02 MC, 5-speed, run-flats:

Worst mileage: 27.23 mpg (probably mixed city/hwy driving, mostly city)
Best mileage: 36.06 mpg (90% highway driving and after K&N drop-in filter installed) in June 2003.
Most recent Las Vegas Meet mileage: 32.42 mpg (average of 6 tank refills). The speed range was mostly from 70-80 mph.

Max. 43 mpg as claimed by MINI is a pipe dream (or concocted under garage testing conditions). Anyone who buys the MINI strictly for fuel economy should consider a Toyota Prius, BUT, it is reasonable to expect the 5-speed MINI to give 30mpg or more in highway driving.

 

I'm getting a steady 24.2 MPG on my 2003 Cooper CVT, and that's with lots of stop n' go driving...no highway, all speeds under 50 MPH...

On a recent 60 mile drive at about 70 MPH (no traffic...just a nice steady 70 MPH) the computer read around 31.6 MPG. There are approx. 9,000 miles on the car...in about 9 months time. I use 93 Octane Mobil Premium Unleaded ONLY.

Rock On,

-MB

 

>>Is the A/F guage self-installed? Does it have a vacuum line attached to it? Was it installed when you took delivery of the car or soon afterwards?
>>
>>It sounds like you have a vacuum leak. which can lead to the ECU richening up the fuel supply to the engine. What does the deal say about this issue?


Well first off an A/F gauge has no vacume gauges sooo... and a vacum leak wouldn't really make a difference, at least not to anything other than to the ecu because the car uses a map sensor, not a maf sensor. Thanks for trying to help out though

 

I have a 2004 MCS and was averaging about 28 mpg in mixed driving. After upgrade to Version 36, it seems better all around and my average is up to almost 30 mpg. You should get V36 software and take that brick off the gas petal every now and then!

 

are you guys basing ur mpg on what the computer tells you? because the first time i filled up i filled up 11.6 gallons, and i had 60 when i bought it, and like 275 when i filled, so 215 miles divided by 11.6 gallons used = 18.5 mpg, and i hadn't gone past 4k rpm that first 200 miles... 04 MCS by the way...

 

I have a 10 mile commute to work. It takes me 35-40 minutes...... I get around 22Mpg.

When I go on the freeway away from traffic lights and stop-start I get well over 30MPG.

Short trips with lots of stopping and stating lead to poor MPG figures. Around 20 does not seem to be abnormal for this kind of city driving.

 

OK, look people. "In town" means vastly different things to different people. What I call city driving and what others call city driving are two different things. A lot of people mix in highway/freeway/expressway driving into their "city" driving experience. If you're not stopping at a light or a stop sign AT LEAST every thirty seconds (more like every 15), then in my world, you ain't driving in "the city."

My daily commute is approximately 10 miles round-trip. I live in Chicago, and I drive from my house to my wife's job, to my job, back to my wife's job, then to my house. This takes me directly down Chicago Ave, across Michigan Ave, down Columbus Ave, across Lakeshore Drive, and then reverse it. In other words I'm driving essentially across downtown Chicago daily. It's approximately 90% of my driving, therefore, guess what my mileage is: 19 on a good week, 15 on a bad. That's just how it goes. People claiming to get mileage in the upper twenties have a very different commute than I have.

I just wish that when companies figured out their EPA figures that they were actually honest. City mileage should be computed by running down half of the gas tank at 35 mph, and then letting the other half of the gas tank burn off while idling. THAT'S city driving! :evil:

 

I've got a regular manual Cooper, and I frequently see numbers below 20 on the computer. When I play on the curves or the cloverleaf and the rpm's are up around 6K a lot, I get what I deserve. When I get things down to 3K or so, stay w/ traffic, drive level or on slight downhills, I often see 35 mpg and above on the computer. What's fun is to post computer numbers in the low 20's, fill up, see the projected mileage available in the 250-260 range, drive @ conservative freeway speeds for 15 minutes or so, and then see the projected mileage go up to 360 and better. Those numbers don't often last long, though. As I said, I get what I deserve

 

I drive my MC pretty hard. I enjoy 4,500 rpm take offs and 6,000 rpm shifts. Especially driving in 2nd or 3rd gear! I love the acceleration and the ability to move when I want to, so I drive in 4th instead of 5th on the freeway, knowing full well my mileage could be better. My computer, I have the nav, tells me I do about 25mpg in my MC on average, which comes out to about 300 miles or so before I refill the tank. Sometimes I refill at 240 just to be safe.

When I'm in the canyons, I'm regularly shifting at 6,500 rpm and driving in 2nd and 3rd, and so the worst my computer has shown was 19mpg. The best I've seen has been 34 to 36 and that was all highway driving and still managing many 100mph+ sprints.

For me, it's like playing a video game. You drop in a quarter or a dollar and you get your thrills. It's up to you what you want to do with that time. I just want to have fun while commuting, and I'm happy knowing that I'm getting my thrills and my moneys worth at a far lower cost than filling up the the huge gas tank on an SUV or my wifes LS400!

 

Yep gas is so cheap, its not worth bothering about.....

Now when I had to fill up a Jag xj6 in the UK five years ago and it was about 80 GBP, (around $140) ..... now that encouraged me to avoid the kickdown for at least ten minutes :smile:

 

i would too. I get 28 consistantly(drive hard, highway) 20 would just tick me off to end! There is seriously a problem there

 

We average about 31 mpg normally but that's with driving in some traffic. The best we've done was 37 on an all-highway 75-85 mph trip. It is possible to get over 40 mpg in an S if you cruise in 6th between 45 and 50 mph. I've done it before.

 

Like I have said before on other MPG threads,my MC gets 38- 40 mpg highway.Don't know what I get in the city as I don't spend much time there

 

My driving is about half city and half highway, I range from 19-23 or so; that's usually about 3-4mpg less than my computer's est. I'd say I drive like an average MINI enthusiast, not TOO fast but I'm usually one of the faster cars on the road. It is rather dissapointing but with gas back under the 2.50 mark it is not worth worrying about...too much. I'm at just less than 5k miles and the recently installed pulley and intake seemed to have little affect on the mpg.

 

You should have the car looked at, but if you are really going for milage you have to remember the Coopers are "drive by wire" systems. This means that all of the throttle inputs are electronic. So you really do not have much feel to go on except the return spring. So you have to drive by the seat of your pants and the speedometer. After you get to whatever speed you want to cruise at you have to back off the throttle until the car is just able to hold speed and keep it at that point. Also if you **** at much more than 4000 rpm that will relly drink fuel. If you have an OBC, put it in real time consumption display, and drive by that. In most cruise situations you should be able to get it to run at 35-45 MPG on that display. Obviously you overall milage will be less.

On my MCS/JCW I can get 32 MPG if I really squeeze it for milage. More typically I get about 28-29 MPG if I just drive the car (this includes putting the occasional Honda in it's proper place in my exhaust cloud). My commute is mixed traffic lights, highway, and 10 miles of some of the best twisty in northern Virginia. I too bought the car for fun so frankly I am shocked at how GOOD the milage is.

Drive Safe
Phil

 

Even a modded autocross tuned MCS can get 26 mpg in mixed driving in my area without any problems. Not many highways available here- biggest stretches about 20 miles before running out of concrete or hitting bumper to bumper fun.

At the track, expect about 10-11 mpg or about 8 gallons of premium for 60 minutes seat time. Best highway mpg about 28 or 29.

 

I hadn't seen this thread before this morning, so I read it from post #1.

The one thing missing from most posts is where people tend to shift. My experience (with lots of British cars in my past) is that some people don't really understand how to drive a stick. My father was one of the worst. He'd just barely get the car rolling, and then shift into second right away. He'd be into 4th before we got to 30 mph - and he thought he was saving fuel and being kind to the engine!

Every engine has a "sweet spot" where the engine is operating most efficiently - with the best ratio of energy coming out (horsepower) to energy going in (fuel). Where that sweet spot occurs depends on the engine design. The motor in an S is a very highly tuned engine. There isn't a lot of power down low, and I would guess the sweet spot is fairly high. I haven't driven a Cooper, so I don't know, but I would guess its sweet spot is fairly high, too. Maybe not as high as an S, but still up there.

And every car has a sweet spot that's determined by interrelationship of the engine's sweet spot and the transmission's gearing and the body's aerodynamics.

A lot of people have posted to this thread saying, "Well I drive my car pretty hard and I get surprisingly good gas mileage." I think they're experiencing driving closer to the MINI's sweet spot than the people who are babying the car and wondering why their mileage sucks.

Back during the original OPEC oil crisis, Road & Track took a Camaro and did some fuel consumption testing with it. They experimented with driving styles and found that the old "egg between your right foot and gas pedal" was not the best way to get the best gas mileage. The found that their Camaro ran really well at around 45 mph (the "sweet spot" I'm referring to) and that it was actually more economical to accelerate fairly briskly to 45 and spend more time in the sweet spot than to spend a block and a half getting up to 45. (Remember, this was during an age of hours-long gas lines and rationing - so "fairly briskly" is relative to the "egg" technique.) Sometimes people trying to get great gas mileage by accelerating very slowly and shifting early are wasting a lot of gas.

Of course, if you're spending 2/3 of your 45 minute commute idling in traffic jams, you're going to have crappy gas mileage whatever you drive. Unless it's a Prius!

Speaking of shutting off the engine (which the Prius does), the rule of thumb that I've heard is starting an engine uses about the same gas as 1 minute of idling. I'm definitely not suggesting that people turn off their engines in traffic, but if you've ever sitting in a long line at a drive-up window or waiting at the curb while your mate runs over to the ATM, that's what I've heard - if you're going to be idling for more than a minute, it's cheaper to shut it off.

(I'm not sure if all of this hasn't changed since the era of computer-controlled everything or not, so take this all with a grain of salt.)

I also wonder about the injectors in some of the cars in this thread - there has been some talk recently about fuel additives and dirty injectors in another thread. I wonder if some of the people with shockingly bad gas mileage should look at that thread? Is an overly timid driving style - especially if combined with cheap gas - more likely to harm injectors? And foul the plugs. And contaminate the oil. And damage various sensors...

(I'm an old carburetor guy - these new-fangled electronic gadgets have me mystified!)

 

That's me in my MCS. Some people waste money on house payments and food, me it's my car.

Just checked and my computer say 24.5 mpg, but I don't know if that's accurate or not. I think I will check it out over the next month and see.

Earl

 

LombardStreet is right on the get up to speed briskly,what ever that speed happens to be,which is easy to do in any kind of MINI:smile:******* the engine is the worst thing you can do.I seldom shift below 4k rpms,mostly 4500,and I get great MPG.With a red line of 6800,and a rev limiter that does not kick in till a couple of hundred over that,driving the car where it pulls the best will give you good returns on the money spent on gas and really good fun getting those returns
On open highways,go for 6000 rpms to get up to speed,then coast at around
3100rpm doing 70mph in 5th in a MC,and your visits to the gas station will be as far apart as you can get

 

Yea, Lombardstreet is right. We also drive a Honda Insight and one of the high gas mileage techniques is to get up to speed as fast as possible. My dad is like Lombard's and shortshifts like crazy. He's had to many shift lights lighting up at 3k rpm. And he thinks I'm hurting the engine by revving to 4k. Anyway, I have found that I can edge him out a mpg or so by accelerating "briskly" up to 4k rpm or so. As for turning off engines, regular gas engines probably shouldn't be turned off in traffic. The Insight and Prius use their large battery to start the engine in 1/4 turn of the crank and use just as much gas as they would at idle to do it. Regular cars would use lots of gas at startup.

I'm interested to hear the part about dirty fuel injectors. We've always gotten good mileage but use Sams Club 93 octane. One of these days, I'm going to try some Redline fuel system cleaner and see what that does. You guys with bad mileage might want to look at a bottle and see if it helps.

 

Has anyone used regular gas instead of premium? Does the engine ping? If it doesn't is there a downside to using regular?

 

2003 MCS, 16" run-flats, stock except for Nology wires recently installed (that had no effect on MPG that I can see)

I have a 35-mile (each way) commute, about 2/3 of that is highway, the rest mostly country roads - a little stop & go, but not much.

My car has NAV and the computer consistently lies about MPG - it's always about 13% higher than reality. I compute MPG manually at each fillup and track it in a book I keep in the car.

If I drive VERY conservatively, I can get 30mpg. Typically I get 27-29mpg. I use 93 octane premium gas most of the time - occaisionally I'll put in a half-tank of 89 octane with no ill effects.

Getting better mileage is VERY MUCH about how you drive. And it's not just about speed - MPG is very high cruising at 65 in 6th gear. When you want to save gas try this:
-Don't sprint off the lights - accelerate slower, shifting just about 3K rpm
-LOOK AHEAD - if that light up ahead is changing, get off the gas! I can't believe how many people are in such a hurry to get to that red light!
-COAST! If there's no one behind you, try coasting a little. You get amazing MPG while coasting. When I'm driving the country roads I drive up the hills and coast down. (Not sure this applies to CVTs)

Also - check your AC controls - make sure the AC is off. I know that sounds stupid, but with the Automatic A/c controls it's easy to do this...

Not only will you save a little gas but you'll reduce wear & tear on the car a little too...

I know this doesn't apply to everyone all the time - we all have to have fun in your MINI at times too!

 

i ususally drive like a maniac... city driving i average about 23 mpg, but highway, even when going above 80 i get between 25 and 45!

wonder why?

 

Hi all,

One source of possibe variance here is the on-board computer. I found mine off by over 30% as delivered from the factory. It was quoting 32 and I was getting around 24.

I get 24 rain or shine, beating the crap out of my car.

If you milage is really crappy, try reseting the computer to see if it's learned any "bad habits"

Also, don't trust the A/F reading at all. That's from the narrow band on the car, and it really goes from all rich to all lean very quickly. They aren't the best way to run a car, but they are less expensive than the widebands.

If you're milage is really down below 20, and you are checking with the odometer and the gallons listed on the pump, then reset the computer, and start hunting for vac leaks. You may also want to check your S/C bypass valve, if it's leaking boost, then all it's doing is wasting energy and heating the air charge.

Bypass or vacuum, a dyno run would see if you're loosing power.

Good luck!

Matt

 

I also have an 03 MCS/JCW with like results at 80 on the interstate the rpms are 3250 and the milage is 28-29 drop the rpms to 2900 and the milage increases to 33-35 mpg each car has that sweet spot tire/wheel combination plays a big role im running Enkei RPF1s 17" 15.9 lbs with 225 50 17 Kumho MXs and the swap lets me cruise at 75 on the interstate and still get 30 plus mpg