on the onboard comupter? Mine is always WAY low? What's the deal?!

 

My ave speed is almost on the money to constant actual car speed. However the MPG reading is 3.5 to 4.5 MPG tooooo high from actual consumption.

 

>>on the onboard comupter? Mine is always WAY low? What's the deal?!

Mine is low as well???
Is it an average?

 

From what I can gather, that's what it is. I mean, mine is at like 15 MPH?! Pretty sure I drive a little faster than that.

 

From what I can gather, that's what it is. I mean, mine is at like 15 MPH?! Pretty sure I drive a little faster than that.

 

Get the papers, the papers...

 

Get the papers, the papers...

 

WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?

 

el crasho...el mco

 

your average speed is just that, when you slow down to a stop sign, when your just chilln there, when your crusin at 70.. all added up... mines like 28mph and it hasnt been reset for 500 miles


my MPG is also like 3-4mpg high as well.. thats pretty annoying

 

My Ford Explorer Eddie Bauer also has a problem with MPG accuracy, though I'd say the problem is closer to 10% optimistic. From the sounds of it, the "optimism" on the Mini (still waiting to get mine) is as high as 15%. I can see where it would be annoying, but really, it should be expected. The car companies want to present a positive picture of their car's performance.

I was kind of hoping that Mini would do a better job of presenting a more realistic MPG. Oh well, can't have everything.

Spike

 

I have a feeling that the trip computer is not all that useful. that the numbers it gives you are not all that accurate, and that you are better off not paying much more than a passing interest in what it is displaying. I skipped it as an option and obviously from all these posts in this thread you can see the data is highly variable and is affected by many things. Maybe it is a random number generator!

_________________
ALOHA

 

How about a little test? Reset your computer and trip guage, then take a stop watch and time your self going across town. Calculate your actual average MPH and compare with what your computer indicates. Let us know how they compare.

In the good old days (pre 55 mph), I did some very fast runs between Eugene, Oregon & Boise, Idaho with an average speed of 70 MPH including 2 gas stops.
I can tell you I was driving across the central Oregon at 95 to 100 MPH most of the time and was pushing it as hard as I could go without a death wish all the way.

From first hand experience, I can tell you that a few towns, stop lights, gas/rest stops and a little traffic will really pull down your average speed. With the increase in population since the good old days, the only way I would be able to get that high of an average speed on the same drive is if I were in a police car with lights a siren blaring all the way.

 

How do you go about resetting the Average MPH? I'd like to test it out, since my rads about 11 right now.

 

Storer... You click the little button until it shows the ave. speed, then you hold it down for a few seconds until it reads ---.-. Viola!

 

>>How about a little test? Reset your computer and trip guage, then take a stop watch and time your self going across town. Calculate your actual average MPH and compare with what your computer indicates. Let us know how they compare.
>>

Yep, I did a few tests like that some time ago, to test speedo accuracy etc...

Here's what I found:

1) as others have stated above, the AVE speed is just that, a mean: if you sit at traffic lights, or even after you start the engine and sit in driveway for a minute, this will lower your ave speed (since you are spending time at speed zero). Reset the ave spd setting on the OBC while driving, and you will notice it will closely match the indicated momentary speed on the speedo.

2) when driving at a constant (highway) speed of around 75 mph, I timed multiple mile markers after re-setting avg function on OBC:
The big central speedo was optimistic by about 5% (reading 5% faster than calculated or timed speed), but the avg speed on the OBC was DIFFERENT in that it was underestimating timed speed by about 2%.

I just got a new speedo (temp gauge was faulty on old) and will re-do these calibrations on my next long trip.

3) The odometer (distance) is accurate within 1%

3) OBC mileage values are off for me, by a more or less consistent 2-3 mpg: the OBC is optimistically indicating a better mileage than the calculated mileage. In percentage terms, OBC overestimates mileage by about 10%

Cheers,
M.

 

With the navigation system installed, the figures should be very accurate, if the figures are being generated based on point to point distance as measured by satellite signal, divided by time (which shouldn't be a stretch for the simplest computer.) That said, my average speed is always at 20 mph or so. I do a lot of city driving, and the mpg also seems low (always in the low 20's). So, last weekend, I did a 20 mile run at 70-80 on the interstate, after resetting mpg and mph. Mpg jumped to 33 and average mph hovered around 70. Seems about right.

I still expect better mpg from an average of hwy and around town driving. The dealer says "needs more break-in time." I am at 1500 mi. Of course, they also told me that the inability to erase the last destination from the nav system was a "feature". That has been proved wrong.

 

>>OBC overestimates mileage by about 10%

I wonder if we should be expecting better than 10% error- seems like alot for 2003? I'm a doctor. If I told you my work was 10% off would you be satisfied with that? Should not we expect better out of a computer? Do we have that low a level of standards? Are we so intoxicated by driving out MINIs that this is just a technicality and it doesn't really matter? Is the price of the computer low enough ($200+) that we are just expecting too much?

>>I still expect better mpg from an average of hwy and around town driving. The dealer says "needs more break-in time." I am at 1500 mi. Of course, they also told me that the inability to erase the last destination from the nav system was a "feature". That has been proved wrong. :evil:

 

>>Storer... You click the little button until it shows the ave. speed, then you hold it down for a few seconds until it reads ---.-. Viola!
Thanks Toast

 

The only valuable feature of the OBC is the outside temperature guage. I find it to be fairly accurate until I sit in traffic in the blazing sun.

 

The average speed on my MC stayed constant at 24.8 until a 500 mile trip at almost constant highway speeds on interstates. Then it soared up to 25.3 . MPG always stays within 0.1-0.4 no matter how it's driven . The temp is usually within 2 degrees of the outdoor temp signs I pass.

 

>>The only valuable feature of the OBC is the outside temperature guage. I find it to be fairly accurate until I sit in traffic in the blazing sun.
I don't have the computer but I do have the temp gauge on my tach so that is not much of a feature if the standard temp requires no OBC

 

I've set, used and reset mine many times in both long and short distance runs to figure how it works. What I've found is it's the average speed between the last times you reset the computer. It's a total cumulative speed since last reset.

Example would be; if I reset and at zero, take off and drive 70 MPH for 5 miles it will register aprox 70 MPH. If I hit 1 red light and have to stop during the trip it will count the fact the speed decreased and average it in. Every time you have to slow it will drop. So even if you could get back to 70 MPH and drive until you're out of gas without stopping you'll never get back to that 70 mark you started at. You will have to reset the computer every time you want to get that particular average speed run. It's the total average from the last time reset.

 

reset it on the freeway..its great and accurate

 

my tank is so low on gas right now, i have 19 miles till empty the thing is telling me. I want to push it lower but then I kinda don't....but anyway, I find the when you reset the speedo thingy, the first minute it's calcualting yoru speed, if you're going at a constant speed, it says you're doing about 5 miles less than what the analog speedo says. so, which is more accurate? I'll have to time it and find out.