's job unless you're caught up in miles of static traffic & you know you're going to be there for a while. Let it get hot - let the fans kick in - let it cool itself - off we go again, etc.... (Sorry, old school here!!)

I've just got a new Volvo V40 D2 for Mrs. Dove & I've made sure that she disables the S/S as soon as she starts the thing up. I actually went to speak to the lads in the service area at Volvo before I drove it off the forecourt to see if there's a relay that I can pull. There is but it might result in the small slave battery (that is there purely to restart during Stop/Start) running dead flat also as it looks like the same relay sends juice back to it to charge it. This is most likely to be the case with most modern cars - RR included.

I've considered popping the relay out for a few weeks and then back in so that the slave doesn't completely drain but it (currently) seems so much easier to just disable the thing as part of my start up procedure.

Interestingly, Volvo have a dashboard light ON telling you that the S/S system is ENABLED which extinguishes when you DISABLE the S/S system! Much neater not having that light on, I recon. Shame RR don't feel the same way about it.... Bloody thing, glowing away all the time making you think that there's something amiss with the engine!!

Sorry for the rant: To the OP - just switch it off, please!!  MY14 RRS2, Corris, Pano, 50/50 Cirrus/Black leather, Meridien sound, 22" Style 6's, Bespoke Gap around tailgate.
Porsche 911 (just left!)
1972 VW Bay Camper (cooled by the air alone!!)

Question: On the stop/start mechanism the engine starts if you pull the electronic handbrake (and lift the foot off the brake pedal). That makes very little sense. If I don't want to dazzle the guy behind with my brake lights id rather pull the handbrake and then release the food off the brake - but hey presto, then the engine turns on or have a missed something?

Noticed that this had been discussed earlier in the thread - sorry.