Auto Start/Stop Disabled

[Bronco III]

I dislike this feature and make a point of turning it off most of the time. A few weeks ago, I noticed that it was no longer shutting the engine off while I was stopped and the indicator light on the instrument panel showed it was off, even though I hadn’t pushed the button! While I don’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth, I’m wondering if this indicates a problem? In my ‘22 OBX, I bought the adapter to disable this feature but now maybe I don’t have to in this one.

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[dwrufus53]

I dislike this feature and make a point of turning it off most of the time. A few weeks ago, I noticed that it was no longer shutting the engine off while I was stopped and the indicator light on the instrument panel showed it was off, even though I hadn’t pushed the button! While I don’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth, I’m wondering if this indicates a problem? In my ‘22 OBX, I bought the adapter to disable this feature but now maybe I don’t have to in this one.

If your battery is going, the disabling of the auto start/stop is one of the first indications.

The other thing that will definitely disable the auto start/stop is ambient temperature. Living in Phoenix, it auto disables from about mid-April through early November.

Also, I run my Bronco Sport in sport mode most of the time, and that, also, will disable the auto start/stop.

Given the above and your location, my first guess would be to have your battery checked.

 

[Dude]

…, I’m wondering if this indicates a problem? In my ‘22 OBX, I bought the adapter to disable this feature but now maybe I don’t have to in this one.

As stated earlier - it could be the battery is not holding a sufficient charge, could also be:
Positive and negative terminals at the battery posts aren’t snug,
Negative cable bolted to drivers fender is not snug,
Not driving the vehicle for a sufficiently long time for a few times a week,
It’s too cold out or too hot out or a number of other reasons that are documented in your Owners Manual, or
Alternator or other charging system component isn’t functioning properly.

Ford dealerships offer a free battery and charging system check but you’ll want to make sure it’s a load test check

On your vehicle you can enable the auto stop/start display to see the reason why auto stop/start is disabled - most likely on your vehicle it probably will say because the vehicle is charging

‘21-‘24 Bronco sports don’t have an easily accessible 12V battery display on the instrument cluster (it’s in the Engineering Test Mode but not so easy to access)

there are various devices you can use to check the health of your battery including Bluetooth devices but I like this simple 12V meter you plug into the 12V port in the center console, you can keep tabs on the battery voltage in real time when you are driving - pretty easy to see the alternator is always (or almost always) charging the battery no matter how much you are driving in which case the auto stop/start will be disabled - and could be a good indication your battery is close to failing

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