Any MCS fuel economy suggestions besides removing rear seat? Are any plugs better than others for economy etc.?

 

Try to drive it like a Prius? It is really hard to do, but you will get better gas mileage.

The sound of the SC from my Alta Intake is addicting, like moths to lights.

 

What he said..try not to race from light to light. Accelerate gently. Keep anything unneeded out of the car to keep the weight down.
My MCSa is doing very well so far. With 4400 miles and a light foot from time to time I get 25/30.

Between the Intake and my newly added Magnaflow exhaust its hard to drive it like a prius

 

My MCS gets about 23 combined. It doesn't seem to matter how I drive it, either.

 

Yeah, just take it easy. Accelerate slowly and don't rev past 3k or 3500 as the A/F ratio drops off pretty fast after that. I'm able to keep my mileage in the lower 30's for the daily commute and mid-upper 30's on long highway trips. Our other car is a Honda Insight so I've had a bit of practice at getting good mileage.

 

Thanks folks. Are there any preferred plugs?

 

You can also go with a lighterweigh Wheel and Tire combo. That can save some weight and gas Milage. Just keep a Small flat repair kit and pump in the back.

 

responded to the plugs question maybe you should assume that there are no plugs that will appreciably change your mileage. Yet if you run lousy fouled plugs that will certainly change your mileage.

 

you might want to try this device :

 

Plug wires! I skeptically put in some Kingsborne plug wires after reading many so-so comments about it. Now my car just runs better in everyway, I am amazed. Maybe it has to do with my other mods? Maybe my OEM plug wires were on the verge of faulty?

I do not have enough data yet, but it looks like I am getting better gas mileage (maybe 1mpg).


Lighter wheels should get better mpg, decreasing rotational weight is a huge energy savings.

 

Turn off the AC. Even with windows open at full speed you'll net a noticable increase. Leave your trip computer on the MPG setting so you can monitor.

 

Always drive in the mountains.

Driving from Santa Fe to Denver on highway 285. According to the trip computer, most of the way my trip average was 32.5 mpg - cruising along at about 70mph. After hitting the mountains just West of Denver and doing some spirited driving with a pair of motorcycles, the average mpg jumped to 33.6. I was expecting to average to go down. Go figure.

 

I thought that generally at highway speed the a/c was more efficient than the increased airodynamic drag created by the windows open? Is the MINI different? Beyond the obvious 'different'...

My last trip over 100 miles on a divided road stuck going 61mph w/ac I got 42mpg off the trip computer. I was shocked. Then a month later I repeated the trip with a 41mpg result! So it was not a fluke!

 

This is my biggest gripe about high gas prices all these people news stations in particular advsing everyone to avoid jackrabbit starts and stops. Which is only good if you have no traffic. You burn FAR more fuel sitting in traffic congestion because everyone is driving like grandma and only three people get through on a light than if everyone would make an intentional effort to get their can moving ASAP so we can get as much flow between any two points as possible.
The eutopia of this is if everyone accelerated when the light changed rather than when the car in front of them moved, all that reaction time wastes a HUGE amount of money in time and fuel. hopefully one day technology would make it possible for the traffic signal to communicate with all the cars at an intersection, take over for the first.... say 150ft and accelerate all cars simultaneously at a constant rate metering with great acuracy traffic flow.......Now THAT would actually save gas and time!

By the way.....The price of gas is not even close to what my time is worth to me. I will continue to leave an intersection as though I was shot out of a cannon accelerating to legal posted limits as quickly as my MCS will allow so that I can be home 5 min sooner than I would have otherwise. The diffrence is only about 5mpg and that translates to only about $5 per tank and last time I checked most of us have some stupid habit or pleasure that costs far more than that! So bottom line is, why are you so worried about gas milage?
Now, If you are driving a suburban...or something that gets single digit gas milage, I believe your'e in the wrong forum...rant intended for MINI's only

 

Trade wheels/tires with someone who has a base MC.

 

Isn't this called train/subway/light rail? Public transportation? Everyone goes at the same time, at the same speed?

Anyone catch the Top Gear show with the competition between a Ferrari and Public Transportation from England to Switzerland? It was hillarious.

 

Also the fact is that if you get off the line quicker your ahead of the slow traffic and at some points you can get through a yellow light and be WAY ahead of the traffic! I do it all the time near where I work I just know the cycles of the lights and can tell if I can make it with some spirited acceleration to beat traffic.

-Josh

 

I got about 340mi out fo the tank on a ride to CT from Long Island ( its 154mi ea way plus me driving around there n here b4 hand ) . I was on it a few times around town and still got that much.....im happy. ( when my foot isnt planting itself into the floorboard )

 

The idea of having the traffic lights control my car is down right disturbing. I do ride public transportation when ever it makes sense, like riding the light rail in to San Francisco, and like it for what it is worth.

One technology that I find interesting is the partial hybrid concept. You have two batteries and a larger starter motor and the computer shuts off the engine when you are stopped and starts the engine when you press the gas pedal.

As far as the MINI, it gets pretty good mileage already. I enjoy driving it and am not going to worry about a couple of cents a mile difference. I also try to get through traffic and avoid lights as much as possible.

 

Uh, remove the supercharger?
I hear the Plasma Booster claims increased mileage. <ducking>

Other than the above suggestions, make sure that your tires are properly filled - more air means less rolling resistance (and less traction...)

Why is this thread in performance mods?

 

Apologies. I didn't know what forum to use to place this. Also, I guess this all started because I'm a little disappointed with the mileage on my MCS which is like 26.1 mpg general driving, mostly city. I convinced my wife that this car was a great idea for many reasons. One was that the MCS is advertised as getting 35 mpg on the road and that was better than the 02 Civic Si I dumped. I said the hi-test cost offset the price of gas because of the better fuel economy. But I didn't realize that the city mpg wasn't that great. Look, lets be realistic...performance is one of the main reasons to buy the MCS and it isn't the cheapest car and it doesn't add up to much difference per year...I just was a little surprised that the city mileage isn't great. I changed out to lighter 16 inch wheels and tires but I can't stop jumping out at traffic lights because its fun and it gets me through a few yellows and like the other writers I hate the selfishness of sluggish people who are first in line and make others go through multiple light cycles. So, I thought maybe by changing plugs or plug wires or something it might help a little.

 

--planeguy, you're talking like in the movie Minority Report or I-robot right? Everybody linked into a central traffic control system so they could have computers drive at 130 to 150mph safely! No more bumper to bumper merging on-ramps and off-ramps. The computers would just zip people efficiently in and out, and would accellerate whole blocks of traffic at one time. I think it would be a great idea especially for drunk drivers. The computer would sense breathe alcohol content and go full automatic until it got the person home. Even for normal driving a computer could automatically slow down a vehicle coming around a blind turn because it knows 40 cars are stopped right after the turn. It's a great concept but the biggest problem is standardization and safety. I mean if Microsoft wrote the operating system we be stopping and starting our cars all day. No one could drive when a virus gets in and hackers could actually kill people with this system. You take the good with the bad I guess. But eventually I think the good would outweigh the bad with such a system. So long as there are safety nets and bypass systems.

I agree with you for the most part, that the Mini gets pretty good gas mileage compared to other sports cars but I think the answer is simple for why we'd want to save on mpg. So we can motor farther. Short distance sprints are fine, but some of us like to meander and explore for hundreds of miles at a time. Once in a while we'll find that winding road with a perfect set of curves and punch it but we'd rather spend it on those curves rather than fighting traffic on the way home.

While my time is precious to me too, and i do hate the people that sit at the green light for 10 seconds (I'm the first one to beep my horn) I have a feeling that I will be on of those guys that takes the longer route home (not in rush hour of course) just because I enjoy motoring.

Cheers everyone motoring.

P.S. Wouldn't a hybrid AWD Mini be the coolest thing? If it didn't encroach on storage space I'd go for it. =)

--pyratio

 

After exhaustive research I have determined you should not worry about increasing the gas milage of any MCS. Instead become a religious zelot and attempt to convert all those who drive SUVs .... specially those how drive Hummers to driving Minis. The end result of your crusade for smaller cars will result in a surplus in gasoline and thus cheaper gas.

 

Hehe, when I used to drive a car that got 50mpg on regular unleaded, I would always shut off the car at the top of hills. Sometimes I could drive for miles without restarting, in traffic too (got really good at not scrubbing off speed).

In my MCS I average 19mpg with premium, and I really don't care about the cost. Only thing I miss is being able to go 500 miles between fill-ups.