I'm hoping someone can give me advice on this... It would happen, of course, right after we decide to make an impromptu trip to Florida for the holidays.

After filling up with gas on Tuesday (at a gas station I don't normally go to) I noticed that when I engage my MINI in 1st gear (and sometimes second gear), my car will shudder or stutter a bit as the gear engages. At first, I thought maybe my floor mats had bunched under the pedals and I wasn't fully engaging the gas or the clutch. It started out doing it ever 4th or 5th time I started from 1st gear.

The next day, I made sure my floor mats weren't bunched up and drove on. It is getting worse - the motion is the same, but it does it nearly every time I engage 1st or 2nd gear. I don't seem to notice it when downshifting, only when applying gas for forward momentum.

Since I doubt I'll be able to get in to MoS at this late of a date, does anyone know what this is?? Is it safe to drive such a long distance??

THANKS!

 

Tough to diagnose by email, but first suggestion would be to see if MoS can plug your car into their computer to see if it's throwing a code. The most likely culprit is reformulated gas (higher percentage of oxygenators this time of year, at least here in MD). There are some fuel additives that can help, but I'd suggest you talk to MoS before you do anything.

Please keep us posted, and good luck!

 

+1, possibly bad gas.

or

Try to reset the ECU. It might help, and it's free.

 

Yup tell MoS your concern and that you're leaving for the trip, maybe they'll squeeze you in. You might have gotten some water in the gas. If I were staying home I'd add some gas treatment that helps with that. Leaving on a long trip I'd get MoS to look at it if at all possible.

 

Not sure if fuel injected cars act the same, but on the old carb cars, contaminated gas usually resulted in backfires through the intake and very rough acceleration, the whole way through the rpm range.

Good luck ! Get Serviced !

 

My truck will just knock. Depending how bad the gas, just on climbs or all the time. I add dry gas and don't go there again...

 

I had a bad gas problem last spring. The car had trouble starting and wouldn't start for a while. I haven't bought from that station again and haven't had the problem. I talked to an MoS service adviser on the phone and he guessed that it was too much ethanol in the gas mixture and suggested dry gas to fix it. I think that dry gas is ethanol so that didn't make sense to me. I didn't add it, just bought more gas after the tank was down about 1/3 of the way.

If you have water then dry gas will help.

Good luck.

 

Arggg! I just got voice mail when I tried to call to schedule service. I wonder if it would be horribly rude to just stop by? I think I might do that. It's not really too far out of my way.

Thanks for all of the excellent advice. I think I may have gotten bad gas - I got talked into an extended lunch at work with a co-worker to do some shopping and they kept flipping out that my gas light was on. While I don't usually run it close to empty, I know that I can drive for many miles once that light comes on. She just kept getting concerned so I pulled into a station to quiet her down. And the nearest station didn't look like it sold much premium gas, if you know what I mean. I only filled the tank less than half.

I'll top it off at my normal gas station and head over to MoS to see if they will at least plug it in to the computer for me. And I might just check on MINI dealerships between here and FL just in case the worst happens!