If u're as geeky as I am.. U'll love it..!

 

rr,

I think it is an interesting concept. But the only problem is that instantaneous "real" engine torque is the same as butt dyno.

 

My wife's auto MCS gets 31.4 average with 34.8 her best. This based on 27 fills. We are not measuing via the car but the old fashioned way. My wife drives mixed highway and street with 80% highway. (Off peak hours so she gets the better drive.)

I drive the manual but mostly stop and go in traffic on and off the freeway. I would say 70% stop and go. PITA type Seattle traffic.
My average is 31.9 with the best being 33.5. But I drive the car like the car is meant to be driven. I rarely go over 5500 rpm though on the shifts. I don't beat the car but I drive it like it's likes it. 14 fill ups measured.

I use Fuelly to measure our mileage.

Pat

 

Alright, i love the feedback. I think i might understand that whole sweet spot for fuel efficiency theory and the rxcessive rpm droppage after shifting and engine trying to catch up, i Definitely will experiment and give this all a try. I just have to find out how to reset my ODC or whatever its called.

and Because of my previous car, i just been scared to push passed 4k rpm (sounded like it'd fall apart or blow up); but I'll break the habit.
But i do already take the turns like a maniac, love those curves.

 

On my MC at 80-85 mph I do ~29+ mpg. (215/45/17)

When I had my MCS loaner for a few days I was hitting ~25 mpg @ 80-85 mph. (195/55/16)

 

Hmmm... I have an 07 cooper (not S) w/auto trans. I only get at best 24 MPG around town no matter how I drive. On the freeway, I'm positive I get 34 MPG (lots of long trips and testing) typical speed on freeway is 80-85 MPH, though I have been known to hit 100+ on rare occasions.

I don't believe that the 'S' gets better milage than the cooper, but if some of you guys say that you are. then who am I to judge...... I know what mine gets and I'm OK with it.

 

Turn off the air conditioning and you'll get better mpg.

IIRC, 34 mpg is what I get on a good freeway trip with A/C off. With Auto A/C on, it may drop to 32 mpg on a hot day. I don't have a city mpg number. Don't recall what it was when I spent some time in Los Angeles.

 

[quote=Robin Casady;2909592]Turn off the air conditioning and you'll get better mpg.

I've had it through hot and cold seasons. The AC does make a difference in the city a little, but not the HWY so much. I check my MPG every time I fill up the tank all year round. Could be the fuel in CA... They probably still have those additives here, what was that stuff called, MT?? If not, they more than likely put some other NON-Flamable crap in the fuel that cuts MPG.

 

Um, with recent carmakes, AC's shouldn't affect mpg anymore, a thing of the past i thought? ( i was told it was a myth now)


and i do know windows down at highway speeds affect mpg slightly too

 

This is why A/C has only a slight effect on Highway MPG's.

Idling in traffic, A/C will increase fuel flow from .23 Gallon per hour to .33 GPH or so.

(Your standard OBC has an 'instant MPG' and if you have a ScanGauge, it also has a Gallon-Per-Hour display available.)

No 'free-lunch' but Still not enough worth sweating over.

 

The AC will affect the fuel economy because it causes drag on the engine, heck, it even causes a little drag just having the belt sling around the AC pump while it's off.

I understand the windows down causes wind resistance, I'm OK with highway mileage. The sticker said I'd get about 36MPG or so on the highway, so 33-34 is what I would expect (sticker illustrates MPG under perfect conditions). I'm guessing the city MPG is a combination driving style and the fact that it's an automatic - the automatic angers me to no end and many times I end up mashing the pedal to the floor just to get it to move.

 

Does anyone have any MINI engineering charts for fuel consumption v. speed? I know they do these charts for aircraft and believe the engineers probably have them for cars, though I've never seen any published.

Perhaps the tq charts must give an indirect indication, but I'm not sure how useful they are or how to use them for mpg purposes.

Somewhere in this thread a poster added a chart I didn't quite understand to try to illustrate how running at 3k rpm could be more efficient than 2k for some situations.

 

Guilty as charged..!
I e-mailed the MINI people asking for the same chart for the R56 engine.. they said they "don't have access to that kind of information"..

All that chart shows is that for any given engine, if you run at a particular engine speed, with a particular torque output, what is the quantity of fuel consumed... It's pretty much your "bible" to fuel economy

 

Driving style has far more effect on MPG's than A/C or even Automatic Transmission and with a Turbocharger,
you have the greatest opportunity to vary that 'style' and those MPG's.

My previous auto was a Turbo (with boost gauge) and if I could keep my toe out of the turbo, it was 30+ mpg or 20- if I did not.

I look at the price of A/C to be a maximum of one gallon in ten hours of driving, it will be less if I close the sunroof as well as on cooler days.

The cost of Automatic (latest EPA) is going to be just 2 mpg for the 'S' but 3 or 4mpg (city/hwy) for the justaCooper and I don't think driving 'style' changes that ratio much.

(You may have noticed that the better mileage reports on NAM are not automatics)

Download EPA 2010 MPG pdf Table 700KB (for all makes)

The best is Cooper M at 28/37 and worst is Cabrio Auto 'S' at 24/32

Question for jghost, RE: "just to get it to move" is this an 'S'?

 

Yup.. automatics are always at a disadvantage because torque converters take more energy to engage, compared to mechanical gears...
Even when you're idling, an auto consumes almost/at least twice the quantity of fuel as a manual would have...
Plus manual gives the driver more control over engine speed / gear engaged.. so if the driver is a crazed hypermiling nut, he can squeeze out a LOT more than what EPA says... Like this dude did with a JCW --> http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13746_7-10076529-48.html

 

Pasted below are the EPA testing details (Max. Acceleration, A/C, Speed etc.)
click here to see the chart: and click "How are vehicles tested?"

The article below really shows what is possible with a Turbocharged Manual JCW!
(with a sign on the boot "Caution Hyper-Milage Test in progress" )

50mpg in fastest-ever MINI!

In the UK they use the Imperial (5 Quart) Gallon, so their 50 MPG would be 40 MPG in US GALLONS.

 

No, this is a justcooper with an automatic.

In sport mode it responds better because stays in lower gears, without sport mode, many times at a rolling start it's already in second. If you mate that problem with the poor throttle response because it a drive by wire it gets frustrating. Particularly when needing to get out in traffic, or cross a street when cars a coming. In the crossing a busy street scenerio, I usually either pop it into sport mode, or I will gas it a bit while holding the brake so I can blast across the street without getting hit.

 

I think it is a myth that it is a myth now.
It takes energy to turn an A/C compressor. It takes energy to run the fan that circulates air. In both cases, this energy comes from the motor. Modern A/C may be more efficient that older A/C units, but it can't be zero.

There is some activity around reducing the solar heat absorbed by car roofs. The purpose is to reduce the amount of A/C required to keep cars cool in sunny climates. Special paints are being designed to reflect heat. California is considering legislation (the Feds may be as well) requiring such paint on car roofs. If A/C had no effect on mpg, there would be no reason for these efforts.

 

In CA, we used to use MTBE, and oxygen containing compound, to reduce smog. It did nasty things, and contaminated ground (well) water in many communities. MTBE was banned because of this, and alcohol was substituted. MTBE may have had a higher energy content than alcohol, but I'm not sure. Winter in SoCal means a gasoline blend with yet lower energy content. (Aren't we SO lucky to live here?!) Our premium gas in SoCal is 91 octane. When I've traveled, I've seen 93!

In my '06 MCS manual trans, (gone now, but waiting for my '10MCSa) I loved playing with the OBC during commuting. Even moderate acceleration from low rpm (higher gear)led to very low instantaneous mpg readings, compared to similar acceleration at higher rpm (lower rpm), all within limits of course. When really on it, I could see the mpg dip below 10!!! All forms of enjoyment have a price, I guess.

With a new car on the way, I have yet more experimentation to mix with the enjoyment factors.

 

Same exact way for me

 

Just a point of reference to throw out there. I've been keeping track of my true (not OBC) 2008 MCSa mileage since day 1 using an iPhone app. I now have about 27,000 miles. Here is a graph of my MPG along with the raw stats. Most of my driving is to work and back on the LA freeway system. Overall average is 30.6 mpg with a max of 34.9 mpg on a road trip from L.A. to Meteor Crater, AZ . Worst ever is 28.5 mpg (not sure what happened there). BTW, the I've found the OBC is 1-2 mpg optimistic (much like the speedo). My avg cost per mile works out to $0.10.

 

I just bought a used '08 MCS that the computer has NEVER been reset on and it reads 37MPG. Anyone who doesn't believe me let me know and I will go take a picture of it right now and post it!

 

^^^^^we certainly believe that you are being truthful, but we know better about the truth of the OBC

That being said, I'm sure you are aware that the MINI leads its class in Fuel Economy and the Turbocharged Stick Shift version has potential to deliver the best performance/mpg combination of all the MINI's.

 

When I first bought my car, I tried using the shift indicator to tell me when it was the optimum time to shift. However, I noticed that if I let it rev a little bit higher around (2500 instead approx. 2200rpm) I obtain better mileage.

 

While this does indeed show that a normal engine (with a throttle) has a clear sweet spot of good BSFC at high load and low rpm, this is not enough to tell you how th shift for max fuel efficiency.

For one thing, the non-turbo engine does not have a throttle to control load, it uses valvetronic variable valve timing system to control load with valve event duration. This is a very good system and greatly expands the good BSFC region to lighter loads. So a Valvetronic BSFC map doesn't look like this one.

In general, the most efficient shift schedule for any engine (including Valvetronic engines) is to keep the engine rev's as low as possible without lugging the engine. On a throttled engine, this minimizes throttling losses (one of the largest parasitic loads on a lightly loaded engine) and minimizes the additional parasitic losses of running the coolant pump and alternator at high revs. Also engine friction is proportional to engine speed. One exception to this rule is if running low revs requires full throttle, because full throttle is somewhat rich mixture and this hurts fuel efficiency. Anyway, low revs and full throttle tnds to be lugging.

So the algorithm for driving a stick shift car efficiently is to think ahead about 10 seconds into the future and decide if you have enough power in the gear you are in for the next 10 seconds, without lugging. If not downshift. If you do, estimate if you could upshift and not be lugging. If you can, upshift. This is not just a recipe for driving like a proverbial Granny. If you want performance, that means you want power delivered to the wheels and the only way to make big HP is a high revs. But if you are driving around at 3-5000 rpm at very small throttle positions (and not anticipating the next curve) you are just wasting fuel (turning it into heat) and putting unneccessary wear on your drivetrain.

Dave