There must be somethinmg wrong with my Mini S. I dont drive it hard and I get about 23MPG in the city and 29MPG on the freeway. And, the speedo is about 5mph fast!

 

Hmmmm .... I'd advise driving downhill more often :-)

Ok so seriously now. Could you provide more info - what year is your car, transmission, mileage. Where do you live and drive? Tx!

 

2006 MC

 

Krieg seems to be the one with the best knowledge and therefore, I will bet on him. We've owned our mini about a year, using nothing but 93 octane... think I'll try lowering that. Thanks Krieg.

 

I haven't taken delivery of my Cooper S yet but should have it in about a week. Also something I've been wondering. I read somewhere on the interwebs that you can increase gas mileage to well over 50 mpg in a car like the Mini by using a mixture of 50% 87 octane fuel, 40% Rubbing alcohol, 8% Olive Oil (Bertolli or Kraft is recommended), 1% Worstecheshire Suace (I know that is probably spelled wrong but I'm too lazy to get up off the couch and look on the bottle), .5% peanut butter, and .5% melted Crayola Crayons (but the color MUST match the color of your car). Also, it recommends replacing all the belts in the engine with industrial strength rubber bands so as to increase the potential / kinetic energy exchange of said parts. This combined with disconnecting the brake pads on three of the wheels will achieve 50 to 60 mpg. Given the cost of gas lately (I spent $30,000 on the car and dont have much money left for fuel) I think this seems like a sound alternative. What do you guys think? Opinions?

 

hmmmm...well if you are honestly serious about this, then I fear for your poor MINI this would probably look at killing your engine very fast...and if that brake thing is serious, then you may die before the car because you wont get to stop when you need to...i could not see brake pads affecting gas mileage...and I definitely would not want to go changing any of these belts...this car was designed by a bunch of engineers, if some industrial rubber bands would prove the best, then they'd probably already be on it
If fuel economy was your main objective, then id say the non S would prove better results than worshter sauce

Congratulations on the car, and please don't put any percentage of peanut butter or crayons in your car...just stick with some premium unleaded if you want the best mileage

 

But... but... it was on the interwebs!

 

PLEASE try the above combination as an alternative fuel and write back with results.

 

I will. I have 117 gallons brewed up so far but I gotta say, it was hell trying to match a Crayola color to the Lightning Blue. I went with Cornflower Blue.

 

Send me some!

 

Sure thing. It'll cost you $4.59 a gallon. :D

I couldn't resist posting that. Thanks for your responses.

 

Hahah for some reason I had a small feeling that you could be serious

Well I'm glad you arent serious about that

 

Still more cost effective than 91 octane at $4.49 a gallon here! 50 MPG is more than double what I get now!

 

Ha! Hardly. Just late and I'm bored. I actually was wondering about the issue and I just couldn't resist after reading the whole post.

But I gotta say some of the posts on here really make me laugh. I've never seen an auto blog that has more posts such as "help me pick a color for the car I'm going to buy". It really blows my mind. Maybe I'm an *** but I really get a kick out of stuff like that.

Oh well. But yeah, I cant wait to get this car. Hopefully two weeks as its on route here. Its killin' me!

 

hahahaha BEST post I've seen on NAM so far!! Rep points for you!

Yeah I know, I'm use to VWvortex.... big.. BIG change of overall attitude

 

+1

yes it will be more apparent to you when you it comes in and you drive around...you will probably laugh the first time you pull up to a red light with another MINI next to you and you both wave instead of revving your engines and spinning tires when the light turns green

 

34.7mpg on the current tank.

 

A couple of points here, and some have already been covered, sorry..

1) For less than max load, it doesn't really matter what octane you run. The compression induced temps never get high enough to matter.

2) Combustion chamber design has progressed a lot. Don't forget that, as it really modifies the old "rules of thumb" about compression vs octane.

3) The knock sensors get active before it's detectable by ear (if it's compression induced) and have more than enough range to deal with almost anything. So lower octane isn't going to grenade you engine.

4) Direct injection changes it all (for the R56 S crowd). The additional cooling by better atomization is the same as dropping compression about 2 full points, as a rough estimate. That's why the DI turbo cars can run over 10:1 compression and not grenade. You will see more and more and more of this. Even GM is coming out with DI turbo engines.

5) Ethanol is an oxygenate that cleans up the tail pipe, but lowers MPG (it's got less energy per unit volume to give up). This is one of the reasons I'm so unenthused by the Top Tier designation. While the do up the requirements for detergents, they also require a MINIMUM of 8% ethanol. This reaks of input from the farm lobby....

6) The crappy detergent level requirement is based on recently (don't remember the year) changed laws that reduced the amount required. This reaks of lobbiest activities as well. This time the oil companies! Whatch your government! This change never should have happened, and if we cared more about the nuts and bolts of running our country than divisive issues (pick your wedge issue here), the people could have spoken up. Instead, they were too busy watching American Idol or some other craap.

7) One other thing to keep in mind is that the knock sensing loop can only deal with compression induced knock, not that from hot spots. On the R53 (not enough data yet on the R56S) two contributors to non-compression induced knock have shown up: Bad plugs and carbon build up. If you're HEARING knock, do two things: Change your spark plugs, and run some engine cleaner like Techron or SeaFoam (I like the Sea Foam myself) through the system or via the soak technique, and you WILL significantly reduce or eliminate the problem.

8) There's a lot more to gas than the (R+M)/2 method of determining octane. Really the octane number is a way underspecification for gas quality. Even if you stick with the same brand, you may notice differences tank to tank. It just sucks but it's the best (only?) guage that the consumer has to go on.

9) Here's one for you, most (all?) regular has more energy content per gallon than premium. So if you don't need the octane, then you may get BETTER mileage with regular!

10) The ECU doesn't do long term learning other than fuel trims. It doesn't really make sense to do this when things can change quickly (tank to tank) or when the systems can deal with the anticipated adjustment ranges with the short term feedback mechanisms. FWIW, some of the newer engine managment systems will be monitoring cylinder pressure in a cylinder by cylinder mode, with the pressure curve of each compression and power stroke being measured in real time! These are the engines in developement labs now, but real-time monitoring and control are the only ways to really squeeze out more efficiency while keeping the exhast clean. These systems may require a learning ECU, but that's an open question now.

11) Purple crayons are the best for home brew gas! Just ask my 3 year old Alison. She'll tell you it's the best color!

So, what's this all mean?

• Maintain your engine.
• If you don't drive hard, it doesn't matter.
• If you do drive hard, stick to premium, you'll get the most performance.
• Kreig pretty much hit the nails on the head.

Matt

 

Just filled up with Citgo 93.

This tank, Gulf 93
'08 R56 MC 6 speed
OD: 5232
Dist: 642.4 miles
Fuel: 14.146 US gal
OBC: 47.7 mpg
Actual Econ: 45.4 mpg

So far, I've gotten best actual mileage, with minimal peppiness hit with Citgo regular: 48 mpg.

When I had my Diesel Beetle, I knew some people who did brew their own biodiesel from used fryer oil

 

Familiar with VWvortex and yes, I agree.

 

Sorry, didn't post how I wanted to. Blankito, Thanks!

 

Velvet-

Are you a Hypermiler http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_economy-maximizing_behaviors
or are your driving habits pretty normal? That's some great economy!

I, too, owned a diesel Beetle from '99 to 2001. LOVED the fuel economy, torque, and the little turbo whine that popped out from under the hood every now and then. Dumped it for a Lexus IS300 as I finally got sick of all of the little things that would break on the car. Was constantly replacing burnt out bulbs (headlight was $75 a pop to have the dealer do it) and window switches. The engine was bulletproof, but VW's quality sucked.

Getting my '08 MC soon and was having the premium/regular gas debate last night. Think that I'll run premium once or twice, try a couple of tankfuls of regular, then go from there.

 

I didn't think the Beetle's quality was bad at all. I had a 2000, so that might be it. I think the light problem, which I never had, was bad harnesses/connectors at the lights, but not sure. Did you frequent www.tdiclub.com ? I replaced one window switch in the 210,000 miles I had the car.

I might be called a hypermiler, I guess. There really are only a certain number of things you can do, like keep the speed down, and practice conservation of momentum. I don't try to get in anybody's way, but I do go pretty slow, like 60 mph max, when I can. The summertime temps also help.

 

The spread between regular (87) and premium (93) at least here in the Chicago area is consistently 20 cents. In a fill-up that doesn't come out to much -- a couple of bucks. That said, it hurt yesterday when 11.9 gallons of premium was $49.00 - which was a good deal at $4.10 a gallon. Premium here is typically around $4.35 a gallon. Ouch!

ps. I've found that highway driving at the speed limit (a frightful thought, I know), and staying off the brakes, really helps with the mpg. I recently got 38+ (highway) in my 07 MCS on a long trip.

 

So, how about Exxon fuel? Does it have enough detergent in it?