Engine Auto Start Stop Defeat How-To

Dynatrac

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For many of us who own a JL, the Engine Auto Start Stop (ESS) system is an irritant every time you start the Jeep and drive it. You can press the button on the dash to turn it off, but it resets every time you restart the engine. We found a way to defeat the system so that it stays off, and it's extremely easy to do.


There are two hood pin sensors. One is for security and safety features, and the other one appears to only connect to the start stop system, keeping the engine from turning off when the hood is open, presumably for service work. By disconnecting the hood pin wire connector on the driver-side, you disable the auto start stop.

In our testing and on our JL, we have not found that this pin disables anything else. You will have a message flash and then go away in the instrument panel each time you start the vehicle and the ESS symbol stays lit, but we think this is more livable than dealing with the auto start stop system every time we want to enjoy driving our JL.

This is the first in a series of short tech tips for the Jeep Wrangler JL from Dynatrac. We hope you find them helpful, and we'd love to hear your feedback!
 

LauraRose

New member
Thank you!

I saw someone else post similar information on YouTube 4 months ago, but I didn't attempt it because I didn't trust the source. I DO however trust Dynatrac, so I'm going to give this a try. Thank you! :yup:
 

Shots

New member
...... You will have a message flash and then go away in the instrument panel each time you start the vehicle and the ESS symbol stays lit, but we think this is more livable than dealing with the auto start stop system every time we want to enjoy driving our JL....
To take this tip a little further, I moved the sensor and reconnecting the the plug. I just zip tied the sensor to the underside of the bracket that normally holds it. This too disables the ESS, but you don't get the warning or light on startup because the system is reading a connection to the sensor.

That said, the light remains off if you're driving UNTIL you exceed 30 mph. Once you exceed 30 mph you will hear a single chime, the ESS disabled message displays, and the warning light turns on. The message clears just like it does when you unplug the sensor, and the light remains active until you turn the engine off. Essentially this is doing the same thing describe above, but you won't have a warning, or light if you're creeping around a trail, in a parking lot, or creeping around town with 25 mph zones (unless you exceed 30 mph before doing any of these things after an initial start up). On the plus side, you don't have a sensor, and harness unplugged and exposed to the elements.
 

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