My work truck (F-150) has that feature. I fukin hate that $hit. You talk about the world's biggest gimmick played on the general sheep of the public. Save gas my ass. That feature was probably concocted by the starter people over at Bendix Corporation.
"""Bendix guys, sitting around a conference table as the CEO speaks.................................................
Gentlemen. We're not selling as many replacement starters these days. What do you think we should do?
VP Johnson (one of the hundreds of VP's these days) quickly raises his hand. I've got it sir. Why don't we get in touch with the auto manufactures and convince them to put an "auto-stop" feature on their vehicles? We can cut them in on the deal, and then have them start an ad campaign about how it'll save you gas or something. Maybe tell the sheep that less emissions or some other bull$hit is being done by them at every stop light, and that they're helping to save the planet. So in turn sir, they'll cycle the $hit out of every starter out there and eventually prematurely burn them all out, Then we sell them all replacements that'll also prematurely burn out in time from overuse.
The CEO stares silently at the young, up and coming exec for a few moments. Finally, saying only one word in a mad scientist kind of exclamation..........BRILLIANT!"""
So anyway. Back to reality. At least my work truck has a button on the dash that disables that auto stop nonsense. You can also click through the menus that are offered on the small screen, and eventually find the setting to disable it. But that's a waste of time, because they beat you to the punch on that one. It resets itself every time you fire the engine. So now I don't even think about it when I get in and fire it up. Hitting that disable button on the dash has become second nature.