**The Truth About Turning Off a Car in Motion**

In this episode, we tackle a question that may seem straightforward but holds some surprising complexity. Our guest, Ryan, wondered if it's possible to turn off a car while it's in motion. To answer this question, our team took a closer look at the technology behind modern cars and what happens when you press the button to shut them down.

We began by testing a 2020 Ford Maverick with a regular gas engine and a push-button start system. Ryan turned the key off, but to his surprise, the steering wheel and brakes continued to function normally. He even pretended to pull over, but the car wouldn't turn off until he put it in park and restarted it. This experience was similar to one reported by Terry, who had found that a 2016 Ford Hybrid with a push-button start system also allowed him to steer and brake while the car was turned off.

Our team discovered that this phenomenon is due to a safety feature designed to prevent accidents. In the event of an emergency, such as a fire or a sudden loss of power, it's essential to quickly shut down the engine to prevent any further damage or risk. By enabling cars to turn off on their own when a push-button start system is used, manufacturers can help prevent these types of situations.

The technology behind this feature allows the car to enter an "accessory mode" when the button is pressed and released without being fully engaged. This means that the engine will continue to run, but it won't be able to accelerate or decelerate. The system also includes a safety protocol to ensure that the car doesn't turn back on until it's safely parked in a secure location.

So, what does this mean for drivers? While it may seem counterintuitive to be able to shut off a car while it's in motion, the reality is that this feature is designed to enhance safety. By enabling cars to quickly shut down in emergency situations, manufacturers can help prevent accidents and protect passengers.

**Conclusion**

In conclusion, turning off a car while it's in motion is not only possible but also has a practical purpose. By understanding how modern cars work, we can appreciate the innovative features that are designed to keep us safe on the road. Whether you're a seasoned driver or just learning to navigate the world of automotive technology, there's always more to learn about the complex systems that power our vehicles.

**Further Reading**

If you want to learn more about the cars and topics discussed in this episode, be sure to check out the links provided in the show notes. From car reviews to technical explanations, we've got you covered. Don't forget to send us your questions, comments, and 30-second video clips of talking cars at icloud.com.

**Production Credits**

This episode was produced by Dave Abrams and edited by Anatoly Shoomsky.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhi everybody welcome to another episode i'm mike monticello i'm ryan pablokowski and i'm alex nizik so today we're gonna devote most of the podcast to talking about our first impressions of the 2022 buick enclave uh version of which we rented from buick uh to get to gather these initial impressions and uh if you don't know what the enclave is it's it's a pretty good sized uh mid-size 3-0 suv i mean it's on the larger side among among mid-sized suvs it's kind of a little old-school in that it uses a naturally aspirated v6 meaning it doesn't have a turbocharger or anything like that or any kind of a hybrid uh makes a really nice 310 horsepower matched to a nine-speed automatic transmission comes in front or all-wheel drive and enclave pricing starts at two thousand eight hundred dollars but the one we rented from buick which is the top trim avenir with all-wheel drive cost sixty thousand five hundred forty dollars including the one thousand one hundred ninety five dollar destination charge uh lots of standard active safety and driver assistance features including forward collision warning automatic emergency brake with pedestrian detection blind spot warning rear cross traffic warning lane departure warning and lane keeping assistance and you know over the years the enclave has done pretty well in our testing you know as a comfortable ride you know quiet interior like i said it's it's on the roomy side among these mid-sized three-row suvs um and of course we've we've always enjoyed the smooth powertrain and this 2022 version it's more of a refresh than a full redesign so alex why don't you talk us through take us through what um what are the kind of major changes that they did for 2022 yeah so we rented this enclave because a couple of things that changed could potentially have an impact on our score right our overall score for the vehicle so we don't always get um a vehicle that's been refreshed and kind of re-evaluate it and check out the things that have changed but we felt that there were significant changes here that could impact the score so three big ones um the main one is the infotainment system is now updated to basically match what you're going to find in other gm vehicles including other buicks and it works pretty well it's a pretty simple well laid out system the next one is the steering wheel controls so i think most of the cluster is pretty much the same but the actual controls that you use to interact with it are different so before it kind of had these d-pads on the steering wheel and now you have these thumb wheels that are just a little bit easier to use and then you get those volume rockers on the back of the steering wheel um the last one the most significant one the one that really impacts the score is the shifter so before they kind of had this uh it's a monostable shifter that returns to center but it had this weird shape to it i think almost like a seven where you had to push it up into the left if you wanted reverse and i know it always or a lot of times you ended up in neutral instead of the gear that you were intending to select so they've got rid of that and they put in this push pull style push button gear selector that you find in other again other buicks and it's better i would say you guys can chime in for sure but um it's still not great i think one of the problems with it is that the um the p or excuse me the d and the r are both pull switches but they look and feel super similar so you really can't use this thing without looking directly down it's low on the console yes better than the monostable that was there before but maybe not um you know a perfect solution but yeah the the whole idea here is just updating the enclave to be more in line with the other buick models since it's kind of the oldest one in the lineup they wanted to refresh it make it more um you know comparable to the others yeah um and we can get a little more into the controls and uh the gear selector as we get further into it but ryan let's start with people who have maybe never you know never driven an enclave don't know much about the enclave what what is this thing like to drive you know like talk us through the driving dynamics of it powertrain ride and handling those kinds of things you had mentioned it's it's a a larger mid-size suv so it does also drive that way it feels um like a good-sized vehicle right um and not in a bad way but you definitely can feel it i thought the steering was like a little light um a little bit light on feedback it's it's it handles itself just fine but it's it's not a um it's not a handler by any means you know you get a little bit of body roll but it turns in well and it's completely comp you know competent but you do feel its size um and its weight a little bit um you know that that naturally aspirated v6 is kind of nice i i appreciate to see that uh in today's day and age everything's a smaller displacement turbo which is fine too but um this is kind of old school in that manner as you you said but i thought it shifted quite well too i mean it um you know here and there maybe on a downshift you could feel it it would you could feel the shift a little bit but mostly he's mostly smooth um and i was quite pleased with it uh um relatively easy to drive if you will you know alex touched on the shifter um i i agree it's better but it's marginally better than the mama stable um the amount of stables are tricky sometimes but uh the push buttons are also that way and and you know to your point the some of the buttons are similar um so it's you got to look down uh it might take a longer um period of time for you to get used to that without looking but um i recommend you look make sure you're going in the right gear there right um but uh and and ride i thought you know a stiff kick here and there and a good imp you know a good uh joint in the road or something but in general it follows the road nicely it rides pretty well it's a comfortable car and i i sometimes i forget you know that i forget about this car because it's not um it doesn't just stick out my mind it's like some wonderful car but it's also not a bad car at all like uh you know for people that have asked me um you know to recommend what you know what cars they might um want to look into and i kind of forget about this and this is a car that i would suggest to some people um depending uh on the situation so all in all i thought it was um i was quite pleased with it yeah it really it really doesn't do anything badly and and that may seem like faint praise but i mean in this day and age that actually you know with whether whether it's controls or or a really stiff ride or whatever it may be and the stiff ride often these days comes from just gigantic wheels that the automakers decide to put on more for a look standpoint but um alex any thoughts uh you know uh expand upon what what uh ryan was talking about as far as the driving dynamics yeah i think he he nailed it he touched on everything you know i don't think the enclave is anything that's really going to necessarily excite anybody but that's okay it's not really trying to it's just a nice competent quiet comfortable vehicle to drive around in and you know he kept saying old school a couple times and it does give that feel as far as just the interior and the layout everything's pretty simple straightforward maybe minus the shifter a little bit but everything else is pretty straightforward and that carries true i think with the um or carries through with the driving experience all the inputs were pretty natural to me uh yeah steering's a little light but it responded the way you would expect the brakes responded as you would expect yeah and overall it's just it's pretty nice and it rides well uh it's one of those cars in terms of the ride like you can feel or hear rather the suspension working as you go over some of these bigger bumps you hear that tire slap and you can kind of tell that it's working hard but ultimately what you feel in the car is pretty minimal and it does a good job of soaking up those bumps so um yeah again doesn't really excite necessarily but i do i agree with ryan it's a it's a great option that maybe goes under the radar in some ways but um definitely definitely holds up no as you can say don't don't take old school the phrase old school is a bad thing okay that's not always a bad and i think one of the reasons why it's not a bad thing is because whether you know with these you mentioned it ryan turbocharge you know small displacement turbocharged engines what we find with those or maybe some dual clutch transmissions again this has just a regular you know naturally aspirated engine and just a regular nine-speed automatic no dual clutch or cvt or anything like that we'll find it is it gets off the line without any hesitation so there's no turbo lag there's no transmission confusion and that and you know it's got some real power and it likes to rev too you know sometimes these turbocharged powertrains back in the old days i mean we're talking a long time ago turbos didn't used to have anything down low now they've totally redesigned them and they have lots of low end power this thing has good low end power but it also you know loves revan too um so actually you know we talked about you know this is a good everyday vehicle but i think one of the reasons why is because it's got so much interior space and i mean there's plenty of room up front for the driver but i think when you look at you know a 3-0 suv one of the things you got to think about is okay how usable is that third row and i don't know if either one of you guys sat back there but it's actually not bad as far as you know like people say oh well the third row is just for kids and maybe for the most part it is but like again i'm not a huge guy but i could fit back there for at least a certain amount of time you know i uh i had some head room to spare there was good foot room under under you know underneath uh the seats in front of me the only place where it really is let down is what they have to do with these third rows to get them to have any headroom is they have to put the seat really low to the ground and so that means it's a little uncomfortable you've got that uncomfortable knee bend your knees are up in the air and you don't and you don't have any leg support but the second row also uh this one had captain's chairs which means two individual seats uh i thought i had a pretty good space and was pretty comfy too did you guys find that yeah yeah i do yeah i thought i thought the second row is was quite comfortable and i i i like a captain's share um setup uh it's not practical for everyone maybe but um the the i think having that setup though allows a third row to feel even a little bigger because you have some room in the center you know there's a gap between the two of those second rows like to put your to spread one of your legs out right yeah yeah you don't feel so walled in right right yeah and i i you know i'm i'm a decent sized guy so like the third row is pretty snug but um yeah i mean i could sit back there if i had to um especially because i can i could straighten a leg out in that uh little alley there in the middle if i needed to but um yeah it's it's a decent sized interior i was kind of impressed with it it kind of bridges the gap a little bit between something like i don't know a sorrento three row which is a smaller mid-size three-row and then to something like a tahoe or even a suburban or something like that right or it's that full-size three-row this is kind of in the you know between a little bit and and the other benefits of that is you know we talked about it it's a pretty nice driving vehicle yeah it's not a handler but then neither is a tahoe or a suburban or anything like that but it's gonna it drives more like a you know car this is why we would call it a crossover drives more you know on the end of more normal feeling car type vehicle than you know a body-on-frame pickup truck based vehicle like that right so that's that's one of its big benefits is that it doesn't feel like this kind of even though it has some old-school aspects like the drivetrain uh the the way it's you know uh set up it's not really in terms of its uh ride and handling is really more like a regular suv well i was gonna ask do you guys think since this is a refresh um you know updated does it hold up in in 2022 compared to maybe some of the other three rows that we've driven recently i don't know what comes to mind pathfinder uh sorrento i suppose um some of these other three rows that grand cherokee l is brand new i'm curious what you guys think about that i i mean i think in general yes is my answer but i so i'll say that too i mean i think of you know used to mention the pathfinder i think kind of on par with that um they're all kind of simple with these most of them with the naturally aspirated v6 right they all kind of follow this similar format it's just it doesn't maybe have some of the tech like the screens not large and in your face and with all these beautiful graphics but uh what you might get elsewhere but otherwise i thought it did a pretty good job yeah i think it was a worthy refresh to to do that to that vehicle because it still it is a good i think it's a good platform to um to work with for sure yeah there are better choices out there but i don't think um this is no slouch no i i think they did a you know they they were starting from a pretty good you know platform in a sense with a nicely tuned power train and and and you know a comfortable ride which again we don't always see these days right um i think that you know when you look at the fit and finish of the avenir again this is the top trim so really this is considered more of a you know buick in general is a luxury brand but the avenir trim for sure is considered makes it considered a luxury suv and i think there's a few areas yes there's lots of padded areas and that kind of stuff and there was this kind of nice scalloped wood trim uh that looks pretty neat but then there's some things that you know don't quite um you know hold up for a sixty thousand dollar vehicle like just the way the center console lid you know flops open and uh the sunroof shade just acts and sounds really uh pretty tacky and and uh just the way you the the dashboard air vents move seem very plasticky and so those kinds of things are a little bit of a letdown um and as far as the controls of course these days we go on about controls and some people think maybe we go on too much but that's our job the reality is simpler controls are better for when you're driving right and i like that the climate control and these days we're just like hip hip hooray if they actually have physical controls rather than some kind of capacitive touch right you know where it's not a physical button or physical knob and this thing has like for the climate controls are separate the physical knobs and buttons i like that i thought they were kind of a little bit low like so not really easy to to access and then i i totally agree with you alex on the gear selector like it's it's confusing when you do like push and pull you know like i think that you know some buttons you push and some buttons you pull i believe some of these monostable gear selectors you can get comfortable with pretty easily i think this one would take a while that and you'd have to look down maybe every time you know whereas even some mono stables you know we're used to pr ndls where for sure you don't even have to look down when you're you know you know parker is all the way up and you know drive is all the way down this and then some mono stables okay you realize that reverse is up and drive is back and then you're kind of you're kind of good right but this one because the buttons just all kind of are different from each other you really have to look down like okay so which of my press scene oh nope it's a pull not a you know i don't know it's just kind of it's like yeah it's better but it's still kind of not that great not great yeah we've had a couple gm vehicles with this shifter now and it doesn't seem to matter which one it is after a couple days and i find myself still i'll be backing out of my driveway for example and i'll pull r instead of d i seem to always do that and really the only thing differentiating them without looking at it is two tiny little dots on the underside so you can maybe feel them i don't know that most people would so that's you know in contrast to something like the acura shifter which is also using pull and push but the they're way different than any you know each button to the next is either a different shape a different size or whatever so you can at least feel it a little bit better this is like you said a little too similar button to button all right well to sum up great powertrain comfortable ride um slightly improved controls and including the gear selector but again it's still not great we've got more information on the 2022 buick enclave on consumerports.org so please go check that out and let's move on to this week's audience questions don't forget to send those questions comments 30 second video clips to talking cards at icloud.com we love those video clips folks so be sure to send those along this week's audience question is terry from seattle and terry says can i tell you how wonderful you all are not only am i learning a lot about cars but whenever i have a car conundrum i know who to contact while driving my 2016 ford fusion hybrid i accidentally pressed the ignition button while reaching for my console fortunately the power steering and power brakes continued to work so i was able to safely coast to the shoulder i tried pressing the ignition again while rolling to a stop but the interlock system wouldn't let me wouldn't let me start the car again until i was in park i understand the purpose of the interlock system but why would ford allow me to turn off the engine while my car is in motion do you know of any reason why one would need to turn a car off while in motion why doesn't ford prevent this or at least flash a warning on the console curious minds want to know so i mean first of all thank you terry for the kind words we always appreciate that honestly i think you know i mean answering car questions helping people out with whether it's buying new cars buying i mean that's what we do that's what we love doing that's our whole reason for existence so we appreciate that that you appreciate it uh the the question you ask is really interesting because i think a lot of people probably don't know it and not just because most of us aren't gonna try and turn off the car at 70 miles an hour on the highway which terry did this accidentally but you know i most people aren't even gonna i wonder if that's a thing and try it so they're not gonna do that but it's a really interesting question ryan you did a little research of your own in the safe environment of the auto test center's test track to kind of see what's what was going on and what exactly happens when you just press the button to turn the car off yeah so i didn't know the answer to this and i was curious very curious so um of course we don't have a um we don't have any cars that old uh not that that's that old but all the cars we have are i don't know 20 21 at least and up or upper 2020 and up so we don't have a 2016 ford hybrid anywhere on the property but we do have um two ford mavericks so yeah so i and the hybrid has a push button um start um and the um the non-hybrid actually has a physical key which kind of rare these days and and in some cars or in a lot of cars actually um so i actually i took him down i i went i did the regular gas car first down the straightaway and i just turned the key off and it turned off but the steering was working and the brakes were working yeah so i kind of pretended to pull over like i could pull over while doing that i did try to restart it and it wouldn't start i found the same thing um that she found yep so as and then i had to put in park and then i would let me start it and off i went hybrid same thing but the hybrid i found the button i had to hold the button not very long but longer than you couldn't just touch it it was like at least a second hold maybe maybe a little longer but it was it was more of a hold and then it turned off um and it allowed me to steer and the brakes worked and i pulled over to the side um it wouldn't turn back on until i did that you know did that put it in park and then i restarted it i i didn't know that that was um the scenario there that it's uh it allows you to turn them off so what you found is um we myth busted it and it is uh it's possible did it seem ryan like it like each car stayed in an accessory mode when you when you shut it off yeah like it was still the gauges were lit up everything it's not like completely sure yeah right yeah it was all which enables that brakes and steering so yeah but it was uh in like an accessory mode and this tells you right in the dash that you can't turn it back back on until you you know pull over and uh park it and then rest you know then we can restart it so um yeah it was it was quite interesting yeah so so the reality is yeah uh on the one hand it might seem crazy that you can actually turn your car off you know on the highway while it's in motion right that seems that seems unsafe but the reality is it's actually done for a safe reason in other words let's say if your car was having some kind of a crisis you know whether it's something caught on fire or whatever or maybe think of the toyota unintended acceleration debacle from the mid-2000s right you need to to get your car to turn off quickly well if you physically turn the key like you did in the regular ford maverick right it knows you really want to turn that car off so it turns off on a push button start car it's not like and and hopefully what happened with terry is that the button was pushed a little longer than just a press because they're not supposed to turn off in just one press of the button you're supposed to you have to hold them as you found ryan for you know a couple seconds to kind of say no i really want to turn this car off and but that's done so that if you were if your car was having some kind of a crisis it would actually turn off so it may seem like that may seem unsafe but it's actually done for safety reasons it was something we learned something yeah thank you thank you terry for the question uh and that's going to do it for this episode if you want to learn more about the cars and the topics we talked about you can click on the links in the show notes don't forget to send those questions comments 30 second video clips of talking cars at icloud.com this episode was produced by dave abrams and edited by anatoly shoomsky apparently we don't have the funds to put those graphics at the end of the vid video like on every other youtube video that's out there but that's the way we do it thanks so much for watching and we'll see y'all next week you\n"