I love my 07 MCS. Somehow while driving some of my favorite west county roads where the Mini goes for "exercise" this last Saturday I suddenly realized that my speedo lights weren't working (I had my headlights on as I'd been in some well wooded areas though it was sunny day). I stopped and got out the manual and figured that out. Driving on a bit later, I realized that my average MPG setting below the tach was now flying around crazily, showing mpg figures through range of constant and instantaneous change, as low as zero to 99 mpg! It's mildly distracting, to say the least. It previously showed a simple relatively constant figure like 32.7 or thereabouts.
Last night I sat down with the owners manual. I believe it starts with this stuff on page 48. All THIS through a tap on the end of my turn indicator wand?
I love this modern car, but I sure miss the simplicity of the old 62 Cooper. I find all this complexity temporarily daunting, but for sure a very big P-I-T-A!!
I would buy a Cooper S that was stripped electronically to the bare bones. Rollup windows...fine by me. The list I could make of electronic "stuff" they could remove from this car would be LONG. I wonder how much less the car would weight without all that "stuff".
Anyone else care to sound off?
And DON'T get me wrong. Overall, I LOVE THIS CAR!!
Tom

 

Don't forget the fly by wire! As a mechanical engineer who has driven one vehicle built in each of the past four decades (the most recent a '97 Wrangler), that's the computer technology that frightens me the most.

Best luck with your car!

~Neal

 

Tom,

What were you doing staring down at the whizzy little gauge instead of the road?

Some of the information is informative, but I usually just push through it until I see the fixed average, then go back to the speed and temp. I do wish they had a cancel and back to default versus having to push the button multiple times.

Yes, I wonder what they could save if they did not have all the electronic do-dads? But would it be a modern MINI, no!

Enjoy and drive safe.

 

Question: What do you get when you cross a Mini Cooper S with a computer?
Answer: a computer.

I realized in the first 5 minutes of driving my new MCS that it's a computer with 4 wheels.

I had a similar situation with a Prius a few years back. The key fob has an interlock to keep the key from being removed when the engine is running. The instrument cluster went South (flashing lights everywhere) and the start/stop button was no longer taking input. The gasoline engine was running with no ability for me to shut it off. I finally gave up ... within 30 mins of idling the system reset on it's own and returned to normal operation. Weird.

As for the 99.9 mpg - Mine does that if I'm coasting with my foot off the gas. I haven't seen 0 mpg, but I'm still breaking the engine in ...

-jeff

 

Having been on a long trip (4000 miles) and a couple of all day drives, I find that setting the tach to "current MPG" and the OBC to display gives me something to study as the miles go by. Helps to pass the time mentally computing what those numbers are telling me. My favorite is the miles to empty number. I am still not sure how that fellow does his math. He seems to grab the right number out of the hat, though.
I like the selections on the tach. There is some useful data there. I would opt to keep it if given a choice.
Takes awhile to figure out how to do this or that, but once learned it just seems normal.

 

When you leave the headlight on and turn the car off the headlight turns off too and the parking light stays on. But the parking light goes off too eventually to save the battery, right? So one can technically leave the headlight to "On" position and not drain the battery ever. Just like the "Auto" mode on other cars. Am I right?

 

I like all the info in the tach, but I don't want to keep flipping through it. So, I bought a ScanGaugeII. That way I can leave the Tach on time, temp, and miles to empty, but still see mph and mpg. It also gives me boost (MAP), and coolant temp.

I find the "flying around" mpg useful to tell me how efficiently I'm driving. It helps figure out what the most efficient gear is for a long grade, etc.

 

There are two MPG displays. The first is the current MPG (as in right that instant). The other is the average since last reset.

The current MPG will constantly whiz around, as you said. I have found this setting to be extremely useful. By keeping half an eye on it as I drive, I have added 3-4 mpg to my average by changing my driving habits to what gives the best mileage. I love it when it says 99.9!

 

Here's another vote for the instant average mpg. I find that I can get 34 mpg on my MCS when I behave myself and watch the instant mpg reading. When I ignore it I am more likely to get 30-31!

 

I did this yesterday by accident and it did not drain the battery.

 

I would also buy a Cooper S stripped of a lot of the gimmickry (hey, my '60s Mini had sliding plastic windows!), but it ain't gonna happen. We're talking BMW here, the Masters of Electronic Complication.The introduction of the onboard computer in automobiles did amazing things for performance but once it was there it lured engineers, especially German engineers, into adding far too many "look-what-we-can do!" features. Sorry to say, I think we have to live with that in order to enjoy the performance enhancements. Automotive engineers -- can't live with them, can't live without them.

 

The "Whizzy Gauge"...by that term, I'd think it gave the number of miles to the next rest stop!

That's my point...I don't want to be staring down at those numbers as they fly up and down. I have problems glancing infrequently at the speedo location as it is. I DO focus on the road.
The comment about the more basic Mini...some years back, Chevy did a stripped down Corvette. It was available as a hardtop only, had rollup windows, etc. This was in the second half of the nineties I think. Not sure how it fared with the public.
I still LOVE the car, but it is overcomputerized, for me at least. And yeah, drive by wire...what happens when that goes out??

[quote=

What were you doing staring down at the whizzy little gauge instead of the road?

 

Where do you put the "ScanGauge" in your MINI? Since it's portable, I assume you didn't mount it permanently.

 

Velcro on top of the dash.

 

I guess it depends what goes out, and what it does. It would be bad if the brakes went out, but are they completely by wire? I suspect the brakes and steering only have their assist controlled by the computer.

The accelerator may be entirely by wire. My second car was a 1966 Dodge van. The accelerator used a cable, which frequently broke.

 

About the "fly by wire" concept--at least our cars have (usually) 4 wheels on the ground. Remember when this total electronic age dawned, and some airliners had total blankouts and lost of power? The Airbus comes to mind.

 

In this day ... how can you guys actually be scared of micro processors? They are in everything. It doesnt take that much to compute these very common functions (mpg, miles to empty etc). Car manus have been doing this pretty accurately since the 80's (even my 86 GTI was pretty accurate)

What you should be happy about is that these items are upgradeable. Flash memory has been the reason for all of these life changing gizmos (iPod, digital cameras etc). Unless you're telling me that a digital camera is not better than 35mm