Right MPG?

Shelster

Shelster

Shelster

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Plymouth, UK
My Mrs took ownership of a shiny new 65 plate Mini Cooper 1.5 5 door petrol back in Feb and am a bit weirded out / concerned on the MPG I am getting driving round town.

At the moment am hitting 31 mpg, does this sound about right? Do not have a 'very' heavy right foot and have moved from a diesel so am used to rather higher fuel efficiancy figures.

Have thought about replacing the air filter with a K&N one also. WIll this help with mpg figures or make them lower?

As you may be able to tell.....don't know a huge amount about motors.
 
It's a bit low but probably more your driving style, I average 38mpg in a focus 1.6 around town, 49mpg on a good run. So you should be beating that.
 
Shelster said:
My Mrs took ownership of a shiny new 65 plate Mini Cooper 1.5 5 door petrol back in Feb and am a bit weirded out / concerned on the MPG I am getting driving round town.

At the moment am hitting 31 mpg, does this sound about right? Do not have a 'very' heavy right foot and have moved from a diesel so am used to rather higher fuel efficiancy figures.
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Looking at RealMPG http://www.honestjohn.co.uk/realmpg/mini/hatch-5-door-2014/cooper sounds about right. On a longer run, rather than around town it will be much better.


Shelster said:
Have thought about replacing the air filter with a K&N one also. WIll this help with mpg figures or make them lower?
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Will make next to no difference, and not something you should be doing on such a new car.



robj20 said:
It's a bit low but probably more your driving style, I average 38mpg in a focus 1.6 around town, 49mpg on a good run. So you should be beating that.
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What age Focus? if it's much older then it's not a fair comparison - newer cars are built to stricter emissions standards, so even if using the same amount or even slightly more fuel, they are less polluting.
 
Armageus said:
Looking at RealMPG http://www.honestjohn.co.uk/realmpg/mini/hatch-5-door-2014/cooper sounds about right. On a longer run, rather than around town it will be much better.




Will make next to no difference, and not something you should be doing on such a new car.





What age Focus? if it's much older then it's not a fair comparison - newer cars are built to stricter emissions standards, so even if using the same amount or even slightly more fuel, they are less polluting.
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Mk1, hes asking about MPG not emissions. I would expect a newer car to improve on MPG.
 
robj20 said:
Mk1, hes asking about MPG not emissions.
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But the two are linked in this case - newer cars aren't necessarily any better on fuel usage in certain circumstances. It's a balancing act for manufacturers to delivery cleaner emissions for city driving, more power (or better power delivery), whilst still balancing decent fuel economy and running costs.

robj20 said:
I would expect a newer car to improve on MPG.
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You need to manage your expectations slightly then - around town newer cars probably aren't any better on fuel usage (and may be worse), but on longer journeys (where emission control etc has a lesser overall effect), then they are probably more noticeably more efficient than older cars.
 
Shelster said:
Can you please expand on why not thanks?
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On the flip side what makes you think it will do anything?


Typical....get new car with lower fuel costs then use more fuel. Guess I will have to do some slow pull aways, a bit of lift and coast and then drive Miss Daisy for a while. But it does sound good when you shoe it :eek::p:D
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You bought a turbocharged petrol hatchback that hits 60 in under 8 seconds. It's not the fuel saver model :p
 
Shelster said:
Can you please expand on why not thanks?



Typical....get new car with lower fuel costs then use more fuel. Guess I will have to do some slow pull aways, a bit of lift and coast and then drive Miss Daisy for a while. But it does sound good when you shoe it :eek::p:D
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Assuming you're questioning why you shouldn't replace it rather than why it won't do anything - i suspect the warranty is the ultimate reason. You'd effectively be replacing an approved part for a non-approved part.


Surely you didn't buy the mini for it's economy performance? I thought everyone knew mini's were a bit below par when it came to MPG, even when my mother had one of the first editions over 10 years ago the MPG was still pretty bad. Just enjoy the car for what it is, and not worry about the MPG.
 
[TW]Fox;29930721 said:
On the flip side what makes you think it will do anything?




You bought a turbocharged petrol hatchback that hits 60 in under 8 seconds. It's not the fuel saver model :p
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Have no idea why I thought it would do anything...as I have said (and demonstrate) I know next to nothing about engines. I was just wondering what the reasons behind the statement where for so that I can increase my understanding on the matter, thats all.

Knew it would be lower due to the engine, but was not thinking it would be as low as it is. Have never trusted manufacturers stats, so took the listed ones with a very large pinch of salt.
 
31mpg around town isn't low by any means, its fairly average.

Realistically a few MPG's difference isn't going to make much of a financial impact unless you are doing a considerable number of miles. If you were really concerned about saving £100 a year buying a 65 plate car was probably the first mistake.

On the air filter front you'll probably find that the factory set up is more than good enough and the days of getting worthwhile performance gains from air filters and induction are largely behind us.
 
Aren't the coopers the faster sportier model? If so I'd say 31 around town is probably about right! It'll go up on the motorway obviously but its a powerful car which means £££! I'll trade you my slow 1.4 petrol Ibiza, that'll do 50mpg on a good journey and averages a good 42 :p
 
Doesn't sound unusual to me. While I have a completely different car (2.0 turbocharged Golf GTI) I find very significant difference if I keep out of the rev range where the turbo spools up. Around town not only are you stopping and starting a lot but when pulling away you're probably heavy with the right foot to avoid people being up your bumper behind.

From memory my Golf gets similar mpg around town if I drive without thinking about it and mid 30's around town if I consciously keep out of the turbo (on a motorway run it can vary between low 40's when not thinking and up to high 40's if driving extremely carefully).
 
Sounds about right. Do you actually do enough mileage 'in town' for it to matter though? The only people that do imo are taxi drivers or those who live in a large city centre. Worrying about mpg on your 2 mile school run or 1.5 mile weekly shopping trip is madness :p
 
Shelster said:
Can you please expand on why not thanks?
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Tests have shown that the air filter is not the main restriction in a modern <20 year old car's intake. In the old days of carburetters and poorly designed air filters there were gains to be had, as the restriction would make the car run rich. By 1994, all petrol cars were designed to run OBDII and catalytic converters and so mixture was carefully controlled by electronic fuel injection, air meters and lambda probes making the less restrictive filter a waste of time for eeconomy.
Most (but not all) K&N filters also require oiling and some of this oil leaches out and fouls intake sensors.
 
Orionaut said:
And that is actually one of the big myths that has been perpetrated on us over the last 30 years or so.
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How so, the mk2 focus 1.6 improved, as did the mk3 and 4. Not to mention the fact that over that time the 1 litre is more powerfull and has a higher mpg. I know not all improve but i bet on average for the same power output mpg increase.
 
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