Auto stop/start when towing with an automatic

Any decent car designed with towing in mind will automatically disable start/stop when sensing a caravan plugged in

Will it? My ML doesn't! 😉

Neither does our VW Touareg.

If we had a factory fit towbar I suppose it might, but that option was not available to us.

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No, although the ML is a nice 'tug' perhaps the the towing electrics and operation of were an afterthought 

Mine's a factory fit bar too. 👍

Merc have made a ML of some sort for a number of years now ..... anyway, I always disable stop/start myself 👍

Haven’t factory fit towbar, but the electrics are fully coded. Into the system.   It still stop starts but subjectively I would say less often. 

And I still don’t get what the big problem with stop start is anyway?

It's  not a big problem ..... just a pita. IMHO 😉

As with others I tow with a Touareg. When they have a factory fitted towbar the Stop/Start is automatically disabled when a trailer is attached. Mine has a retrofit towbar and the vehicle was coded to the fitting instructions which also disables Stop/Start with a trailer attached.

I'm not sure of the reason but suspect it's to do with battery drain when a trailer's attached, especially if it has any loads running off the cars 12V feed when stopped like the fridge.

As an aside, I've re-coded my car so it remembers the last manual Stop/Start selection made by the driver as I'm not a fan and got fed up with turning it off every time I started the car. 

If you find someone with VCDS they could sort that one out for you very easily if you wanted it disabled when the van's attached.