A 6 year old starter that has been good for 6 years doesn’t just all of a sudden start cranking the engine slower. If you have held the starter for a prolonged period of time say 10 or so seconds, then stopped, and cranked it again without giving the starter time to cool, the insulation around the field windings can break down causing it to Every other remote start I have used out side of Toyota’s will start the engine but have the vehicle in accessory mode, requiring the driver to push the start button with the fob in the vehicle or to put the key in the ON position to allow you to shift out of park and fully start the car (the features beyond the engine, radio, and climate controls). That brings the most serious inquiry - how much have the 3.0 engineers done to incorporate the start-stop technology throughout the engine's components. There's a range that engineers do from just throwing on larger starters and calling it good to revamping whole systems. I do this to make sure the engine is fully ready for acceleration. Now, if I end up needing to accelerate more quickly out of a stop, I still usually wait roughly 0.25-0.5 seconds after I feel the engine start up before I accelerate. This very slight delay in acceleration is a bit annoying when I want to accelerate immediately out of a stop. The malfunction is essentially that the engine turns off, multiple warning lights appear on the dash, and you cannot get the vehicle going again without putting it in park and completely restarting it. On the forum link above it looks like this mainly happens when the intermittent wipers are on and the car auto stops. When in economy/comfort mode, as designed, my car does automatically stop/start the engine when I am stopped for anything more than a second. I found that if I put the shifter into manual shift mode (move it to the left,) but don't actually manually shift, the auto stop/start functionality stops and the car still auto-shifts. That's the engine turning off at stops lights and whatnot. If you have the gas model you should have a button on the bottom of the dash, just above the cigarette lighter. If it's the hybrid you can't, it's effectively built into the system. I don't have this on my gas model, must be an option. Bought mine used last year. Auto start-stop is not supposed to cause extra wear to your car. The way it works is that the computer makes sure that your battery is healthy and charged, and that your engine is well oiled. The well oiled part is very important. Engine wear comes from starting a cold engine that is dry. When the engine is running, oil is pumped throughout the Pretty common. Lots of these systems need to have specific parameters met to use the system. If your fan speed is too high, no start stop. Too cold/hot outside? No start stop. Battery a smidge too low on voltage? No start stop. I wouldn’t worry about it that much. The justifications that I have heard are that systems that include start/stop have improved starting efficiency with less energy and gasoline waste, so in comparison the savings over the life of the car mean it is a net positive. Is it true? I have no idea. I still hold to the “the worst part of a drive is the engine start!” thing as well. c0gp.