I'm getting pretty nice gas mileage from my Clubman but am trying my best to squeeze every gallon I've got. I drive normally and sometimes, I coast for long distances if there's little traffic around. If I'm at 60 mph in fifth and the tach needle is sitting just under 3,000, am I wasting fuel by making the engine work to keep it there? What's the lowest speed for sixth gear? I usually hit about 3,500 before going to sixth but, interestingly, the tach barely moves down.
What's usually the best range for maximum efficiency? Should I try to stay under or slightly above 2,900 rpm? BTW, I calculated my Clubman's fuel mileage and it fluctuates significantly. One week, I'll average about 32. Then, the following week, it's 38. Then it goes to 33 and then jumps back up to 38. Almost 90% of my driving is on the highway and I average about 40-55 mph depending on traffic congestion.

 

As long as the clutch is engaged, the wheels will keep the engine running and it will not use any fuel at all. Therefore, leaving your car in gear will actually use less fuel than coasting. You'll lose speed more quickly, obviously, but it's more efficient than coasting to a stop.

I would suggest getting a scan gauge and playing around with that. It will give you good info with regards to engine load and fuel economy.

 

I, quite often, just skip 5th and go from 4th to 6th, only a 1,000 RPM drop. The only time I use 5th is when I won't be going over 50 MPH for a while.

I usually don't even think about shifting to a higher gear till I reach 3,000+ RPM (Emphasis on the +) and get 36 to 38 in town. So when I'm in 4th at 3,500 RPM I just go to 6th at 2,500 and cruise on down the road.

 

I was going to say redline, but then I saw you are into fuel economy.

 

You've just put a legion of 1st Gen Justacooper manual tranny owners into an endless philosophical loop with that question...

 

My calculations say about 5600 revs, I've never had a chance to test the theory though.

 

I always keep my Clubman in 6th at any highway speed of 50mph+. 5th gear is probably the gear I use the least, as I usually go from 4th to 6th once I establish a highway speed.

 

About every 10mph you can switch gears and be good and going from 1st to 3rd to 5th or 2nd to 4th to 6th is a good way to help with gas mileage. If you switch before or around 2500 will help a lot. Also anything over 30mpg is awesome in my book.

 

I drive a justaclubman, euro spec with the shift point display. It suggests upshifting at 1900 rpm, for all gears. Unless I floor it, then it suggests downshifting instead.

It also suggests downshifting under 1300 rpm.

Such low rpm's surprise most casual drivers. Not hypermilers, though.

Sincerely,
--Anders.

 

I don't remember where I stole this - probably right here somewhere. Lots of very good info clearly presented. I tried to attach the link but it didn't look like it was going to work, and my 156 year old isn't here right now to humiliate me by showing me how to do it.

Down-shifting Tips
Nov 25, 2006 12:05 PM
Look at this table:http://www.miniownersoftexas.org/wik...d_in_each_gear – see below.
If you are driving your car for best gas consumption then you really want to keep the RPM's between 2000 and 3000rpm.

So let's imagine you are slowing down from 70mph to a dead stop on a freeway exit. If you are cruising at 70mph - then you should be in 6th gear. (I'm assuming your MINI is 2005 or later - the numbers are a little different for earlier cars).
Suppose you downshift through every gear:
6th gear at 70mph = 2700rpm. slow to 50 mph and you are at 2000 rpm and you need to downshift.
5th gear at 50mph = 2400rpm, slow to 41mph and you are again at 2000 rpm and you need to downshift.
4th gear at 41mph = 2400rpm, slow to 34mph and you're at 2000rpm and downshifting.
3rd gear at 34mph = 2500rpm, slow to 28mph and you're at 2000rpm and downshifting.
2nd gear at 28mph = 2800rpm, slot to 20mph and you're at 2000rpm and downshifting for the last time.
1st gear at 20mph = 3300rpm...which is a bit high for optimum - but all you can do - so you slow down until your RPM is down to 2000rpm at 12mph - so stomp on clutch and brake and stop. Don't take the car out of gear until you are dead stopped with the parking brake on.

Well - that was a bit frantic...lots of shifting!
But we can do better than that by skipping alternate gears. Let's see what happens if we shift in 6/4/2/1.
6th gear at 70mph = 2700rpm. slow to 50 mph and you are at 2000 rpm and you need to downshift.
4th gear at 50mph = 2900rpm - still within the sweet spot! Slow to 34mph and you're at 2000rpm and downshifting.
2nd gear at 34mph = 3400rpm - a bit high, but not outrageous. Drop to 20mph and you're at 2000rpm and downshifting for the last time.
1st gear at 20mph = 3300rpm...which is a bit high for optimum - but all you can do - so you slow down until your RPM is down to 2000rpm at 12mph - so stomp on clutch and brake and stop.
You saved two gear shifts - but you kept the RPM's within a reasonable range. What you don't want to do is to downshift at 2000 rpm into a gear that makes the engine race up to 4000 or 5000 rpm!

You could actually stop the car in 2nd gear - but you need to be in 1st ready for when you move off again...
What happens if you go 6/3/1 ?
6th gear at 70mph = 2700rpm. slow to 50 mph and you are at 2000 rpm and you need to downshift.
3rd gear at 50mph = 3000rpm - STILL in the sweet spot! Slow to 28mph and you're at 2000rpm and downshifting.
1st gear at 28mph = 4500rpm!!! OK - that's a bit much!
So to go from 3rd to 1st, you've either got to downshift a bit later - at a slower speed when the engine is protesting because it doesn't have enough RPM - or you have to jump the revs up to 4500 rpm when you downshift. So probably 3rd to 2nd is better - which means you might as well do 6/4/2/1.

But all of that was with the engine in the fuel economy sweet spot.
Suppose you are RACING! The heck with fuel economy! We want the maximum torque from the engine at all times so if we change our minds about stopping, we'll have the maximum possible power for zooming off again.
The most torque (acceleration) is when the engine is in the 3700 to 4700 rpm range. This changes a lot of things. For a kick off, you don't want to be in 6th gear at 70mph - you should be in 4th gear! The car can accellerate faster from 70mph when you are in 4th than in 5th or 6th.
OK - so we're at 70mph in 4th at 4300rpm. Wooohooo!
We slow down until the tachometer is showing 63mph and we're getting outside the 'torque sweet spot' and ideally, we'd like to downshift.

If we drop straight from 4th to 2nd (at 63mph!!) our RPM's will shoot up to 6300rpm - which is practically ripping the engine off it's engine mounts...the car doesn't like that much - and we're WAY outside the sweet spot for torque. So we need to change to 3rd at 63mph - which is 4500 rpm - right back in that sweet spot!
OK so slowing down more, 3rd gear at 3700 rpm would be 51mph - so we need to downshift at 51mph - which leaves us in 2nd gear at 5000 rpm...which is a bit high - so maybe we should have downshifted a little bit under the sweet spot...48mph would be good. So 48mph in 2nd gets us 4700rpm.
Slowing down more - at 37mph, we're dropping out of the power band again - so down to 1st - but now we need 6000 rpm - which is WAY out of the power band..,so we'd better get down to maybe 28mph before downshifting to 1st.

You see that to stay in the 'fuel economy' sweet spot, shifting by 2's is great - it saves you effort - avoids clutch wear and is very gentle on the engine.
But if you want to drive with maximum torque - you need every single one of those gears 4/3/2/1 is the only way that works.
Somewhere between those two extremes - well, it's a matter of taste, style, mood!
The MINI's gearbox (particularly the 2005/2006 model year cars) is beautifully designed for a compromise between a street car and a sport car. You can downshift comfortably if and get economy or use those close-spaced gears to keep the car at maximum torque all the time. The '05/'06 MCS's Getrag gearbox is a PERFECT match to the engine.


Speed at various RPM's in each gear (2005 & 2006 MCS).

RPM : R 1 2 3 4 5 6 Torque
0: 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
500: 3.33 3.11 5.10 7.03 8.62 10.38 12.70
1000: 6.66 6.21 10.20 14.07 17.24 20.75 25.39
1500: 9.98 9.32 15.30 21.10 25.86 31.13 38.09
2000: 13.31 12.43 20.40 28.13 34.48 41.50 50.78 115
2500: 16.64 15.53 25.51 35.17 43.10 51.88 63.48 115
3000: 19.97 18.64 30.61 42.20 51.72 62.25 76.17 122
3500: 23.30 21.75 35.71 49.23 60.34 72.63 88.87 130
4000: 26.62 24.86 40.81 56.27 68.96 83.00 101.57 133
4500: 29.95 27.96 45.91 63.30 77.58 93.38 114.26 133
5000: 33.28 31.07 51.01 70.33 86.20 103.75 126.96 130
5500: 36.61 34.18 56.11 77.37 94.82 114.13 139.65 125
6000: 39.94 37.28 61.21 84.40 103.44 124.50 152.35 125
6500: 43.27 40.39 66.31 91.43 112.06 134.88 165.04 110

If you are driving your car for best gas consumption then you really want to keep the RPM's between 2000 and 3000rpm.

 

Nice post karst, I think that is only for the 1st gen. But good numbers to munch on for the 2nd gen folks.