yea he said he got of the phone with "engineering" and they told him that the cooper s should onley be run on regular not preamium, do to to hot of combustion and stuff, this was with my v38 upgrade ....so is this going against everything ive been told, dosent the cooper s need the high octane duw to it being supercharged, does mini even know how to drive their own cars?

i swear i get more and more confused, sorry if their has been like posts about this but i found it odd!!!!

 

Your dealer is wrong.

Premium grade fuel is recommended for the Cooper S.

 

Who was this engineer talking to? Bart Simpson!


You should run the recommended fuel as listed in the manual, which is premium. Theoretically it is possible to run slightly lower fuel in the winter, but I would advise against it. First, premium fuel has a higher octane, which prevents knock, which is more prevelant in higher compression engines, or forced induction engines. Secondly, premium usually comes with additives and detergents and is usually a slightly better grade of fuel. You need to stick with premium, and can actually cause you problems if you ever run into problems and you want something fixed under warranty and they find out that you have lower grade fuel in your tank (if the problem is related to fuel).

Not sure where this guy got his information, but he is wrong.

 

That's nuts. The manual -- even the sticker on the underside of the fuel door! -- makes it pretty darn clear that ALL MINIs are to be run on premium fuel, 91 octane or better. You can get all technical about why (and it's not solely an issue of supercharging, since the Cooper is also supposed to have premium)...but nevermind. It's there in black and white. If BMW/MINI were to have changed on this, don't you think we'd all have gotten letters from BMW informing us of this change?

So, tell us the name of this person at the "dealer." Let me call and see what he says.

 

Personal experience: I tried regular one time by mistake -- my MCS didn't like it.

btw, after plenty of interactions with these folks, I've stopped believing anything Mini dealers tell me...

 

Look inside the gas filler cap.

Actually, if you have a cold weather problem, it is good to alternate between 93 and 89, if 91 octane is not available.

 

Ask the dumba$$(oops spelled dealer wrong) to put that in writing. Then when your engine goes BOOM, he/she can pay to fix it.

 

I think MINI is some kind of warped social experiment -- like that show on MTV (I think) where unsuspecting innocents are placed in intentionally aggrivating situations to see how long it will take them to blow up. The person who remains calm the longest gets some moolah.

Perhaps, in this case, the person (owner) who stomachs the most lies and stupidity wins a cabrio? Maybe?

 

You can even feel the timing retarding when using less the 93 octane gas

at full throttle.

 

Damn, I can tell the difference between 93 and 94. As that dealer if he will cover the engine damage caused by using regular?

I have always wondered, if they weren't trained by the manufacturer would they be better or worse?

 

Apparently someone over at the dealer was on the pipe a little too long this weekend.
Tell us what dealer this was and the person you talked to, so we know which one to stay away from. Maybe they have all their cars that they get in, filled with regular gasoline already. And who knows what else they might be doing wrong.
This isn't something new. From what I understood from day one back a couple years ago, even the regular Cooper had to run on 91 octane. This is old news. So for someone at a MINI dealer, who hopefully went through the proper training, to tell you otherwise, is a little wonky to say the least.
Maybe think about switching dealers as well now, 'cause who knows what other crackhead advise they might give you later.
Cheerio,

 

Honestly, I'd find out a way to get whoever it said that to you fired and make sure whoever he heard that from is fired too. That's something that could potentially cause a lot of damage to a bunch of cars and end up costing BMW a lot of money. What a dumpshit, never take your car to that dealership and throw away their business card.

 

Premium fuel is a scam by the oil companies to make people pay extra for nothing. Perhaps he talked to the only honest engineer in BMW since every BMW dealership I know uses the cheapest regular unleaded they can find in all the cars on the lot.

 

That "engineer" must be smoking crack!

 

I wonder if this has to do with the v38 upgrade? Maybe it is tuned for the lower octane? Anyone else running v38?

 

___
C'mon now. The MINI was designed for premium fuel (says so on the Owner's Manual) so how can one dispute that? There's a reason for that: this is a high compression engine (MC) or one with the supercharger (MCS). Keep running on regular fuel and after a while you'll find out the difference.

This salesman doesn't know a damn about the car he's selling.

 

I'll tell you folks, this sounds like what eventually happened to the 5.9L Durango RT's a couple years ago. This is commonly referred in that group as the "death flash". My dad has a 2001 Durango RT, I have a 2002 Durango RT. In '01, Dodge required premium gas only. They had programming issues (sound familiar) they ended up reflashing the 01's, and in 02' they no longer required premium in the RT's. The programming was changed, and the octane requirements changed too. As people get reprogrammed V38, V39, etc., it is not out of the question that octane requirements can change regardless of what your fuel cap or manual says. It is referred to as the death flash because people could feel a performance difference, and were PO'd. I'm not saying Mini has done this, but this does and can happen. Really, if they were set on say fixing the yo-yo problem, and a reprogram could fix it all, and it just so happens the octane rating requirement went down, do you think they would not consider it?

 

Been running on regular for over a year and 25k miles. Still waiting for the difference. I think it's only between the ears of MINI owners. I used to be that way.

 

Interesting... The difference in my MCS was dramatic! I only discovered that I had mistakenly filled up with regular unleaded when I tried to figure out why the car wasn't performing well after the fill up.

Do you have an MC or MCS?

 

I was told by our dealer to run 87 as a cure for the cold start problem. v38 seems to have taken care of the cold start, and I've stuck with premium.

 

early_apex is right on this - at least as far as BMW engineering recommending it.

Had my Cooper S in for first service today ("yo-yo", gear shift buzz, hard cold start) and was told I was getting a re-flash to v.38. I also was told that there was no guarantee that v.38 would solve either the yo-yo or the hard start. Particulary with the hard cold start issue, BMW engineering is not sure of the cause. Notwithstanding what the manuel says, they now are recommending that people with this problem use 87 octane gas for 3 or 4 tankfuls to see if it solves the problem. Something to do with the combustion with high octane being too hot.

Hopefully when I pick up my car my problems will be solved and I won't have to be part of the experiment.

Regards.

 

I dunno about that who too hot thing...I mean I live in AZ and it's 120 + if you count the heat coming off the road...and well most of hte time I'll mix in some 101 every few tanks to keep the car running well..and I'll tell ya it's a huge difference...not a draw back...the engine runs so smooth and ofcourse the power gains are great...most of hte guys with mods are so impressed with how my (right now) stock 04 MCS can do quite well against thier modded MCS ...it's really interesting....


look at it like this...if you go and drink a bunch of beer and eat a bunch of crap and then try and run an endurance race you are not going to do as well as if you have been drinking very pure water and eat well ....I don't see why it would be much differenet for our cars....better fuel makes for better performance and a cleaner running engine...it's not rocket science...it's the internal combustion engine...pretty simple stuff...ofcourse the computers make it semi complicated...but I make my living off computers so I am inclined to buy the software at this point to look at this thing my self...I have tuned other cars...via a lap top...just can't afford it just now...

I am suprised that the dealer would say something like that...when we all know that the motor or rather tuning has been modified for the states due to our crappy gas..but who knows...I'll be intrested to see where this goes...

in the mean time...93+ all the way...with the added 101 every now and again...LOL

 

I am one of them. Tuls and I are pretty much neck and neck most of the time....sometimes I may gain on him or sometimes it's just the same...I have 15% pulley, intake, borla race.....that's it. I also don't have runflats like he does nor do I have a sunroof but still, he's right there! You can't get rid of him!

 

So does this settle any debate about which blue is faster?

 

When we bought our Cooper we were told that the Cooper used high test because of its high compression engine and the S used regular because of the lower compression.I also believe it is in my owners manual.I will check tomorrow and see. But I used to own a service center and you never know if you are getting high test or not.They would dump low into all the tanks and laugh about how stupid people were.Of course that has been a while back and maybe people are more honest now. I have used all three grades in the Cooper and it ran fine.I do run the good stuff most of the time.