well i have owned my mcs since the end of june and have gone through 5000 miles as of today, the best milage i have seen was 26.1mpg. my daily commute consists of 50 highway miles to and from work and maybe about 10 miles of city driving. i am always trying to conserve gas because i just want to know that my car is somewhat capable of getting close to the 26/34mpg claim. so i am very smooth with the throttle, try to shift at 3000-4000 rpms, and on the freeways aim at 70-75mph in 6th.

i have also noticed that it seems like when i feel up my tank, from when the fuel neddle is at the top to about the halfway point on the fuel gauge, i get about 200 miles from full to halfway. and once the needle is below the halfway mark, i seem to only get about 70 miles from halfway to close to the empty line. so i decided to fill up when the needle was a little above the halfway mark, and to my suprise i got 30mpg! now i am not sure if this is a coincidence or what, but i am going to try it again the next time i need to get gas. this is also weird because i went to vegas this weekend and only managed to get 27mpg on the long ~270 trip home, while driving at about 80mph, with some occasional 90mph bursts

any comments would be great, thanks!

p.s.- all mpg numbers were done w/o the obc, since i do not have one

 

Since new I have put in 428.795 gallons and have averaged 24.98 mpg. This is a preformance car that begs to be driven. If I want economy I can hop in my 94 Geo Metro which has 200,000 miles on it and still gets 42 MPG. My car has a 10/10/03 build date still running V36 software.

 

i understand that this is a performance car, and i love that when i want it to perform i can just stomp on the pedal and listen to it whine and put a smile on my face as i fly through the gears. that part does not bother me when i get a low mpg, because at that moment it is all about having fun.

what bugs me is that i want to know that when i am in the mood to just cruise and conserve some gas for those fun mototring times, that i will get good milage. and so far when i have tried to conserve gas, i feel that i have been unsuccessful.

but have you noticed that with the fuel gauge needle?

thanks

 

No, never got that with the fuel gauge thing you noticed.

Best mpg when stock I got was 33. Just drive steady speed about 55 mph with little stopping over flat terrain with good inflated tires, no air con on, using premium gas and windows up.

If you high rev when shifting then you burn gas, if you stop and start hard and corner hard you burn gas. If you have heavy wide performance wheels and you run your AC and drive mostly urban you'll get about 25 mpg.

I get about 27+ mpg in mixed driving with an MCS set up for autocross.

 

i notice the gas guage doing the same thing although not quite as severely. but it does seem to suck down from 1/2 to E pretty quickly.

my mileage has been fairly good. prior to my mods i was able to get 32-33 mpg highway and 24-26 city (stomping on it)

my most recent trips to NY, ave speed of 69 mph, AC on, wife in car and a fair amount of driving on the Mass Pike at 90+ playing highway tag, I was able to average 29 mpg for those trips.
my city numbers haven't taken a hit at all--FWIW

my calculations are based on hand calculation during fill ups.
i find that my OBC averages about 2 MPG high from actual.

not sure why that is. the computer in my SAAB is accurate within 0.5 mpg

 

I pretty much get 27mpg as per the obc on my 02 MCS w/ a 10 mile commute on the freeway stop & go + weekend outings in the mountains. I've got 20,000 miles on the car now. I got 32mpg coming home on 5 from San Fan to San Diego. AC off even with windows open is better than AC on if you have pleasent enough weather.

 

Are you going by what the trip computer is telling you for MPG, or calculating it yourself? I fill up my tank every time I get gas, note the amount I put in it, and divide the number of miles driven since my last fill up by that amount. I used to average 22 MPG but have been getting about 26 mixed mileage since my V38 upgrade.

 

while it seems like your city driving is pretty close to me, but your highway, not that is what makes me wonder what i am doing wrong?
like i said on my past trip to vegas driving around 80 and some 90mph'ers, i still only got 27mpg, the which is the highest i have seen next to the two 26mpg i have seen

well, like i said, i am going to refuel this time at the half way mark to see if i get better milage, doesnt make any sense why i would though

thanks again

 

i am calculating the milage myself, and using the same method you stated.
i also upgraded to v38 about a month ago, however i do not notice a difference in mpg

 

The gas gauge in my MC reads 250+kms in the first 1/4 tank,and then about 150 kms for the rest of the 1/4 tanks.Not very accurate,but as long as the MPG stay high,I can get used to the guage.
My MPG went way up after about 5-6k miles
At 28+ k miles,it is still great MPG,spirited or not

 

so true, al i need now is the mpg to go up,lol

 

mini giant, I noticed your header line indicates you are located on CA. It's possible that some of the difference between your fuel consumption rate and the EPA rating for the car is due to the formulation of the gasoline sold near you.

Some years ago, oxygenated fuel was first introduced to the mid-atlantic region on a seasonal basis, during the winter months. The months that oxygenated fuel was being dispensed was marked on the pumps. During those months, fuel economy on all of my vehicles dropped significantly (5-10%) vs. the non-oxygenated fuel season.

Now oxygenated fuel is dispensed year-round in the area near my home. When I travel outside the area, I have observed that when I get far enough out, the vapor recovery nozzles and the oxygenated fuel notice decals disappear from the pumps. When I refill the tank at one of these stations, my fuel consumption rate drops noticably. [I typically run to within 50 miles of empty before refilling, so a change of fuel formulation (such as switching brands) is not dampened by a the remnants of the previous fill.] The best example of this I can offer is from this spring's Dragon Run. On the way downto the Dragon, in dry weather, the OBC read an average fuel consumption rate of 33MPG. On the return trip, running on NC/Tennesee fuel, we averaged 36.1MPG. This was in spite of several factors I expected to adversely affect MPG vs the trip down. On the return trip, there was pouring rain, and we had to run with the defogger (and thus, the AC) on most of the way back. We had to run 10-15MPH faster than on the trip down, due to heavy high-speed truck traffic. We also had a carload of goodies adding a little extra weight to the car.

Just a thought... :smile:

 

hmmm, interesting. never really knew/thought of that.


hopefully thats not it though

thanks

 

Mini Giant -

Your experiences with the 27 mpg sound about right for the speed you were driving. That's exactly what I get under the same conditions in my '03 MCS. Anything over 55-60 in 5th, the milage goes down pretty fast, since above that your into a little bit of boost, just due to the wind drag. Put any other loads on the car - A/C, passengers, windows down, etc, and the milage will go down more.

Last year I made a bonzai run from LA to Oregon on I-5, averaging 75mph (including stops) and got right at 24mpg. My wife was with me, I had the A/C on for part of the trip and for large stretches I was doing 90-95. I was pretty happy to get that...

EPA ratings are the BEST average the car will ever get travelling under ideal conditions with the minimum load - it's not a vary accurate indicator of real-world driving. So take heart, I think you're getting pretty much what everyone else gets.
grnmene

P.S. It's not the gas....

 

ya the more threads i read, i realize that the mini is real sensitive with the milage. but i just want to get a little over 30mpg at least once
o well, thanks for the reply :smile:

 

We have an '02 build here in hot Florida and still manage 29-32 mpg during everyday driving (70%h/30%c) We were even able to get as high as 37 on an all-highway trip going 75-85 mph. The MCS can be efficient if you let it but will gulp gas i you step on it. We normally shift anywhere between 2.5 and 3.25k rpm in normal driving but will use anything above that if needed. Just remember the A/F ratio on the Cooper S takes a nose dive around 4k rpm.

 

i figure out my mpg on my own with out trip computer. 03 MCS

before mods i was at about 22 (worst was 17!) in town stop and go traffic trips.. and 32 on the highway about.. i would say an AVG of 25mpg


after my 15% pully and intake
in the same stop and go traffic around town and mixed hard driving i get 25 mpg, on the highway im around 32-33
.. my avg now is around 27-28

im pretty happy with that after my 5.0 mountineer that got 11 around town and if i was luck 17 on the highway

 

Here's my gas milage info since picking up my May '04 JCW. They are real calculated numbers, the OBC is usually at least 2mpg overly optimistic.
Average is 24.3 mpg. My commute is horrible as its half idling in traffic then half sprinting with traffic 90mph uphill--yet OBC average speed is around 25mph.

 

I think you may be on to something with the oxygenated fuel. This is a good example of people who don't know anything about automobiles writing laws to make them run cleaner. On older vehicles, using an oxygenated fuel would lower the emissions slightly. However newer cars with OBD-II are equipped with oxygen sensors that read the amount of oxygen in the exhaust system. With oxygenated fuel the oxygen sensor reads more oxygen in the exhaust that it expects and interprets this to mean that the car is running too lean. The computer then tells the fuel injectors to stay "on" longer in order to enrich the fuel mixture to compensate, thus reducing fuel economy. Don't you love it when politicians think they know more than engineers?

 

It might sound stupid, but once I heard a story about a government funded study to figure out why people in the Northeastern states get worse gas mileage.


Result? People told the investigators they knew exactly why. Idling the car in the morning to warm it up.

I average about 30 MPG, even after 25k miles. Only have records showing the last 14k miles, but by my calculations I get about 30 MPG and the OBC shows an average of 34.5 MPG.

That's with a 100 mile round trip commute. Mostly highway at speeds around 70-75 MPH and some in town driving.

 

FYI, this info is on Chevron's website (http://www.chevron.com/prodserv/fuel...etin/oxy-fuel/):

The U.S. government requires the use of oxygenated gasoline in some areas in the wintertime to reduce the amount of carbon monoxide in the air. The oxygenates raise the cost of making gasoline and lower the miles you can drive per gallon. This Bulletin explains how oxygenated gasoline will affect your car's fuel economy and identifies other factors which could make the effect seem larger than it is.

Oxygenated gasoline will lower your car's fuel economy 2% to 3% because oxygenates contain less energy than conventional gasoline. If you experience a larger decrease, there are probably other contributing factors: change to winter weather, change from summer to winter gasoline, and/or changes in the car's driving cycle or mechanical condition. When they act in concert, these changes can decrease fuel economy more than oxygenated gasoline does.

A related page on this website has some pretty interesting info. Of note:
Don't Buy a Higher-octane Gasoline to Improve Fuel Economy Octane and energy content are not related. Premium-grade gasoline doesn't necessarily have a higher energy content, especially if it is oxygenated. The exception to the above advice is when a lower-octane gasoline doesn't satisfy the octane requirement of the vehicle's engine.



See more at http://www.chevron.com/prodserv/fuel.../fuel_economy/

I have no affiliation whatsoever. Just trying to be a more informed consumer.

 

Prior to any mods, I took a three hour highway run from the Bay Area to the Sierra's and back. My average gas mileage was almost 33 mpg.

After the 15% pulley, , CAI, Powerchip, IK22s, Milltek Header and Catback, I took the same trip and averaged 26 mpg.

 

S.F. to Gilroy and Back...27 mpg hand calulated...4k on odometer and only mods are CAI and 215/45/17 Kumho mxs on Koseis.

 

Even at -40 I only let the car warm up as long as it takes me to do up the seat belt,get comfy,make sure my coffee cup is in place,then go.Less than a minute,but I get Way worse MPG at those low temps,could be the gas,could be the air temps,not sure,but even then I get 30+ mpg,on a 100 mile round trip commute,going 70 mph,with about 15 miles of city traffic,doing stop and go.There is more wheel spin as it's winter and there is snow and ice,that must figure in as well.

 

-40 eh lot15? C or F?

Made me think of a couple stories from a former coworker who grew up in Alaska. Dunno why, but I'd relate them...

First was that people (who did not know better) would add air to their tires cause they looked flat, and when they started driving the tires would explode. When the tires were cold, the air would compress making the tires look flat. Then the tires would heat up and the air, plus all the new air, would expand. Thus filling the tires with too much air and bursting.

The other was that on the really cold mornings it was possible to spins the rims inside the tires.

Fun stuff.