Do cars have a memory for fuel types?

[feenster99]

Hi,
Odd question probably - I bought a 2002 Mini Cooper about 2 months ago. It was doing roughly 100 miles to £10 of fuel (fuel at roughly 90p/litre). I put £20 (@ 94.9p/litre) in the other day, and it has gone after 120 miles. I did stick some Optimax in and some Tesco 99 super magical stuff, just out of interest a couple of weeks back. It made the car run smoother it seemed, but now back on the normal stuff, it is running pretty lumpy (struggling to keep the revs up, and "gasping" when I put my foot down.

Is it likely that my car has adjusted itself to the richer fuel, and is there any way to reset this? (disconnect battery for 30 minutes is something I heard elsewhere)

Cheers,
Matt

 

[feenster99]

Hi folks,
Well, I don't use the air con/climate control at all as I am tight

However, the resetting the ECU sounds along the lines I was thinking. Is there any way I can force it though? I thought disconnecting the battery did this?

Cheers,
Matt

 

[feenster99]

Having a nose around mini2.com, it seems the ECU is adaptive, and "updates" every few hundred miles (figures seem to vary from this to 1000 miles). There is a fairly easy procedure to reset it, so i'll do that first thing and see how it goes on my way to work.

I'll report back

Matt