Okay, so can someone please explain to me what the difference is between Sport Mode and switching the gear stick over into M/S. It shows S1-S6, I've read that that is the Sport Transmission Mode. Then if you choose to operate the gears "manually" (lol) then it switches to M1-M6. But what exactly is the difference in Sport Transmission Mode and Sport Mode. I can activate both together. Thanks!! by the way, I can get my iPhone 6+ to connect to office and do text messages. :(

 

I have a '15S with the sport auto. "S" mode in the transmission shifts and downshifts at higher rpm's. Sport mode changes the throttle response, tightens the steering, and above 3000 rpm, when letting off the gas, the engine backfires. Hope this helps.

 

Sweet. So in combination they are both pretty bad A

 

My previous car was a '12S with a manual. I have no regrets buying my current car with sport auto. It is really fun to drive this car in sports mode and manual shifting, and the popping sounds are great.
And having an auto tranny is very convenient in stop and go traffic. Best of both worlds.
And, I hate green mode and NEVER use it.

 

I've used green mode a couple times so far and honestly it doesn't seem to be that efficient..?

 

+1 to what dpcompt said. Also, if you have dynamic damper controls, sport mode will also tighten up the suspension.

CAUTION:: If you move the stick over to sport-auto, do NOT hit 88 MPH. You never know where in time you'll end up!
.

 

In the 8 years I've driven Minis I've always wondered why you can't program it to be in Sport mode as default. I've probably hit the Sport button 50 million times. In a way I'm glad I don't have to twist that ring every time in the F56. It's not hard but the button is really fast.

 

I am just guessing, but I think that it may have to do with EPA mpg testing.

 

The "S" mode increases engine responsiveness in addition to the sportier shift points. To me this is almost the ideal setting.

 

I will probably get Bimmercode just for this:

 

consider setting driving mode memory instead. It will remember sport mode when you set it, but if you decide to drop out of sport you won’t have to disable it every time you start the car.

 

Can you also program DSC settings?

 

Green mode is for cruisin' on the Interstate - I think ? I use Sport Tranny for downshifting & saving my brakes. I don't need it for acceleration being hot-tuned to a dyno-proven 300hp. it goes 40mph to 120mph like a top-fuel dragster.

 

Used this mode day before yesterday when after leaving Albuquerque heading south on I25 with a fuel tank down some I thought there'd be no problem finding gasoline. Wrong. A number of stations were closed. One or two looked like someone wearing a face mask and carrying a running chainsaw would step out from around the building at any time. Creepy.

Did stop at one station by its system for authorizng credit card payment was not working.

Anyhow, I put Eco mode into operation to I thought help extend the car's range. I don't think the Eco contributed much to this. I resorted to the time tested technique of slowing down. Eco mode reported I had added 4.5 miles per gallon of gasoline.

Finally found at good station at Williamsburg, NM. Pumped in 8.385 gallons of 91 at $4.099/gallon.

MPG: 35.2.
MPH: 69.3. (Prior to this on various stretches MPH average 75+.)
Range: 501 miles. Was in the 420 mile range with previous fill ups.

 

I've gone back and forth about the value of Eco mode, but there are 2 scenarios where it seems to genuinely reduce fuel consumption (though not exactly by a ton). Both of them, though, are -- like any other fuel-saving tactical that boils down to how much gas you suck down -- dependent upon driving conditions, specifically terrain and stop/go.

(1) Using the "cruise" function in Eco mode. When it's doing its thing, the driveline is decoupled from the engine, reducing load and therefore fuel consumption. Smart stuff. Thing is, to really really leverage this you have to get good at helping the car decide to have it kick in. Not that it won't kick in on its own, but if you want to max the benefits, you have to learn how to come off the throttle just so in certain situations (like when cresting a hill or other transition from acceleration to not-acceleration). And then on top of that, terrain and driving conditions matter. You're not going to get a ton of value out of this on windy twisty uphill drives or stop-and-go traffic. Nevertheless, it's a real difference between Eco and the other modes.

(2) Using cruise control. Pretty simple, the car is more discriminating about how to sip fuel than your foot is. Let it drive itself and that fuel economy number definitely creeps its way up over time. But also, again, subject to terrain and driving conditions.

I pretty routinely find that driving in "regular" vs Eco is a difference of 1 to 1.2 mpg per tank, with the Eco being the smarter sipper. That's just my experience, which is very much a product of my location, my terrain, my regular vs non-regular drives, and my right foot. "YMMV" quite literally applies

 

Going down some grades didn't notice if the Eco mode was decoupling the engine from driveline. I noted when I switched to Eco mode is re-enabled auto stop/start.

Cruise control helps with fuel consumption but it has one big fault. Best fuel economy is to hold the pedal steady and let speed climb on down grades and then fall on up grades.

I tried this one time in another car with instantaneous fuel economy and the MPG improved considerably over using cruise control. The problem was the car's speed exceeded the speed limit going down the steeper grades and I felt compelled to slow the car. The flip side is holding the pedal steady speed on the up grade dropped. On the section of I40 I was on the speed limit was 75mph. Going up grade the car's speed dropped to under 50mph. All the vehicles I had passed going at 75mph on flat ground and going downhill passed me back. I was in the slow lane but even big rigs had to pull out to pass.

Given the above I have just settled on using cruise control. Not perfect but it delivers good results considering. And like I touched upon in a previous post slowing down really makes the big difference.

Trouble is when faced with a long drive slowing from 75mph to 70mph or even slower saves fuel but it seems to take forever to get anywhere.

Will add except in special circumstances like I found myself in so far the MINI has done rather well with gas mileage even when driving the speed limit. Just I wasn't sure when I would find the next gas station. I was on an unfamiliar freeway. My usual route -- just straight across I40 -- I know the gas stations and they are not that far apart. And they seem to be quite good and have reliable credit card system. That stretch of I25 south from Albuquerque to Las Cruces though was quite different.

 

@RockC Your experience dovetails with mine pretty precisely.

Re your observations on the limits of cruise control -- and how and why you ended up back at cruise control anyway -- went through exactly same, got the t-shirt. So when I speak of using cruise control now, I'm speaking clearly of its fuel economy benefits in that full context, as compared to my foot. The car is better at it than my foot.

The decoupling is observable in 2 ways on my car: the green bar in the instrument cluster when in Eco mode (which goes solid when decoupled) and RPMs dropping to sub-1000 RPM while in motion, observable on the tach. What I've noticed is that the car is good, but not great, at figuring out when it can decouple and have things work fine. It is conservative about deciding to decouple. This is fine and smart, as it cannot account for the terrain ahead that it literally cannot see. However, a human driver can. A tap on the gas pedal -- meaning your foot is off it, you tap it and remove -- under circumstances where a real-time assessment by the car of "to decouple or not to decouple" will very often push it into decoupled mode when, without you lighting up that decision tree, it'll just stay coupled. I have definitely figured out how to get more fuel economy out of the car in this way -- but it again depends upon terrain. And on the highway it really doesn't work because of all you've said about winding up at using cruise control. Decoupling turns you into an accelerating downhill brick, a slowly-slowing "who is that driver" on a level grade, or even worse, a slowly-slowing driver in a circumstance where you need to give it gas to climb even a slight grade.

Funny you mention the "seems to take forever" aspect of slowing from 75mph to 70mph. Combined with the MINI being 2-4 mph below displayed at that speed range, it additionally sets you up for other cars feeling the need to whip around you. Back to the cruise control, with adjustments, and anxiety.

My fuel economy these days is clocking in at about 30 mpg, give or take ..5 mpg. In "MID" mode I top out in the 29's. In Eco mode I can over around 30.4/30.5. But the moment my driving patterns change -- less highway, more stop/go, more aggressive driving even 2x per tank, blah blah -- those numbers can shift radically. But outside of trying to eke out a tenth of an MPG higher, I'd say the car does quite well.

Interestingly, if I end up having to use the AC, my normal fuel economy will drop hard, down to the 25's.

 

Didn't know decoupling could be done via from behind the steering wheel. Have a drive of 1500 to 1800 miles (depends upon the weather and which route I take) and I'll put the car in Eco mode. I'll check the owners manual too.

Not that I'm that keen on Eco mode. Just want to experience its features.

Cruise control is the best of bad options. Eco mode and just holding the pedal at a fixed point may work/does work to lower fuel consumption but not enough to outweigh the negatives.

Some cars (German I might add) I've owned have had the speedo read 5mph optimistic. Have not seen any evidence of my MINI having that optimistic a speedo. If it is optimistic I'm guessing probably 2mph. But I'm looking for a way to "test" the speedo. There are some radar speed limit setups around here on stretches of road work. I will be here for 8 days so I'll have a chance to use the radar speed limit setups to check the speedo at least up to 55mph. But with other cars pretty much 5mph optimistic was the case regardless of the speed, at least from 35mph and up.

The desire for better gas mileage was due to the lack of me fueling the car when I had a chance. When I feared/realized I was going to have to maximize fuel economy to ensure I had enough gas to reach a station then I got more concerned. I just didn't want to run out of gas on that stretch of freeway and rely upon AAA to help me out.

So far my 2023 S has been pretty good with gas mileage. Around 30mpg mostly around town which just so happens involves a lot of 45mph boulevard driving and not that much stop/go.

On the freeway like from Sunday to about 1am this morning mileage was 30mpg up to one stretch (not the one I used Eco mode though) 37mpg.

Most of the time I drove at least 75mph (the limit) and I allowed for my belief the speedo was 2mph optimistic. Sometimes I even believed it might be even more optimistic. That's enough detail for a public forum. At any rate besides the engine I gave the 7-speed Sport dual clutch transmission a bit of a workout. The more I drove the car the more like that transmission. Oh, and that engine is a real gem, too. After the oil/filter service in Albuquerque I took the engine right to red line and it runs hard right to red line. The S may not be a JCW but it ain't a dog.

Oh, almost forgot. I don't see any real difference with A/C on or just auto with A/C (the compressor) off. My experience with other German cars that came with variable displacement A/C compressor the compressor just doesn't put that much of a parasitic load on the engine, even at idle. Sure I have not bothered to data log this MINI or even view load in real time with an OBD2 scan tool but I have turned the A/C off/on while the engine is idling or when driving on the road and if I didn't have the A/C control to go by I couldn't tell if the A/C was on or off.

 

Definitely review the owner's manual to get a better feel for the visual indicators. What won't be in the owner's manual is the bit about being able to see the RPM do a sharp drop when it shifts to coasting mode, and that if transitioning from a certain level of load to a lower level of load gradually (say, from cresting a hill), the system might not figure out that it can shift to coasting -- but removing your foot from the pedal and/or tapping the pedal after removal may trigger the car to re-eval and figure all that yadda out for you.

So the MINI (and all the BMWs) definitely have the optimism thing going on. Good amount of chatter in BMW forums about it and I have observed it with my MINI when comparing either to radar speed limits as you reference, or to GPS.

The thing is, the variance isn't MPH-fixed. It's a percentage. The value I've seen discussed most often is 4%. Whatever the magic number is, as you get into higher speeds the MPH gap is higher, and math blah blah you get the idea.

Easy way to monitor this, though, if you use BimmerLink. Using either the "Sensor Values" or "Dashboard" section in real time as you drive the car, monitor these two values:

- Vehicle speed on the front or rear axle or in the vehicle's center of gravity
- Vehicle speed

The first one is the POV of "the car." The second one appears to be GPS. I have watched them side by side on my MINI and the gap has been consistent with both the online discussions and the speedo-vs-radar comparisons in my personal case. I have also managed to figure out which vehicles around me on the highway cruise at "actual 70 or 75MPH" vs "my MINI's reported 70 or 75MPH" -- which sounds a little funny, but if you try the same experiment and observation of your highway peers you'll see what I mean.

That fuel economy you're getting with your 2023 is pretty impressive. Best I've gotten out of my MINI to date is 33.8 MPG. The 7-speed you have is likely a major efficiency difference vs. my 6-speed.

Regarding the A/C compressor impact, I have to say I was surprised by my finding. If you had asked me, during the summer, whether it mattered much or at all I would absolutely have said no. Then cooler weather hit, I turned off the A/C, and all of a sudden I'm up +3 MPG per tank. What? But there ya go. I do intend to watch carefully when I go back to using the A/C though, to see if the MPG falls again.

 

When I get back home I'll use one of my OBD2 scan tools to view vehicle speed in real time. With previous cars this reading clearly showed the speedo speed was optimistic (or spot on in the case of a couple of cars).

As an aside, before that I happened to have a hand held Garmin GPS device which showed speed. When realized the vehicle speedo was reading optimistic (5mph) I reset both the Garmin and car's "trip odometer" and drove 200 miles based on the car's trip odometer. The Garmin device had the distance 200.2 miles. With the warranty of 4 years 50K miles a 0.2 mile error in 200 miles worked out to 50 miles. No big deal. And the error was in my favor.

Cooler weather with drier air can have a positive impact an engine's performance. I have noticed this a number of times over the years with all my vehicles. While this can be felt with one's seat of the pants dyno -- the only way I noticed it -- I never noticed any significant change in fuel economy. But that doesn't mean it might have been present.

The flip side is in some regions of the US gas blends are alternated between summer and winter blends. Changes in gas mileage are often attributed to the change to a blend. Over the years at least my experience in CA was any change always seemed to negatively affect gas mileage. But you could be in an area where the switch to winter blend helps gas mileage. The flip side is winter driving is just not conducive to better gas mileage. Engines are cold, there is more friction from the colder oil, trips are often shorter, one spends more time in traffic, and so on. All work to negate any benefit to gas mileage winter blend gas might provide.

If you have a scan tool that can query for OBD2 engine load you can monitor this at idle and turn on the A/C and see how much engine load changes. I've done this with other cars and the change (just a tenth or 2) in load worked out to not quite 0.5hp. And this was with the A/C running set to max cool. With auto climate control the A/C compressor displacement gets dialed way down and the load pretty much gets buried in the noise when the engine is producing any HP above that needed at idle.

I'll have to do this my MINI, too. About time I get some numbers from my MINI.

 

I didn't realize my '22 JCW had decoupling because I NEVER use Green Mode. My '18 Porsche Cayman with DSG had decoupling and I thought it was unsafe on long downhills. And besides the F.I. shuts off the fuel when you let off the gas, but the driver is still able to rely on engine braking instead using the brakes. I can see where it would save fuel on fairly level roads. Saving fuel by allowing a car to coast up to unsafe speeds on long downhills doesn't seem like a great idea.

 

I had forgotten about the gas blend thing as well as the ambient air temp question. I am in the southeast US (it got to 70 degrees yesterday, but that isn't going to happen today lol). I can't add much to what you said but definitely makes sense.

Re the A/C, one of my older scan tools just might have an engine load monitor -- well, I know it does, just don't know if it successfully gets that out of the MINI, it has been so long since I thought about it. I'll give it a try. Good tip.

Yeah coasting decoupled downhill in a car that likes speeding downhill under raw inertia anyway is definitely not good. In the one area where I have "enough downhill for that to happen" the posted speed is 35 and I'm not trying to let the car decide to test safety limits *at all*. Anyone using decoupling should be aware of the concern and use it mindfully.

 

Interesting talk about the speedo readout. On my '17 F54 my digital display is consistently 2mph high as compared to various radar speed limit signs/monitors around me. Doesn't matter if it is 25mph or 55mph, it is always 2mph high and definitely not a percentage, where dash shows 27 and sign shows 25, etc. I read somewhere that the German and EMEA regulations are very strict with manufacturers not allowed to be 'off' on the low side of the display, so BMW/MINI set their displays to be 2mph above actual to ensure they don't violate some of the regional regulations. I have no idea how true that statement is, but I can say for certain that I see a 2mph offset. I have confirmed that with my wife's '19 Wrangler, as her digital display always exactly matches the same speed limit sign readouts, where her dash shows 25 and sign shows 25, etc. What is interesting when comparing my ODO to hers, is that they show identical distances when travelling between the same points down to the tenth of a mile. That took the concern of improper mileage on my MINI out of the picture, since at least that matches even if the speed readout doesn't FWIW.

Around me (Chicagoland area) winter blend gas is immediately noticeable, even if the temps haven't dipped yet. I will lose 3-4 mpg as soon as that is loaded into the local station tanks. You can see the same change in reverse in the spring when the summer blend is back in supply. I have seen this across multiple cars over the years, so I know it isn't anything unique to the MINI nor even temps. Now, the temperature will certainly impact mileage, but the summer/winter blend has a very noticeable impact as well.

 

I've seen the same basic statement, with the modification that instead of stating BMW/MINI set their displays to be 2mph above actual, it stated that BMW/MINI set their displays to be 4% above actual, citing reason of EU regulation

Gotta love online discussion forums, lol

But totally hear you. Now that I'm monitoring my speed in real time (in part because I changed tire size) I'm absolutely noticing on the highway which vehicles slowly creep up on me when my cruise is "at speed X" and which ones seem to match my same-set speed. American-make vehicles (Ford & GM for example) are always creeping up on me, up until I add a couple of MPH, and then we're all in sync; other German vehicles, we seem to "run about same" -- not so sure yet with Italian, Japanese, or Korean-make vehicles. Pretty intriguing experiment actually.

FWIW with my cruise control set at 75MPH on my original set of tires (205/45/R17), GPS would sit at 71MPH. When I changed my tires to a taller sidewall (205/50/R71), that gap closed from 4MPH to 2MPH (meaning cruise set to 75 = GPS speed of 73MPH).

 

my '15 F-56 S gets 30mpg & I never turn A/C off in Fl. & it's hot-tuned by Renn Haus. runs like a scalded ape. go figure 300flhp = 247hp @ whl. yes it's 2.0 L