So I've had Chelsea (2010 MCS, Lightning Blue) for the past 6-7 months and I want to start adding "toys". It was replacement from Colby, my '09 R56 base after a pretty bad T-bone automobile accident.

One major thing I noticed and I'm still trying to tweak is the MPG (both are stick mind you). I realize with the turbo the MPG will clearly be lower. With Colby I would average between 37-40+ MPG and this is with standard going to work driving, errands, and occasional "sporty" driving. With Chelsea I'm getting between 26-29 MPG tops with the same driving habits. I bought Chelsea used from a non-Mini dealer, but the last owner did take her to the Princeton dealership for regular maintenance so I'm NOT concerned the last owner beat the bejesus out of her (though the car did smell smoky at first...). It's really bothering me that my MPG is so bloody low compare to Colby and naturally at this point I want to make Chelsea more efficient (I know I won't be getting near what I had with Colby, but at least 30+MPGs)!

So essentially I'm wondering is what can I do to Chelsea to make her as efficient as possible (suspensions, performance parts, tires, fluid, the works)? I'm not the most knowledgeable car person: only things I've done with Chelsea is replace all the interior bulbs with LEDs, hardwired a V1, and did added some LED blue lights for EMTing with some help from a very knowledgeably car guy friend. Luckily he lives down the street and is always free to help me work on my car (he's always bugging me about when we are doing work on my car). Let's hear it lads (and lasses), throw it all out there! Cheers!

 

If you're heavily in the throttle, and building boost on a constant level, you won't have the fuel econ like your 'Justa'... it's just not gonna happen.
That's the joy though of having a turbocharged engine, power when you need it, and econ when you lay off.
I would make sure you using good synthetic oil, tires are properly inflated, making sure the air filter is clean, and replacing spark plugs.

- Erik

 

I'm averaging 33mpg combined but that's weird cause my friend is also getting 24mpg in his Clubman S. I do drive it hard once in a while but I don't also drive like a grandma either! Just use Shell gasoline for a few times maybe that will help. Since I've switched regularly to Shell, my MPG have gone up and she seems to react better and quicker(when I used BP, not so much).

 

Get a ScanGauge, and use it to alter your driving habits.

Pump up the air pressure in your tires. Anything up to the max rating on the tire sidewall should be OK. The ride will get harsher, but your fuel economy should get slightly better.

Remove un-needed weight from the car. It costs you fuel to accelerate mass to a given speed; reduce the mass and you reduce the fuel used. Slightly. And pretty much just around town.

Block part of the grille on the front of the car. Monitor coolant temp (the ScanGauge lets you do this too!) to make sure you haven't blocked off too much for current conditions.

Add a smooth under-tray to the bottom of the car. This will cut down on under-car turbulence, reducing drag on the freeway somewhat. A deep air dam on the front can be helpful in keeping some air from getting under the car in the first place.

Change to lighter-weight wheels and tires.

Add wheel spats to the rear fenders, covering as much of the wheel and tire as is practical. Also cuts down on air resistance.

Remove one or both side mirrors, if legal in your area.

Add a kamm-back to the tail of the car, or possibly a full boat-tail. This can cut down on air resistance as well.

There are other things you can do, but the further you go, the smaller the improvements are.

Some of these will alter the appearance of the car drastically, and some are not really practical in all cases. But they do help MPGs. The folks at http://www.ecomodder.com know a lot about this stuff.

 

Some of the difference that you've noticed could possibly be variation between the measured mpg that the cars are displaying. Since your previous gar is gone, you can't check it out but you can make sure that the current mpg is accurate. GPS checks of distance vs. odometer and calculating mpg using gallons at the pump and corrected odometer readings could give you a different mpg. I did this and found the car was over reporting mpg by 3%, I believe others have reported larger errors. Also I have found a very large difference from gasolines. No-ethanol preimum performs the best for me by around 10%.

 

Well to a point this can help. But if you pump them up to much, Anything more than about 4-5 pounds above the recommended by the car manufacturer then you are loosing traction, overheating the tire, and wearing out the middle of the tread. The first two of those actions can be major safety issues.

The third will in the end cost you significantly more than you will save on the gas as the tires will need to be replaced much more often. Like hey i can get 1 more mile to the gallon by doing this and so i saved $98 for the year but I have to replace my tires after 14000 miles at a cost of $350+ this year for a net loss of $250 in my pocket.

As phoxx47 said unless you are doing manual calculations of the gallons and miles driven you may be way of on what you think you are getting. BTW my car reads about 1% high if i let the average mileage run over 10 or more tanks. if i reset the average every time then it is off by more than 6%.

I dont think you need to go to the extreme that phoxx47 went with with the GPS vs odometer but doing a manual calculation is the way to really see what the MPG is.

I use www.fuelly.com to keep track of the MPG on my car. it works well and show me via graph and data what the mileages is every time i fill up. I currently have a 30.9 MPG average over the life of the car but let me tell you i can get as much as 37-38 on highway runs and as little as 22 on high speed twisty roads. And probably less if I ran her on the track.

But to get the 30.9 average I keep her out of boost whenever I can during town or city driving. I.E. keep the RPM's down below 2200

 

No real magic tricks. Tire pressure should be where recommended by the manufacturer, +/- a lb or two. I personally don't think it matters that much whether you use Shell, Mobil, Exxon, etc...as long as you're using premium fuel.

How do you measure mileage? I typically reset my trip odometer at each fill up and measure it that way.

As has been said, the S will just never achieve the mileage of a base car. I just filled up my '09 MCS for the first time last week, and I got about 34mpg. I'd love to have 40+, but I can live with 34. If you want better mileage, stay out of the boost...shift early, light throttle, skip shift, coast when possible, etc... I do a mix. A lot of time, I drive like a grandma, especially when driving to the gym at 4:45am. But on my way home, I put my foot in it a bit more. I'm sure if I drove like a grandma non-stop I could get close to 40mpg, put I enjoy dipping into the power sometimes.

 

My experiences are similar to yours. My 09 Justa was 38-39 mpg. I traded it for an 08 MCS and get right around 30 mpg in mixed driving. I have an accessport, but I don't think that affects mileage too much. I use cruise control a lot (its so easy to go fast in this car), and would rather have my arm on the windowsill than have the AC on. I run 38 psi in my tires, mostly because they are all seasons with soft sidewalls, and the additional pressure tightens them up a bit. I have an auto, and generally paddle shift up to keep rpm 1700-2000 when cruising.

Have fun,
Mike

 

For everyone to help with their fuel tracking I use http://www.fuelly.com/ That will help with making corrections. Best I can tell you for an S is stay out of boost, skip gears(1,3,5 or 2,4,6), keep it in gear coming up to a light( newer engines have mapping that cuts the fuel while it is coasting when in gear, A/C on windows up on the freeway and windows down vent on the street, and finallycruise control on flat surfaces. Fuelly has a whole section to other tips that can help.

 

It's not that the OBC is reporting wrong, it's most Mini speedos read faster than actual speed. Sometime compare your speed to those city radar signs and/or realtime GPS - you'll notice your speedo will usually read 2-3 miles faster. BMW/Mini say 5% variance is acceptable. (yea especially when warranty is concerned)

 

If you are running performance tires, 38PSI is not going to noticably wear the middles, actually generates LESS heat and will positively affect handling. Gasoline choices can make a huge difference if you can find one that doesnt contain the almost de regueur 10% ethanol that is nothing but a gimme to the corn grower boys because it is subsidized ($0.51/gal) and only contains 65% of the energy of gasoline so you burn through it faster. Look at the Edge CS before buying a 1970s tech ScanGauge, you might like it better.

 

Nope, you are partly or completely incorrect on these statements.

When you inflate street tires more, you gain lateral grip and better transient response, because the sidewalls are stiffer. You do apparently lose some braking and accelerating traction, but not a lot from what I can tell. I have done testing on this, and several others that I know have also done testing. Grip does fall off again as you go higher, especially on bumpy pavement, but the pressures this happens at seem to be at or above the max pressure on the sidewall.

Increasing the tire pressures decreases heat in the tires. To increase the temperature gain in race car tires, you let air out. If you run your tires chronically low on pressure, they overheat and fail. The tire carcass is more stable with higher pressures, so there is less movement of the rubber and the belts, so less heat is generated.

Most modern tires do not wear out the center of the tread with high inflation pressures. (There may be some that still do, but the majority do not.) Most tires also seem to last longer when run at higher pressures than the ones the car manufacturers recommend. Again, this is from many people driving for quite a few years on higher pressures--in some cases, on very much higher pressures.

And pressures that are "too high" are better in just about every way (except for driving on sand and other off-road driving) than pressures that are "too low".

Now, I'm not saying that anyone has to do anything that they are uncomfortable doing. However, increasing tire pressure is a known way to cut down on rolling resistance and increase fuel economy, and the problems that people cite are either exaggerated, or only problems with 30-year-old tire tech, or are flat-out wrong.

 

Just don't super over inflate them. Because you run the risk of blowing them up.

 

Cheapest way to get good mpg is changing driving habits, consider that when you spend money on mods to achieve higher mpg it actually sets your goal backwards (saving $$$) until you do enough miles to 'pay off' the mods in terms of fuel saved.

When I am just commuting I drive at 55-60mph with cruise on (freeway), I change gear at 2.5krpms, I read the road way ahead so I'm not racing to a red light, I frequently coast to a stop when there is a stop sign or red light ahead and I use the mini's great handling to carry speed through the corners to preserve momentum.

With all these tricks on my 2009 MCS I get a computer average (over the last 1500 miles) of 41mpg which is a big optimistic, I think its actually around 39mpg. This includes some spirited driving too.

Oh and one more good reason to read the road and drive smooth, it will make your brakes/clutch and tranny last longer hence saving even more $$$ !

 

This is incredibly useful tips lads, thanks. Just FYI there is a free app called Gas Cubby for iOS (Ipad/iphone) users that I've been using and it's just like Fuelly (but i'll be using fuelly now as well).

Few questions: So staying below 2.2k will essentially keep me out of boost? I have a manual so this is achievable, but isn't the idea to keep the RPMs in a "sweet spot" aka where you the get the most efficient acceleration vs fuel use? I experimented for a little bit and have been using gas cubby to compare MPG
It seems when I was shifting/hold acceleration btw 2.5K to 3K I was getting worse mileage than 3K to 3.5K. Likewise I'm getting better mileage over 3.5K. Any thoughts?
Would pouring some Techron with a fuel fill up every now and them help? I've heard mixed reviews on this: 1 being it help clear out the cylinders/injectors so the engines run more efficiently vs. complete waste of money as these fuel additive don't do jack.
How about suspension related stuff such as sway bars and camber adjusters? I figured since the idea is to make the car more efficient I'm sure trying structural solidity would help put more power to the wheels.

 

The SA at my dealership told me to put a bottle of Techron in the tank every 3K miles, but only after I asked. She said BMW Krud-B-Gone (I think it's called) is basically the same thing. If it's snake oil or really helpful I just don't know.

 

For cruising, lower RPM is better. Slower is also better than faster, because air drag goes up with the square of your speed.

I have found that in my Justa, shifting at 2000 RPM and gentle acceleration gives me better fuel economy than higher load and higher RPM. I have read that usually 80% load is the sweet spot for acceleration, but for my car it seems that 60% is better.


Probably not. But it can't hurt!


Lowering the car helps reduce the frontal area a bit, and may help keep some air from getting under the car. It can help a little bit.

Zero toe and zero camber will probably give slightly less rolling resistance. Setting those will mean trade-offs, though. Zero toe angle can make the car feel "floaty", and if it goes to toe-out at speed it can make that end of the car unstable. Gains from alignment changes would likely be very very small.


I already said that a Scangauge is one of the best efficiency modifications, right?

 

Wow! Apologies in advance – I started this rambling and didn’t know when to quit.

Just some opinions and experiences of mine I thought I pass along in this excellent thread. Hope it is provocative to others. Don’t mean to offend or demean anyone’s opinions expressed here.

Toe-in/out in is dynamic. Compliance in the suspension and tires cause changes in toe – under power, braking, coasting. There may be a static toe setting that nets a better efficiency – it is likely not zero but is a static toe setting that results in zero toe under cruise power. This theoretical setting may not be a good compromise for all the requirements of handling and safety.

Techron – There’s been a perpetual debate going on about use of this stuff and oil changes – does the use of fuel system cleaners/solvents necessitate a near-term oil change. I’m guessing that it does not matter. This thing has been beat to death and doesn’t need to take on a new life here. I’ve used it occasionally and never perceived an effect – as such it is either preventive maintenance or rhinoceros repellent.

Driving habits – This is HUGE. This will net big paybacks. For No up-front investment [no $29.99 plus shipping and handling, magnetic, ion-generating devices from Headset-Vince on infomercials] you can get an immediate pay-back at the pump, a medium term payback at the tire store/repair shop and a long term payback in the useful life of the car – Win. Win, Win! Via a series of experiments that I have done I’ve convinced myself that the gains are in the order of 20-25% between driving with economy as an objective and driving in a moderately aggressive (but not antisocial) manner. My girlfriend was the unknowing subject of this experiment, which involved several different rental cars over a route that repeated over several months of steady commuting. It’s not too hard to find problems with this experiment… not double-blind, blah, blah… and poor thing, she didn’t know that I was doing this and she’d probably put a knot on my head if she found out… but I did do the arithmetic correctly – 20% is achievable without being one of those hypermileing zealots that are self absorbed about their own mpg and don’t mind impeding the commute of others.

Inflation – Under inflation = not good. Recommended inflation = good. Small tweaks that result in better handling = good. Extreme over inflation = only incremental gains in economy and potentially degrading to handling/safety. I looked at a study that Firestone did and it looked like the benefits of increasing inflation get incrementally smaller for each psi beyond about 29 psi. Gains are there but they get smaller and smaller the higher you go with pressure. There are some special low rolling resistance tires that are made for hybrids – for a number of reasons these have no appeal to me.

Spedo Odometer – It’s not a bad thing to check your odometer. And NO – the speedo error is not the same as the odo error. I did this last time I got tires and checked the odo against both the GPS and the freeway mile markers while I was on a long, straight drive. About a 50 mile test. I found my odo to be quite accurate all the while the spedo error was silly optimistic – Indicated 80mph / GPS indicated 74mph. I know others on this forum have indicated errors with the odo. Besides potential errors/biases in this device a change in effective rolling diameter with new, different size, different branded tires has a direct effect on odo and spedo. In reading this forum I have noticed quite a bit of swapping tires and sizes going on – the data tab on TireRack will give you an effective diameter for comparison. Who knows if it related to the real world or is comparable across different brands. The on-board mpg readout is, nonetheless, good for day-to-day comparisons and any inherent error/bias that I may have is only significant if you want to know mileage precisely.

Cruise Control – Much of the time on trips the cruise will net a better mpg. That being said, it is possible to beat the cruise. The main thing the cruise does is to maintain speed within a certain band. By using a steady foot and allowing the speed to drop a little more on uphills, it’s possible to net a little better number than with the cruise. It is a little tedious and usually the cruise is the best compromise.

Special oils – “Eco-Green-Virtuous-Oil” - perhaps, but just maybe, something is available here – I believe I’ll stick with Castol Synthetic 5-30 about every 5000 miles and let others have the ‘benefits’ of this mouse milk. Besides, the MINI is purported to have some type of oil pump design that minimizes pumping losses/loads, as such probably cuts into the potential gains from oils.

Scangage – I have an original scangage in my F250 but it’s not compatible with the newer OBDII protocols. It is/was useful it the truck for improving/validating driving techniques to result in better mileage. On the MINI I’ve been using the Garmin GPS with the Bluetooth dongle that plugs into the OBDII reports to the GPS. Haven’t used it enough to have much to say about it other than I seems to work well. Biggiest annoyance with it has been that the dongle and the GPS seem to lose touch with each other from time to time and they have to do their paring thing – no biggie, but does take a few seconds every few days.

Suspension mods – I’d be surprised if there was much to be gained here – I’ll leave this discussion to others.

Air conditioning - I don’t know the quantitative effect. I am aware that I prefer to be cool – so I’ll turn it on and pay the price.

Fuel – NO Ethanol, Premium – big effect here – cost effective!

Again, Sorry for the rambling – It’s really hot outside and I’m putting off my to-do list, just got started and perhaps didn’t know how to quit.

In any event, I like the original poster’s choice of the word “efficiency.” Fuel mileage is a component of that and can be interesting to play around with – it can become a hobby or even, an annoyance/obsession… We got these cars for a reason and the larger question is ‘Is the car Efficiently delivering on these objectives. I’m happy with mine!

Over and out….

 

the one single thing to do to improve fuel mileage is to find a station that has fuel with NO ETHANOL.

highway i am getting 41+ MPG at 65 MPH (GPS) on cruise control and 45+ MPG at 55 MPH (GPS) using ethanol free fuel

at 55 MPH and 45+ MPG, i should be able to go over 500 miles on a tank in my countryman s all4!

mixed driving i am getting 34+ MPG

all city i am getting 28+ MPG, and that is using boost if you know what i mean

if i use fuel with 10% ethanol, i lose 6 MPG across the board

i have also raised tire pressures to front 42 PSI and rear 36 PSI, but i did that mostly for ride and handling considerations, i have 18" wheels with Pirelli P7 Cinturato
225/45-18 runflats.

scott

 

Firstly I must apologise for my rant.

What is the matter with you people ? You purchased a fun car, so go out and enjoy driving it in the manner it should be driven, and presumably you purchased it for spirited driving!

If economy is you first love, you've obviously purchased the wrong car, you should have purchased anything other than an MCS or JCW model, driving the MCS or JCW like your grandma, looking to squeeze every last mile from your gas tank, is not doing your engine any long term favours!

Simply fill up, forget the MPG, and enjoy driving your MCS or JCW.

 

I previously owned an 2007 MCS and now own a 2011 MC. The fuel consumption I am getting now is similiar to what you were getting with your MC. I average around 37 mpg measured, not from the ECU. My MCS was only about 3 mpg less under the same driving conditions. The difference in fuel consumption of your MCS doesn't seem right to me.

2011 MC, manual transmission

 

My cars lifetime average I'd 31 mpg, and I drive like a complete idiot...lol

 

I'd rather work on taking advantage of ALL the capabilities and heritage of my MINI than being so one-dimensional.

 

Point taken about the long term life of the engine.
The SAs at my dealership advised me to drive the car in the manner it was intended for the good of the engine.
I knew when I bought the S engine over the justa engine that I was sacrificing some fuel efficiency for power.
I like to drive in a spirited manner, but not necessarily when running errands around town.
It's good to keep the car in best form for fuel efficiency, but having the power there when I want or need it.
This isn't my father's gas guzzling Oldsmobile, but it sure ain't my husband's Toyota appliance either.

 

Sorry, but the title to my car has my name on it--not yours. So don't tell me how to enjoy my MINI, and I won't tell you how to enjoy yours.

Believe it or not, improving your fuel economy in a specific car can be fun, at least for some people.



VERY good point!


On my SG II, I see a hit that varies between 5% and 10%. I generally cycle it on and off when I use it.