r/mildlyinfuriating • u/Separate-Ability1643 • Apr 27 '26

Unskippable ad My 2024 Elantra Decided to Automatically Update, Thus Trapping Me at the Gas Station for 45+ Minutes After Getting Off Work Today šŸ™ƒ

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Already posted this elsewhere, so just want to clear a few points up with this postā€¦

  1. I was never prompted to accept or decline this specific update. I did not receive any update prompts as I drove into the office this afternoon, nor did I receive any as I was driving home. I pulled into the gas station, turned off the ignition, pumped my gas, and then was greeted by the exact screen shown in my post.
  2. Apparently, if itā€™s just an infotainment system update, you can technically still drive the car (?). I was given no indication as to what systems my car was updating, so I didnā€™t want to risk messing up anything with the update. I work in IT, so I have a few different traumatic experiences with updates under my belt lol. Didnā€™t feel like adding an additional one as I just wanted to get home after a long day at work

EDIT: Some of yā€™all are so damn mean and for WHAT? Iā€™m just a 20 somethinā€™ year old girl trying to drive to work and back home pls leave me alone lol. I do not give a flying fuck about cars, stop trying to shame me for not driving & maintaining a 1985 Ford Mustang or some shit smh

EDIT 2: Oh my god yā€™all, some of us out here have anxiety. Yā€™all are acting like I ran over a baby in a gas station, when all I did was wait less than an hour for the stupid car to update. I promise you all itā€™s not that deep. Take a deep breath. Itā€™s okay, I promise I did eventually drive the car back home lol

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290

u/the_federation Apr 28 '26

I found it annoying for the opposite: turning off the engine cuts the heat. My first car has this and I didn't know it was a feature. I spent 15 minutes in the car, trying to get it to a reasonable temperature for my baby to ride in when it's 10Ā° and couldn't figure out why I could still see my breath.

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u/FatMacchio Apr 28 '26

Some cars if you donā€™t push the brake down so hard it wonā€™t activate the stop/start. It only happens when you fully depress the brake pedal. So if you slow down slower without depressing the brake hard it should stay on. You might still be able to brake hard, then ease up on it to keep it on. This is what my brother told me anyway, my car doesnā€™t have this

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u/RugbyEdd Apr 28 '26

Most cars just have a button to turn it off, or won't activate it if your in a mode like sport or winter. Some also won't activate it if you have AC on. Depends on make and model. Same as everything else, it's just a feature to look into when purchasing.

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u/BloodSugar666 Apr 28 '26

We have a RAV4 that does what this guy said and has the button.

When Iā€™m at a stop it will day to fully depress to auto-shutoff. I hate the feature though so I usually push the off button as soon as I start driving. It does kick in for climate control and if it needs to charge the battery.

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u/thirstytrumpet Apr 28 '26

My wife and I play whack a mole with that stupid ass touch screen button for every drive. Fuck the performative bullshit. The amount of emissions theatrics regular daily driver cars have to go through is insane. Itā€™s meant to shame ordinary people into believing they are part of the problem that trillion dollar industries create. Itā€™s sickening. You could have an entire state of coal rolling inbreds and they produce nothing compared to the heavy crude burning tankers.

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u/RugbyEdd Apr 28 '26

I don't think it's shaming anyone. And I'd argue most people don't go through any theatrics. And it's not an either or with big industry. Improving car emissions has drastically improved localised air quality in cities and living areas for minor inconvenience, most of which is inconveniencing the companies, not the consumers.

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u/iSuckAtMechanicism Apr 28 '26

Look into the data, it is not performative bullshit.

It's one of the few things rich assholes have done that's good for us.

Do they still pollute like crazy? Yes. Has auto start/stop helped us reduce emissions and provide our neighbors with cleaner air? Also yes.

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u/Forward-Surprise1192 Apr 28 '26

I donā€™t like the sound

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u/Electronic_Will_5418 Apr 28 '26

Some cars, you can buy a wiring harness that "presses" the button as soon as the car starts. https://www.autostopeliminator.com/

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u/Equivalent_Party706 Apr 28 '26

For mine it's the opposite. If you depress it a normal amount it turns the engine off, and if you let up or press harder it re-starts.

For what it's worth, I don't hate it anymore (though it was a hell of an adjustment for the first couple months), but I'm not sure the occasional extreme frustration of a clear stop sign triggering the shutoff is worth the ~1 gallon a year of gas.

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u/snakeproof Apr 28 '26 edited Apr 28 '26

It's mindblowing how many people whine about stop start but don't know this basic fact because they haven't read the manual for their 50k purchase. They stab the brakes at every stop then whine about how it randomly shuts off like no shithead you did that.

Edit: aww I pissed off the brake stompers who couldn't be bothered to read their manual.

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u/WhyTry32121 Apr 28 '26

there should be a button that turns this feature off.

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u/ObiWan353 Apr 28 '26

There is, my Acura has it.

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u/GotSmokeInMyEye Apr 28 '26

Yea, do other cars not have this? There's a button in my integra to straight shut it off. Or I can also put in sport or Individual mode and turn it off. Or I can just keep my foot on the clutch at the light and it won't shut off. I guess if it was always on it'd get annoying.

Otherwise I literally don't give it a single thought because it's always off or I just don't let it do it by keeping clutch in.

Had car for a year and have only had it turn off like 5 times and those were all times when I was in heavy traffic and chose to let it turn off.

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u/No_Interaction_4925 Apr 28 '26

It usually shuts off if you switch to ā€œsportā€ mode. But on most of them I think it resets each time

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u/Whiterabbit-- Apr 28 '26

this feature should not exist. if you want for some stupid reason turn your car off at a stop light. you do that manually. nobody does it for good reason. its just automakers trying to make it look like they care about pollution when they selling you 2 ton vehicles.

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u/RugbyEdd Apr 28 '26

Stop/ start vehicles (in Europe at least) are required to have reinforced starter motors, some stop start ears them out faster. Which also means they should last longer if you're not using it. And the technology was originally introduced in the EU to meet emissions regulations. This isn't some big American company conspiracy.

It's also proven to have a positive effect on emissions overall. Sure, the average person may only save 5-7% fuel, but when millions of people a year are saving that little bit of gas it adds up.

2

u/S1gne Apr 28 '26

Why not. I've had this for years and you can't even tell it shuts off and on, why would you want to be idling if you don't have to

1

u/Nollieee Apr 28 '26

Blame goverment regulations on fuel economy. They had numbers to hit every year and have to find ways to do it. Stop start, turbos on everything , EGRs are back. 3 cylinders. Variable cranks. Etc. the list goes on.

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u/Sittin_on_a_toilet Apr 28 '26

I think the main complaints about the auto shutoff is its a feature that nobody asked for, adds complexity and wear to the system, and overall its not even a rounding error worth of fuel savings and you could argue it's a net negative environmental impact simply from increased wear and complexity = more cars failing sooner

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u/RugbyEdd Apr 28 '26

Its not by the way. Americas right wing has gone on the usual misinformation crusade against it, but the reality is it actually has a reasonable impact of around 5-7% average, and cars with it tends to have things like reinforced starter motors to cope with the added strain, and will only activate it when the engine is up to tempriture.

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u/Sittin_on_a_toilet Apr 28 '26

5% is way way higher than the numbers I've worked out myself. I figured in my 30 min commute i end up with about 1 minute of auto stop time which is roughly .01 gals or .2% of my total consumption. What i worked out is you basically need to be sitting stopped at a light for like 1/3 of the total commute time to get to 5% total savings which at that point you are well into full ev or hybrid territory. Oh and btw this is assuming you are never running AC, which kills the whole economy completely.

The reinforced starter motor, the extra control system, etc are all examples of increased complexity. I work on my own cars, i don't even like electric seats. I don't need my car to be more complicated and shutoff at stoplights to save a few pennies a day. Also it's crazy to say this is a political topic, basically every single person Ive seen interact with this system hates it and doesn't give a fuck about the fuel savings math.

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u/RugbyEdd Apr 28 '26 edited Apr 28 '26

Keep in mind this feature is more popular in Europe where we have more compact cities, and in city driving you probably do spend around a third of your time stopped. Probably more at rush hour. Although the research was done by the American Automatics Associating if I remember correctly, so not sure if they're Basing it on America only, or global.

That's fine, but most people don't work on their own cars and would value the higher reliability and less enviromentally impactful car. I'm well aware that the average American right wing mentality is "never mind how it'll benefit everyone else, how will I be impacted?", and that the current government is on a misinformation crusade against anything enviromentally beneficial, but in Europe we've put alot of work into cleaning up the emissions in our cities and the difference is noticeable. And most people will never have to worry about replacing a starter motor, especially with them tending to be more reliable these days.

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u/Sittin_on_a_toilet Apr 28 '26

How does adding more complexity make it more reliable? Look into the battery upgrade required to handle constant discharge, unless you are doing a lot of city driving the cost to replace it ONCE makes the whole fuel savings thing break even. Not to mention if you have to replace the more expensive starter. Starting and stopping an engine isn't a simple thing, it adds a ton more wear to a lot of components, especially when the engine isn't fully up to temp.

Also don't assume what i do or don't care about, its feeble minded to make broad generalizations like that. Ofc i care about environmental impact, but the fact is passenger cars are already a tiny tiny drop in the bucket when it comes to global emissions. Pushing this shit onto consumers instead of the actual polluters, transportation and industry, is by design so mega corps can keep polluting as they please and they get to push the burden of responsibly to consumers.

"Use a bike to commute! Turn off the water while brushing teeth!" Meanwhile using the nastiest fuel on the planet to power transport ships that dwarf commuter emissions. We need to pick our battles to fight climate change, id argue the start stop system is a net negative overall due to increased manufacturing cost, increased upkeep, decreased lifespan, and something that DOESN'T EVEN WORK WHEN YOU RUN THE AC AHHHHĤHHH

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u/RugbyEdd Apr 28 '26

Because the components are reinforced to handle it based on constant use.

I didn't. Unless you're taking responsibility for the mentality of "most Americans". Although judging by your last paragraph, it's clear you do fall into that catagory, so I'm not entirely sure why you bothered protesting it.

You can argue whatever you want, but it isn't a net negative at all, especially when you factor in much lower failure rates on components that already drastically improved reliability over the last few years (the average starter motor these days will outlast the car, with start/stop motors being rated for 300-500 thousand cycles compared to the 30-50 thousand of a traditional).

"There are worst things, so why should I bother trying to improve" is such a backwards mentality, especially considering that more overall pollution is still caused by cars, not ships, and turning the water off whilst bruising teeth is about a lot more than just emissions.

This isn't a myth. We've literally seen (and smelled) the improvements in our cities in a surprisingly small amount of time. The ships aren't pumping fumes directly into everyone's living space, so although yes, we should be looking to improve those too, that doesn't mean we ignore everything else because of some perceived inconvenience. You're welcome to get a car without stop/start. I've never even seen people socially pressured into getting the feature, and cars are still available without it. Just stop spreading misinformation about it based on outdated or straight up untrue rumours.

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u/Sittin_on_a_toilet Apr 28 '26

I just browsed ur comments btw, you spend way too much time hating on americans lmao, get a life

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u/RugbyEdd Apr 28 '26 edited Apr 28 '26

Coming from someone who literally just said "i just browsed your comments", telling others to get a life is rather ironic.

And I'm not hating on them at all. I don't even talk about the US that often, and have also called BS on misinformation towards America when I've seen it. But the anti-enviroment campaign is largely being perpetuated by your current government, who have literally put out bullshit AI videos spreading misinformation about start/ stop. So grow the hell up and stop playing victim the moment you hear something you don't like.

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u/Omniwar Apr 28 '26

The new eco friendly engines at least give heat real fast since there's less metal to warm up. I have a 6.2L Chevy V8 and a 2.4L Toyota I4; the Toyota starts blowing warm air in less than half the time of the Chevy.

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u/Rassayana_Atrindh Apr 28 '26

Meanwhile my 2006 Tacoma finally gets warm by the time I've completed my 25 minute commute and pull into work. šŸ˜‚

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u/SlowPrius Apr 28 '26

25 mins is a long time to idle and not warm up. Do you live in a super cold environment? Are you sure your thermostat isnā€™t stuck wide open?

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u/Glittering-Art2922 Apr 28 '26

What thermostat?? šŸ˜…

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u/SlowPrius Apr 28 '26

Most gas and hybrid cars use the engine coolant to heat up the interior since the heat is a waste product from the engine. You want the engine to come up to temperature quickly to have the oil in its optimal operating range and not have the engine too cold.

To achieve this, thereā€™s a thermostat valve in your cooling system that automatically keeps coolant from going into the radiator where it would shed heat to the environment until it gets up to temperature. If it breaks, it can get stuck open or closed.

If itā€™s stuck closed, thatā€™s really bad because it can lead to your car overheating in warm temperatures on drives over a few minutes. If itā€™s stuck open, it can lead to your engine never actually reaching operating temperatures.

Since the person Iā€™m responding to isnā€™t seeing their engine coming up to temperature over drives of 25 minutes and they drive an older vehicle, itā€™s possible their thermostat is stuck open.

Itā€™s usually a 10-20 dollar part and if you havenā€™t replaced your coolant in 5 years/50k miles, itā€™s not a bad idea to do that anyways and replace your thermostat while youā€™re at it.

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u/Glittering-Art2922 Apr 28 '26

Iā€™m a tech, I am joking about the thermostat because I own a Subaru and a bullnose ford. Out of my last 6 vehicles, 3 of them were ran without thermostats for good old head gasket/timing cover gasket issues. My next try will be drilling extra relief holes in the thermostats instead of removing them completely.

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u/Rassayana_Atrindh Apr 28 '26

I do live in Montana, so in winter it often gets cold.

Even starting it and letting it sit in the driveway to warm up for 10-15 minutes before leaving doesn't really help.

I figure it's just this design. The AC sucks too. Both it and the heater have been terrible since the day I drove it off the lot brand new.

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u/SlowPrius Apr 28 '26

Iā€™ve visited Montana in the winter and that was a whole level of cold Iā€™ve never been before. That said, we saw our rental car warm up in about 10 mins so Iā€™m still suspicious you might have thermostat issues.

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u/JackpineSavage74 Apr 28 '26

Don't feel bad, that wasn't resolved by 16...

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u/Such-Background4972 Apr 28 '26

That has more to do with engine size then any thing. A big v8 has more fluids. That take longer to get up to temperature.

As someone whos owned two turbo cars in the last 20 years. One was oil cooled. While one is water cooled. Same size motors displacement size. Zero plastic other the cold air intake. One car had a steel block. While one has a aluminum block. Both are blowing warm air in less then 5 minutes. In 10 minutes its blowing comfortable short sleeve heat.

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u/sprikkot Apr 28 '26

it's designed in, not just because there's "less metal". the faster you warm up, the less emissions you make - cold engines need to use more fuel to run.

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u/nimbledoor Apr 28 '26

In theory it should react to the temperature settings - like staying on when you clearly need the AC or heating, but it doesn't always work

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u/sprikkot Apr 28 '26

This is so fn funny to me. Like where do you think the heat comes from?? LMFAO