That's too much of a sacrifice for an additional 12mpg. Give me the power.

 

have an MCS JCW and average 31-32 mpg with a mix of driving. don't do a whole lot of "city" driving per se but don't drive the highways for long periods either. pretty much back road driving at around 60 mph so i do have stops and starts every 5 to 10 miles. mpg is by my calculations but the OBC is pretty close generally within an mpg of what i get.

 

I get 26-27 most of the time. Occasionally, I'll run a tank at 25.5 mpg or so. Once, I was DETERMINED to break 30 mpg and I did, but I drove slower than any grandma I've ever seen...it was a horrible experience...got 30.1.

Maybe my car's a lemon, but the only way it'll get 32-34 mpg is coasting off Mt Everest with a tail wind.

All mileages are hand calculated, I always top off, and I drive an 05 MCS/JCW.

Rawhyde

 

ditto, ditto, & triple ditto

 

Releasing the emergency brake can have a profound effect! LOL

 

My '06 JCW will get 27-28 in my mixed daily commute of about 62 miles/day. I'll get upwards of 31-32 on some longer trips with steady 2 lane 55-mph roads. All per the OBC, primarily 93 octane (not much 91 available around here.) I've noticed that my mileage does drop maybe 8-10% in colder weather (below 45 or so) so the gas prices are now falling at the right time!

 

OK, this thread needs some non-S input:

You have 45% more horsepower (unmodded) than a MC. I'll bet some of you on this thread have 60%+ with just a pulley, intake and exhaust.
You get around 20% fewer mpgs.
45%-20% still puts you ahead by 25%! (That's my creative math. Kids, don't try that at home).

I realize you pay an extra $5k for this, but I'd say you S guys (and girls) are getting off easy at the pumps! But just remember this when gas goes back up close to $4 again: MC=40 mpg highway!

 

Acording to the computer, we average 25.5 MPG, that is over about 3,000 miles since we last reset it. However, it is interesting to note that the computer also says our average speed is only 26.8 MPH! We drive it somewhat enthusiastically. It gets 10-20 miles a day of freeway (about 65 mph) and the rest is local roads with lots of start and stop.

 

Ours MCSc gets about 25mpg normally. With a 23-25 mph average speed. When the average speed drops down to 20-22 mph we get in the 22-23 mpg range. Our trip to and from MITM was 25.5 mpg at ~70 mph average. We were stock going and 15% SC and 2% crank w/ Alta intake coming back.

 

I kind of came to the same conclusion and traded up to an S just this month

Actually it was CVT problems that prompted the change, but I do like the way the S drives. And I will miss the mileage..

 

17 - 18 mpg in the city (90% of my time)

34 - 35 mpg for any longer distance, highway involved drive.

 

We started in the mini world with a stock '05MC, we averaged 28 - 30 city and 33 - 34 hwy, well we upgraded to a MCS and we now average around 24- 26 with a mix of city and hwy, all hwy we usually get 28 - 29 but that is just a small sacrifice for the extra umph.

 

You should see a gradual improvement in your gas mileage results as you add miles to your car. The engine is still going through a break-in process until somewhere around 7,000 to 8,000 miles. Also, if you are only running on the highway 25% of the time, 25 mpg is pretty good.

 

For the last 69,183 miles, I've averaged 26.62 mpg, all hand calculated in a bone stock S. That's all kinds of driving.

 

Well, the Cooper appears to not be immune from this too... My new MC only got 26.5mpg on it's first tank with roughly 60c/40h driving... I'm guessing it's because it is new, so hopefully it will improve... Considering the estimate is 28 city and 36 highway, I was thinking more like 30mpg.

 

upon reading all your post, i feel much better that i did not get a lemon. that was the biggest concern but thanks to all of yous, i will ride it out and hope the mpg will improve after breaking the engine in. i will post again with updated mpg after 3000miles.
thanks again for your feedback, helped me greatly!!!!

 

Have only put gas in my 04 MC CVT twice:

The average of the two tanks is 31.6 actually measured, (computer was close). Very little A/C, 60/40 highway/city. I drive about 80MPH.

Got the impression that a entire tank on highway at 75 MPH would push 40 MPH.

I use 89 octane.

 

Stock MCS stick with 17" wheels...

Did a road trip NM to California & back a few weeks ago. Highway mileage varied from 32 to 34 mpg, depending on how much I was using the AC. Speed about 75.

Driving around Albuquerque I get 28-29ish.

 

On the long haul trips from Seoul > south I usually average 34mpg on the hiway. In the city where ya can't get outta 2 or 3rd gear mpst of the time I average @13mph. BTW, Gas is still high here too $3.29 per gal on the military bases.

 

Actually, despite what others have said, normally EPA estimates aren't a pile of c*** for manual trans cars, but they seem to be on this car. This is the only manual car I've owned where actuals come in significantly below the EPA estimates -- many cars I've been able to beat the estimates. Best we've done hwy is 30mpg, that was driving using cruise at 70mph with light traffic the whole way, more realistic hwy is 28mpg.

City, 22 - 23mpg seems about avg for me, have seen a high of 26mpg on my commute, but that's very rare, and 25mpg is not realistic. A/C kills mileage, with typical mileage for me dropping to around 20-21 city. Personally, I think this engine is very inefficient, given the car's weight -- I've seen it drop by 1 mpg just idling at a light. I know how to drive a manual for efficiency, and either I'm doing all the wrong things, or this engine is just rather inefficient. We had a passat 1.8t auto that got about 22city/32hwy despite auto and dragging around probably 500 more pounds, and was just about as fast (it was chipped).

 

If I watch my shifts and drive carefully (fairly open road, watching traffic ahead, anticipating slow-downs and lifting well in advance), I get about 32 highway. I'd hoped for a bit better on all-highway, hi-mileage driving mode. Otherwise semi-mixed use/highway mileage is aboout 29-30 mpg.

Around town, I tend to drive quite a bit more aggressively and not watch shift point and rpm and I'm more likely to get 25mpg or so.

I traded a BMW 328i for this and it got better highway gas mileage, which is surprising given how much more it weighed. Must be final drive ratios or a peculiarity of the VANOS mapping, because it got better gas mileage at 75mph than it did at 65mph. It only got around 21-22 around town, though.

 

We had a 330ci for a while, and it too tended to get 30mpg driving 75 (and about 20-21 around town). I never checked it at 65, but did notice that 75 seemed a bit more efficient than 70. Maybe no one drives 65 in Germany

 

I've got between 30 and 32 on every tank in the 2 months/4000 miles I've had my MCSa. That's manually calculated, no OBC. One of those tanks was even 89 octane (and I didn't notice any difference in the performance of the car either).

 

My wife gets over 40 with her 05 Cooper. My 04 Dinan S got 35-36 on the highway! I haven't even tried to calculate my 06 yet, I only drive it on nice Saturdays to work, and um well, with a 30 mile interstate drive with no traffic, I would hate to see what I'm getting vs. the speed that I travel.

 

We averaged 36 MPG on the 1550 mile drive home from picking up our new 2006 MCS. That was 90% highway miles, and never getting into the throttle very much due to the break-in restrictions.

Now we're getting 26 MPG driving mostly in town and using the throttle A LOT more.

BTW, we have the factory boost gauge which allows you to see when you're using gas (boost) and when your not. On the highway the boost gauge read -15 most of the time. Around town it averages around 0 or +5, so I can see why the average MPG would increase during highway driving on flat roads.