We have had 3 cars now with stop/start, a BMW, Seat and Nissan, all have had a button on the dash to switch it off but you would have to do this each time you start. It is not possible for manufacturers to fit a button that would permanantly disable the feature and retain the lower CO2 figures.

But I cannot understand why you would not want this feature. Whilst it save very little fuel in the real world its is totally unobtrusive and you soon get used to it.

Its best feature is the amount of VED is save you every year. On the BMW the pre stop/start model was over 140 CO2's wheras the stop/start model was 119 CO2's. The Seat non stop/start was over 150 CO2's, the stop/start one is 119 CO2's. Difficult to make a direct comparison with the Nissan, as well as stop/start it has a totally new engine.

In the office back in the late 2000's we had 2 identical Volvo V50 1.6 diesels, identical in every way except that one came with stop/start and one without. From memory the stop/start one was £150 more and over the 4 years they were on fleet the mpg figures for both were virtually identical, hardly surprising when they spend most of their lives on the motorway. But the car with stop start cost about £100 a year less in VED and that would soon pay for the difference in purchase cost, over 5 years of ownership you would save £350.

So whats not to like about it.

The current generation Toyota Yaris (3rd generation, introduced 2011) doesn't have stop/start.