Good luck to you, sir. Our thoughts are with you.

 

http://www.autotropolis.com/auto-new...ity-issue.html


They don't buy that car on it's good looks, do they........

 

I was wondering when this was going to be a thread. So far the small tank is my only complaint of the CM.

Tomorrow will mark 3 weeks with my CM and I have just hit 1200 miles and while this is a lot of miles in a short time, it still requires too many trips to the gas station when compared to my wife's 09 MCS.

 

I have noticed it is a wee bit small, think roof rack with an auxiliary fuel tank with a gravity feed.

Really, I can live with it, but long trips I might take a gallon and put it on the roof rack (if I had one)....

Don

 

I keep all of my gas receipts and I have one for 11.6 gallons and one for 11.4. I think I always had one mark showing on the fuel gauge. I have never run the car down to zero miles to empty.

 

I put 10.7 in this afternoon with about 60 miles left on the calculator. I got just over 28 mpg on that tank (real world calculation, not on the heads up display). That means that if the tank is really 12.4 with no reserve, the miles left calculator is not kidding around. Anybody have a similar experience?

 

Smaller tank = Less at Pump. Its only $47 to fill up tank vs $75 etc. But its a pain to keep filling up every 3 days or so.

 

Mileage still seems to be improving slightly. Just got 343 miles on my last tank and put in 10.3 gallons to fill her back up. 33.3 MPG. This was 50/50 highway and backroads/city driving.

 

The tank draws from the bottom, so whatever sediment is there will get into the fuel line regardless of how much fuel is in the tank. The fuel filter will catch the sediment. As the tank gets low there is a greater amount of 'sloshing' which could stir loose some stubborn debris... If a car has a floating suction, this theory would apply, I don't know of any cars that work that way... BMW/MINI is very picky on what fuel you put in the car, check toptiergas.com, this is the approved fuel for your car, the others have too much ethanol which will void the warranty on your car.... If you stick with the approved fuel, you'll most likely never have any problems.

 

I'm not sure whether a dealer would be on firm legal ground to deny warranty based on an assumption about the fuel. I don't see anything specific about approved gas retailers in my warranty exclusions. Unless you said right out that you had put crap in, I don't see how they'd hold you to it.

Sure, you can test gas for octane and ethanol, but has anybody really had a warranty claim denied in this fashion?

 

The dealer gave us a hard time on my wife's 745, it was running real rough, first question was what fuel are you using? we told them were using supermarket fuel, they said the ethanol could be as high as 20% or higher and that would void the warranty if we continued.. within a couple of tanks the car was back to normal... the higher ethanol is why they have lower prices I guess..
After seeing what it did to her car I just stick to the name brands now... I'm not sure they can prove what fuel you're using, I just don't want to take the chance....

 

Just looked in the MINI owners manual... It says that fuel up to 10% will not void the warranty. It also recommends 91 octane but you can use 89... If I remember right my '05 MCS was 91 or higher, don't have car anymore..

again, unless you say something, It would be hard to prove....

 

Tiny tank and figuring how much further you can go.

I went to Houston this afternoon a 64 mile round trip. When I left the office the odometer read 212 and the computer indicated 96 more miles to empty. When I got to Houston, about 32 miles I still had 84 miles to empty. When I got back to the office odometer read 276 and miles to go was 60. According to MINI I used 36 miles worth of gas in 64 miles traveled.

Story here appears to be that I can't rely on the miles left for a real number. I'm not sure I will try for -50 after all. I will be cutting it close and noting how many miles I went and how much gas I got. The computer and how it works is a mystery to me. I am assuming it reads the tank level, knows how much gas is left and makes a calculation based on some mpg number it either has programmed or computes.

Does anyone know how it really works?

Thanks,

Bill

 

I don't have an online version of the manual to quote.... but I believe the computer uses something like the LAST 35 miles of driving to determine distance remaining....

 

The car has no idea what you are planning so it goes by what you've recently done:

John

 

I have a Volvo, the fuel gage shows gallons left, rather than percentage. It is acurate! It shouldn't be difficult for MINI to do the same thing.

Dave

 

That would be nice option, to have the choice between gallons or range, the car certainly knows how many gallons are in it.. I have the MINI connected app on my iPhone, the car will speak how many gallons it has and the fuel level shown in gallons is displayed on the iPhone...

 

That would then mean a lawsuit for the gas provider as the sticker on the pump says can contain up to 10% any more than that would be illegal.

 

Just yesterday I got to 1 mile to empty and no candy corns were lit up but I would venture to say it would not go negative, just hover at 1 or 0. I left the house with 8 miles then got gas when it said 1 mile becasue it was the closest gas station.

 

I went back to the supermarket where we were getting the fuel, their pump actually said up to 15% ethanol.
I get fuel from Shell only, theirs says 10%...

 

When you filled up with 1 mile left, how much gas did the car take?

Thanks,

Bill

 

I filled up today when the mileage to empty said 6 miles. It took exactly 12 gal....i was starting to get a little worried as i was driving down I5...lol. The gas gauge still had one tick left on it.

Steve

 

Ok, so I chickened out. I filled with 5 miles left and it took 11.77 gallons. Indicated 28 mpg for the tank and 331 miles on the trip odometer. I'm going to assume a 12.5 gallon tank and the miles left is pretty accurate.

By the way, I left work for home with 30 miles remaining and got home (4.5 miles) with 11 miles remaining. Picked up the with and went straight for gas (1.3 miles) and got there with 5 miles indicated on the computer.

I think the moral hear is "Don't count on the miles remaining and pass a fill up when you have 30 miles indicated left in the tank and the next station is 15 miles down the road.

Bill

 

It is definitely a 12 gallon tank max - the good news is that my all around MPG with the Automatic All4 is 28 - not bad (and at the high end of the rating).

 

I put just over 12 in on my first tank with something like 15 miles left on the estimator, so it's definitely bigger than 12. I tend to believe that it's at least the 12.4 claimed on the spec sheet. If the estimator is really honest (and in every other car I've ever seen, there was still a small reserve after the estimator reached zero), then there's at least 12.4. There's no way of knowing there's a reserve beyond that without driving it to zero.

There's no way I'm running my brand new car to zero for a solely academic question, but if anybody wants to put two gallons in a gas can and drive their car to empty for research purposes, please post your results for the rest of us.