Technology that leaves me completely baffled

I’m no Luddite but some modern technology leaves me completely, and utterly, baffled.
In the November 2018 edition of this excellent magazine I rambled on about the rear parking sensors on my (then) new car and how SWMBO had not quite got the hang of how it actually worked on a trip to Devon. It was almost wall 1, Focus 0.
All is now well with this particular piece of kit and both of us have fully-immersed ourselves in its usefulness and its shortcomings.
The subject of my latest anti-tech rant is the auto start-stop function on said car.
At first sight it is a wonderful piece of kit, designed to help me do my bit to save our planet by temporarily cutting the engine in certain situations.
These include any instances when you put your car into neutral, apply the handbrake fully and remove all feet (generally two) from the pedals.
This enables you to sit at traffic lights, emission free, whilst doing that smug Churchill-the-dog thing (other insurance providers are available) of nodding your head sagely. Oooh, yes.

It will come as no surprise to my reader, if you have struggled on valiantly to this point, that there is now an issue with the technology.

Having happily helped my emission-reducing efforts for around 18 months it decided to stop working.
And as with all modern cars, there’s a symbol for that which pops on your control panel, sorry, instrument cluster.
When the afore-mentioned stop-start was working a bright green ‘A’ symbol popped up on the display, disappearing only when you engaged the clutch to restart the engine, put the car into gear and roared away from the traffic lights.
That was the well-rehearsed scenario until about a month ago (at the time of writing in mid-January).
On this occasion I followed the usual rules at the traffic lights and – the engine did not cut out.
Instead of the reassuring green ‘A’ symbol there was a mucky grey ‘A’ with a line through it.
A temporary blip, I assumed, so when I returned home I thought “I know what. I’ll break the habit of a lifetime and consult the car’s manual.”
That very helpfully told me the grey ‘A’ plus line meant auto-stop start was not available but offered no remedies.
Before booking the car in at the local dealership I thought I’d have a quick shifty on the internet, which usually has the answer to everything you want to know, and lots more besides.
The results were very interesting. It seems my auto start-stop failure was not (surprise, surprise) affecting just one driver in Suffolk.
It transpires that as well as having the car in neutral, handbrake fully on and feet off the pedals, you also need to have the car’s wheels completely straight, the car has to be above a certain temperature, there mustn’t be too much strain on the car battery (i.e. don’t have the radio on, dash cam plugged in, heating on) and you have to have driven a fair, but unspecified, number of miles etc. etc.
The vehicle has now been in to the dealership to have the problem investigated. I guess this entailed plugging it into a computer and re-booting it.
I was told it had been sorted. But two weeks on and the function has stopped working again. But then sometimes it DOES work.
Which is totally frustrating and leave me wondering why car manufacturers bother with what on the face of it is excellent technology but which will only work under certain conditions.
Needless to say I have now turned this function off. And, in my bid to help save the planet, I’ll simply turn the engine off in the old-fashioned way when stopped by red lights or in a non-moving queue.
I wonder if the manufacturer will give me a rebate as I am not using one of its fancy gizmos?