Why no max tow with the manual transmission?

[DanW]

I recently purchased Gladiator because it had MT option. It is getting difficult to purchase a vehicle with a MT. Towing not a high priority for me but was disappointed to learn towing capacity was reduced because of the MT.

I do have an off topic question for other JT owners with MT. My auto start very rarely works, I think i noticed it twice in the past month, ~1,500 miles and not doing anything to defeat it. I just wondering if there is something wrong with my new JT or is it an added plus for the MT?

There may be something wrong. Are you getting a charging message or any kind of message on your dash? I rarely ever run it but when I do it works as it should. Is your Gladiator brand new?

It could be a weak aux battery, but I think you'd get a message.

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[Jim7983]

It brand spanking new and no messages. I have a feeling I going to regret taking it to dealer and restore the expected behavior.

 

[DanW]

It brand spanking new and no messages. I have a feeling I going to regret taking it to dealer and restore the expected behavior.

See if anyone else chimes in.

I used a Tazer to defeat mine simply because a buddy who is one of the designers of the Pentastar told me he felt it would accelerate engine wear. He did say they coated the pistons and other wear parts with a new and sophisticated anti-wear coating to compensate, and that the starter is up to the task, but he said he's skeptical about the coatings. But he admits he doesn't know much about them. Anyway, if they work, I figure its a million mile engine not using it. LOL!

Are you doing a lot of short trips, or city driving?

 

[NachoRuby]

I do have an off topic question for other JT owners with MT. My auto start very rarely works, I think i noticed it twice in the past month, ~1,500 miles and not doing anything to defeat it.

It works on manuals. Something else is going on with yours. Take it back again if it's important to you. But if it's really hot out lately where you live, and you're using AC, that might be it.

 

[Choatecav]

It works on manuals. Something else is going on with yours. Take it back again if it's important to you. But if it's really hot out lately where you live, and you're using AC, that might be it.

I personally don't like the auto start feature so I try to always remember to press the defeat button when I start up, but occasionally forget. Certain other things like the parking brake can keep it from activating. Also, how you are using the clutch or disengaging the stick at a red light can affect it.
As others have said, it might be worth your time to get it looked at, though.

 

[Jim7983]

I live in Steeler country which rarely gets into 90s but commonly approaches it. I usually have auto climate set to 72. Generally, 25 miles of total 30 mile (one way) work commute is highway. May travel additional 20 miles around town after hours.

When approaching light generally down shift to 1st, then sit there with clutch in and brake on until light changes. I noted once when shifted to neutral with brake on that it seemed to work but couldn't reproduce it.

 

[DanW]

I personally don't like the auto start feature so I try to always remember to press the defeat button when I start up, but occasionally forget. Certain other things like the parking brake can keep it from activating. Also, how you are using the clutch or disengaging the stick at a red light can affect it.
As others have said, it might be worth your time to get it looked at, though.

You may be onto something.

@Jim7983 do you keep the clutch depressed at stoplights? If so, that will keep it from working.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

It brand spanking new and no messages. I have a feeling I going to regret taking it to dealer and restore the expected behavior.

You won't get messages "flashing up in your face" - we need to get out some better info. When people talk about messages with ESS - the only time you get messages in your face popping up is when there's an error - say a misfire, some other engine issue, or the ESS is sensing something broken, then it will pop up with a message similar to "ESS disabled" or similar.
What you need to do is use the nifty little scroll buttons on the left half of the steering wheel and scroll to the ESS screen.
There, it will tell you the current ESS status -
ESS ready
ESS not ready, battery charging
ESS not ready, engine temperature
ESS not ready, cabin heating/cooling
Messages like that.
So next time you are out and about, change the screen by scrolling down (or up, depending on what you normally have displayed on your CLUSTER screen between the tach and speedometer) and change the page to the ESS screen (those are called pages when you scroll up and down, left and right)

..............a buddy who is one of the designers of the Pentastar told me he felt it would accelerate engine wear. He did say they coated the pistons and other wear parts with a new and sophisticated anti-wear coating to compensate, and that the starter is up to the task, but he said he's skeptical about the coatings. But he admits he doesn't know much about them. Anyway, if they work, I figure its a million mile engine not using it. LOL!

Are you doing a lot of short trips, or city driving?

Wow, that scares me to think someone who knows so little about ESS is working on these engines - and putting out that sort of "information". Hopefully he's designing the plastic shielding or deciding where the motor mounts will go next year and not working on internal designs.

As a former (college and factory trained) mechanic, I agree with the tech experts who say that the warm starts aren't the concern, COLD starts that owners do each morning cause wear, not a warm start - the engine is ready to go, things are oiled, oil galleries still contain oil, bearings still have more than just a film on them, cylinder walls are still oil covered.

ESS does no accelerate engine wear. ESS has been around for many years - starting in the 90s with hybrid cars.
For non-hybrid cars, it started in Asia, worked its way to Europe and then to the US. It's been around for a long time, there's a lot of history with it so there's a lot of information out there regarding what it does and what it does not do.

Engine wear is not among the things it does or causes.
COLD starts wear engines - that first start of the day. Oil has settled out of and off of the working parts and all that remains is a very thin oil film. Start that engine cold and that thin film has to protect until more oil gets up there. Cold parts hammering against each other at each cold start is what wears.
Loads on a running engine, lugging, the pressures of combustion at peak combustion temperatures and pressures, the higher compression once it's running (dynamic compression is often higher than static compression of a cold or warm start so there's more force, more wear, on an engine that's actually running)
Warm starts won't wear things out prematurely. A fact that's been proven by car makers using ESS in Asia and now the USA for years.
Warm starts have oil still in critical places. The transmissions in some ESS vehicles have solenoids/valves that hold pressure in accumulators to keep clutch packs engages, keep pressure up, when the engine is off so that when it starts again, it's GO time. No having to fill things up and re-engage clutch packs. They are already ready.
The PCM knows where things are - the position of each piston and rod and adjusts things accordingly to make starting a lot easier than when the engine is cold. The PCM holds that information gathered when the ESS stopped the engine to prep it for the start when you release the brake.
Starters have needle bearings and new material brushes. Gone are the old brush materials of the past.
This information about ESS technology is generic, not specific to any make vehicle, but applies to most -
The solenoid on start-stop starters decouples the mechanical action of engaging the drive pinion into the flywheel from the electrical action of stopping and starting the motor.
This allows for a dedicated design to turn power on and off to the motor, optimizing contact design and wear, against contacts that have to be integrated as part of a spring-loaded plunger.
This also reduces the electrical load requires to turn the engine, so that there is enough current available for accessories/lighting to operate during the start event.

Start-stop starter motors are integrated with other technologies that identify when each cylinder of the engine will reach top-dead center.
That lets the fuel injectors pulse and fire during the middle of a complete rotation of the crank, against having to wait for a complete revolution that lets the first cylinder reach that position to start the fuel-spark timing sequence.
That reduces the cranking needed to start it - unlike when you stop at the store for 10 minutes then come back out, the ESS doesn't need to crank the engine a full revolution to know what to do - and do it faster.



This quote is from a reporter/journalist for autotrader who has spent years gathering information on used cars -

For years, I’ve complied owner-reported information on used cars into guides for used car shoppers, focusing on identifying and addressing possible common issues across various makes and models from around the globe as they age.

In creating several hundred used car reviews in the years since ESS systems have made a move to the mainstream, I’ve rarely encountered owner-reported issues with ESS systems. Though a few examples exist where owners have experienced issues, these seem both very rare in comparison to overall sales volume of the model in question and are rarely reported for most used vehicles at about four to eight years old, if at all.

Further, in most cases where an owner’s community has some common gripe about the ESS system in a given vehicle, the issue is caused by a weak battery or a bad sensor or wiring ground in the system, not the starter itself, about half the time.

The gist? According to my very extensive research, its safe to conclude that the the overwhelming majority of owners have not reported problems with the ESS system in their vehicles.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

You may be onto something.

@Jim7983 do you keep the clutch depressed at stoplights? If so, that will keep it from working.

That brings up a question I have thought about for many of my years of driving manual transmission equipped vehicles -
When you pull up to a stop light - do you:

Shift to neutral, let out the clutch
or
Shift it to first and hold the clutch in

And why.

With my aging knees, hips and arthritis, I find myself more often shifting to neutral and letting out the clutch. But I temper that decision with my observation about the light - is it a stale red about to turn green, or did it JUST turn red?

I also tend to shift to neutral and let out the clutch at times because I know that holding the clutch in means more pressure and wear in the release bearing and also on the pilot bearing because the input shaft is stopped while the crankshaft keeps spinning. I did a lot of clutch jobs in my work where the release bearing was totally toast - in fact, often that was shot but the clutch was still ok. Similar for pilot bearings (in the old days simply an oil impregnated bronze bushing)

 

[DanW]

You won't get messages "flashing up in your face" - we need to get out some better info. When people talk about messages with ESS - the only time you get messages in your face popping up is when there's an error - say a misfire, some other engine issue, or the ESS is sensing something broken, then it will pop up with a message similar to "ESS disabled" or similar.
What you need to do is use the nifty little scroll buttons on the left half of the steering wheel and scroll to the ESS screen.
There, it will tell you the current ESS status -
ESS ready
ESS not ready, battery charging
ESS not ready, engine temperature
ESS not ready, cabin heating/cooling
Messages like that.
So next time you are out and about, change the screen by scrolling down (or up, depending on what you normally have displayed on your CLUSTER screen between the tach and speedometer) and change the page to the ESS screen (those are called pages when you scroll up and down, left and right)




Wow, that scares me to think someone who knows so little about ESS is working on these engines - and putting out that sort of "information". Hopefully he's designing the plastic shielding or deciding where the motor mounts will go next year and not working on internal designs.

As a former (college and factory trained) mechanic, I agree with the tech experts who say that the warm starts aren't the concern, COLD starts that owners do each morning cause wear, not a warm start - the engine is ready to go, things are oiled, oil galleries still contain oil, bearings still have more than just a film on them, cylinder walls are still oil covered.

ESS does no accelerate engine wear. ESS has been around for many years - starting in the 90s with hybrid cars.
For non-hybrid cars, it started in Asia, worked its way to Europe and then to the US. It's been around for a long time, there's a lot of history with it so there's a lot of information out there regarding what it does and what it does not do.

Engine wear is not among the things it does or causes.
COLD starts wear engines - that first start of the day. Oil has settled out of and off of the working parts and all that remains is a very thin oil film. Start that engine cold and that thin film has to protect until more oil gets up there. Cold parts hammering against each other at each cold start is what wears.
Loads on a running engine, lugging, the pressures of combustion at peak combustion temperatures and pressures, the higher compression once it's running (dynamic compression is often higher than static compression of a cold or warm start so there's more force, more wear, on an engine that's actually running)
Warm starts won't wear things out prematurely. A fact that's been proven by car makers using ESS in Asia and now the USA for years.
Warm starts have oil still in critical places. The transmissions in some ESS vehicles have solenoids/valves that hold pressure in accumulators to keep clutch packs engages, keep pressure up, when the engine is off so that when it starts again, it's GO time. No having to fill things up and re-engage clutch packs. They are already ready.
The PCM knows where things are - the position of each piston and rod and adjusts things accordingly to make starting a lot easier than when the engine is cold. The PCM holds that information gathered when the ESS stopped the engine to prep it for the start when you release the brake.
Starters have needle bearings and new material brushes. Gone are the old brush materials of the past.
This information about ESS technology is generic, not specific to any make vehicle, but applies to most -
The solenoid on start-stop starters decouples the mechanical action of engaging the drive pinion into the flywheel from the electrical action of stopping and starting the motor.
This allows for a dedicated design to turn power on and off to the motor, optimizing contact design and wear, against contacts that have to be integrated as part of a spring-loaded plunger.
This also reduces the electrical load requires to turn the engine, so that there is enough current available for accessories/lighting to operate during the start event.

Start-stop starter motors are integrated with other technologies that identify when each cylinder of the engine will reach top-dead center.
That lets the fuel injectors pulse and fire during the middle of a complete rotation of the crank, against having to wait for a complete revolution that lets the first cylinder reach that position to start the fuel-spark timing sequence.
That reduces the cranking needed to start it - unlike when you stop at the store for 10 minutes then come back out, the ESS doesn't need to crank the engine a full revolution to know what to do - and do it faster.



This quote is from a reporter/journalist for autotrader who has spent years gathering information on used cars -

For years, I’ve complied owner-reported information on used cars into guides for used car shoppers, focusing on identifying and addressing possible common issues across various makes and models from around the globe as they age.

In creating several hundred used car reviews in the years since ESS systems have made a move to the mainstream, I’ve rarely encountered owner-reported issues with ESS systems. Though a few examples exist where owners have experienced issues, these seem both very rare in comparison to overall sales volume of the model in question and are rarely reported for most used vehicles at about four to eight years old, if at all.

Further, in most cases where an owner’s community has some common gripe about the ESS system in a given vehicle, the issue is caused by a weak battery or a bad sensor or wiring ground in the system, not the starter itself, about half the time.

The gist? According to my very extensive research, its safe to conclude that the the overwhelming majority of owners have not reported problems with the ESS system in their vehicles.

Actually, he was one of the lead designers on the original Pentastar. It is #1 on his resume. And before the coatings, he said it absolutely DOES result in accelerated wear. He saw the data when they tested it extensively on the gen 1 Pentastar, which did not have the coatings. He moved on to other projects while the development continued and the coatings were introduced. He did say that the coatings may actually work. He was not in on the development of the PUG version that we have in our Jeeps, but knows that team well. He is skeptical and knows the engine lasts a long, long time without it (ESS). He said the team that appllied it in the PUG believes it works. But he remains skeptical or cautious. He shuts it off in his vehicles for that reason.

Besides that, it gains 1mpg for me with my driving style, at best. Not worth it for me. Like I said, if the coatings work, then I'll have a million mile engine with a starter that will never need replacement. Lol!

He's got lots of other insights that I'll share from time to time when he shares them. And if someone has questions, shoot me a message and I'll forward them to him, or will tell you what he's said if it's already been answered. He LOVES talking Pentastars, as it is his baby. His favorite ride? He has a Chrysler 300 that is properly maintained and is getting into high mileage, with no issues.

He does sometimes take awhile to answer back. He works some crazy hours and has his own auto related business on the side.

 

[DanW]

That brings up a question I have thought about for many of my years of driving manual transmission equipped vehicles -
When you pull up to a stop light - do you:

Shift to neutral, let out the clutch
or
Shift it to first and hold the clutch in

And why.

With my aging knees, hips and arthritis, I find myself more often shifting to neutral and letting out the clutch. But I temper that decision with my observation about the light - is it a stale red about to turn green, or did it JUST turn red?

I also tend to shift to neutral and let out the clutch at times because I know that holding the clutch in means more pressure and wear in the release bearing and also on the pilot bearing because the input shaft is stopped while the crankshaft keeps spinning. I did a lot of clutch jobs in my work where the release bearing was totally toast - in fact, often that was shot but the clutch was still ok. Similar for pilot bearings (in the old days simply an oil impregnated bronze bushing)

I was always taught that going to neutral and letting the clutch out reduces wear on the throw out bearing. Not sure if true, but the earliest I ever had to replace a clutch was 120k miles. My JK clutch was replaced at 116k but was fine. I swapped it out because they replaced the transmission under warranty due to some rattling noise in the synchros. It made no sense to put an old clutch on a new transmission and it saved me some labor cost to do it while they had it out anyway. My sister always held the clutch in at lights and wore them out fast. (25k miles, typically) But she also excessively slipped them, too. She always blamed the transmissions. Lol!

 

[Jim7983]

My MT shifting behavior at light is to be in 1st gear with clutch and brake depressed ready to go when light turns green. I can understand that this behavior result in additional internal mechanical wear but may, if confirmed be a behavioral plus to defeat the auto start. Definitely will have ESS screen/page up in my next outing to see if there're any messages.

 

[DanW]

My MT shifting behavior at light is to be in 1st gear with clutch and brake depressed ready to go when light turns green. I can understand that this behavior result in additional internal mechanical wear but may, if confirmed be a behavioral plus to defeat the auto start. Definitely will have ESS screen/page up in my next outing to see if there're any messages.

There it is. That's why it isn't working. Depressing of the clutch starts the engine. And the take-up is so quick when the clutch is released, it wouldn't give enough time to start the engine and it would likely stall frequently.

Try it for a bit with the clutch out and in neutral at stop lights. It should work fine, then. But if you take off too quickly, it might not restart or will stall. I've found that normal, fairly gentle driving, is when it works best. I've had it stall a few times and give me an error message if I get going in too much of a spirited way.

That's one of the reasons I shut it off. I just can't keep my foot out of this thing. Too much fun!

 

[TwelveGaugeSage]

Still have the original clutch in my TJ at 160,000 miles.


Modern automatics are better for towing and easier for off-roading. That said, I wouldn't buy a vehicle that doesn't have a clutch peddle. I'd rather tool around in a manual Spark than an automatic( ) Corvette.

 

[DanW]

Still have the original clutch in my TJ at 160,000 miles.


Modern automatics are better for towing and easier for off-roading. That said, I wouldn't buy a vehicle that doesn't have a clutch peddle. I'd rather tool around in a manual Spark than an automatic( ) Corvette.

Same here. More engaging, interesting, and fun. Period.

That said, the autos in these Jeeps are super nice. I've driven them quite a bit. If I had to go to an auto, I don't think it could be better. But I think the same thing of this manual. It is smooth, quiet, and the shifter throws are perfect. And unlike many, I find the clutch to be very nice and require little effort. I wouldn't change a thing about it. The whole package blows away the tranny/clutch in my JK, in every way. And I still enjoy that JK, so it isn't like it is terrible.

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