It's a scorching day here in the Boston area, so rather than flogging myself with a run as I usually do, I find myself at my desk with a little free time. So I thought I'd send in a post since I haven't done so in a while. On the ride in this morning, I hit 25000 miles with Blue Brummie. Not a staggering mileage compared to many of you. But it's been a pretty good 25K. Here's my thoughts on the MINI ownership thus far.

I know some of these topics have been discussed below, but hey, why not talk about them again !

What is up with the Fuel Guage ?? I get 150 miles on the first 1/4 tank (with most of that coming above the full mark). Then I get 100, 50 and 75. Yeah, I know people have written about the self-protection feature. All fine and good, and I don't expect a fuel guage to be super linear, but come on, this is a little nuts !!

I've also run the "miles remaining" to zero, and then it starts climbing back up. Only done this twice, but both times, the mileage climbed back up over 10 miles. The MINI - car or perpetual motion machine ??

The "observed" fuel economy. Ha !! Talk about a random number generator. I'm a geek, and I calculate my mileage with every tank. Sometimes the delta between observed and calculated is 3%, but it's been as high as 18%. What gives ? Even if I average over 3 or 5 tank fulls, the variation in the delta is huge from tank to tank. I've tried correlating the delta to just about every parameter I can measure (average speed, how much fuel added, miles traveled, average miles traveled per day, etc...), and I come up with bupkis (sp?). Nothing. Nada. Niente. This thing is a statistician's worst nightmare !!

OK, now for the good news. First of all, MoP is the best dealership I have ever dealt with. These guys are top notch. Period.

The car is an absolute dream to drive. I've never owned a car that I could consider "Point and Shoot". Downright amazing. I absolutely love the cornering, especially when I'm getting more screaching and squealing from the passengers than from the wheels. I just wish I had more time to get this bugger out on the track or Auto-X.

Final Kudos go to all you folks here at NAM, MINI2, Motoring File and all other MINI community forums. You are the best !! You are the reason why MINI's have prospered.

 

I just hit 50,000 miles and I have the same peevs. The gas gauge has driven me nuts.

I don't feel so bad for crunching the #s for my mpg at every fill up now...

 

4K more miles and I can report the same stuff you did... plus annoying rattles and creeks! Especially one somewhere by the glov box or passenger air bag that comes and goes... I cant isolate it.

 

I'm around 60K miles now and still love the car (except for the windshields - about to replace my 4th OEM with PPG).

The fuel gauge never bothered me - I've driven a lot of cars that did the same thing.

 

A-ha! I'm not crazy... the fuel gauge is!!!

Just under 50K and mine (obviously) does exactly the same thing.

As far as the projected mileage... I have a picture of my OBC reading over 500. Yeah.... suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuure...

 

I am completely neurotic about not running out of gas, so the fuel reading has always made me a bit uneasy. Solution: I fill up compulsively between 1/4 and 1/2 tank readings! (It's from traveling cross-country alone and not always knowing when I'll find the next gas station...better compulsive than sorry!)


Clover

 

Yup the gas guage is nuts

But then I'm nuts about my MINI, so it's all good

 

I could be wrong here but I will give this a try concerning the fuel gauge. The readout you actually see is an estimate based on a number of calculations the system generates. Several of the factors that go into estimating are your speed, how aften you hit the gas pedal and how you apply the brakes. Also the pressure in your tires will effect fuel consumption all these factors, which vary every time you drive you car will effect fuel consumption. This might help explain the wide variations you get from tank to tank.

Today I just got a new windshield installed compliments of the unsurance company. My car had a three year old windshield and I cannot believe the difference. I have read a lot threads about the problems with the Mini windshield but never realized it was that bad I guess because mine degraded graduallly. A new windshield is a beautiful thing

I have 1,800 miles to go before I hit 25m

 

1. fuel gauge: if the shape of the tank is narrower at the bottom than at the top then it will appear that the gauge will go down faster for the later half of the gauge due to there being less fuel in the tank at that time.

2. mileage: well if it's a standard shift(as is mine) then you can figure all the delta's you want, but one of the variable is your shifting. Due to traffic and your mood (to name just two) your mileage will be up and down. Since you aren't calibrated that alone will change the mileage to quite a degree.

 

I don't rely on the fuel gauge -- I use the trip odometer. I clear it after every fill up and fill it up again after it hits 300 miles.

btw, it turns out that my fuel tank holds at least 14.2 gallons. I think the 05's tank is slightly larger than the 04's.

 

Just turned 30K. No OBC = no problems.:smile:

 

Fuel guages have done what you described in every car I owned. In my semi empty meant I had 30 gallons left in the tanks, I ran out once right at the pump, LUCKY lol.

I gave up looking at the ave mpg because it turns into a competition of best overall mileage. Looking at it like that I should have just got a regular cooper.

My only real complaint is the lack of throttle response, there seems to be about a 1 second delay when I hit the gas. Hopefully some mods should take care of that.

 

27K and I figure on getting another when the time comes. That is unless MINI does something stupid and screws around with the car somehow (ex. what Honda did to the CRX ).

 

I have to agree with you that there are tons of calculations and variables. However, simple minded me thinks that the car ought to be able to divide miles traveled by gallons used (easily calculated by volume through injectors). That's about the simplest of calculations there is. I can't believe that the ECU is not capable of monitoring how much fuel is delivered, accurately enough to be able to make this basic calculation. I'm not blaming only MINI here. Like several people have said, many manufacturers have this problem. My Explorer is off by 15% fairly consistenty. Oh well.

The estimated miles problem doesn't bug me much, since I know the computer is just guessing. Like the stock market, past results do not guarantee future performance.

BB

 

Check out the 2007 news: MINI is apparently ditching the multi-link rear suspension (definitely a parallel to the way Honda has dumbed down the Civic).

 

You'll love your PPG glass! After Global Imports in Atlanta refused to honor my warranty with an obvious stress fracture, I had the PPG glass installed and have happily motored with it for over 45,000 miles.

Recently, a fist sized rock hit me at high speed and it did make a small star shaped chip on the passenger side that I will fix if it ever grows. Funny thng is that after 3 months of hot summer, that chip has not grown at all!

Guess that is the difference between OEM glass and PPG.

 

Off topic windshield question.

Has anyone else heard that you have to be careful with non-OEM windshields if you have the Rain Sensor ??

BB

 

I have an issue with my fuel gauge. A big issue. My fuel gauge always shows empty since noon today. I know the tank is not empty, because I filled it up yesterday, there were no signs of leaking anywhere, I filled it up again just to see that nobody siphoned out my tank. (I put 1.3 gallons in). I have no idea why my fuel gauge is always showing empty. Has anyone else had this problem?

 

Check the fuel guage fuse. I believe it's fuse #20.

Edit: scratch that. #20 appears to be the fuel pump. Fuses 5,9,21, and 30 are assigned to "instrument cluster". Maybe one of those has blown?

 

Doesn't it make sense that the "miles to empty" reading might increase? Let's say you're driving through town and it says you can go another 150 miles. You reach the city limit and the traffic goes away so you set the cruise on 55 and relax. You look at the miles to empty reading and it now says 165 to empty. You didn't create gas, (at least not for your MINI), but you made a big change in your mpg which increases the miles to empty reading.

Sorry if I'm just stating the obvious.

 

I will hit 90k kms(56k miles) this weekend.

Have had some major issues, mostly cold related.

New tranny, all new door handles and the inner workings, some rattle fixes, I have a list of smaller things.

I just got 36 mpg this week, the car starts all the time( even at -50f), goes like snot, and out handles anything I can afford.

I was thinking 07, but now I'm thinking 10 or 11

 

Yes.. I had the same issue a few months back... I filled the tank the previous day and drove 31.8 miles on that tank and then all of a sudden the next day it showed empty. When I opened the gas cap and screwed it back on it was fixed for a short period of time and broke again.

I took it in the dealer and they replaced I think two sensors one of them was under the rear seat.

 

Of course this was 80 miles into the tank!

 

Off topic windshield answer. :smile:

Check out this post about my rain-sensing PPG windshield: LINK

 

WOW and I thought I did good... 4 people + luggage driving back from San Francisco... 100 miles into the tank I got 434miles left on the Range... I was soooooooooooo impressed... I also did make it from SF to LA on one tank with a fully loaded car!