2004 Mini Cooper S - Fuel Consumption / Squeaking when pulling away

[paulbennett80]

I recently picked up a 2004 Mini Cooper S, with just 18,000 miles!

Car is awesome (apart from the jcw leather sports seats I wrote a previous post about)..I do have a few questions perhaps someone more technically minded than myself could advise on.

1. Fuel Economy

It's poor, no matter how I drive. Average tank is 250-260 , miles with about 75% of those miles on the motorway not really exceeding 80 too often...I've even been using the cruise to try and max it out. and I'm constantly watching the live mpg counter. I've not really had the air con / heating on either.

could this be anything to do with the tuning? I have friends with boxeters and Audi s5s with only slightly worse economy!

2. Squeaking when pulling away...only when cold.

I get a squeak when pulling away in the mornings or when car is cold. This goes after 10-15 mins though. After reading a few forums appears this could be something to do with the clutch? This sounds expensive and concerning me somewhat!

Any advice on the above would be much appreciated. I'm also due a standard service, any ideas how much this would be at BMW?

Thanks
Paul

[Stuart89]

A supercharger engine is the worst form of engine you can have for fuel econemy, you are constantly on boost no matter what RPM you drive at or how fast you go. So because of this you will always get poor MPG, the only thing you can do is try to keep the rpm low.

Also, 80mph is really bad, if you want to get the most miles out of your tank then do 60mph, at the most 70mph. The amount of air resistance gained at those speeds scales dramatically, it is not a linear amount. For example, my old car was a 1.6 TDCI fiesta zetec s, at 60mph I would get 65mpg, at 70mph I would get 45mpg. So for 10mph difference Ive dropped 20mpg. This effect scales much higher going up to 80mph, 90mph and so on. I would predict that if you were to do 60mph all the time you could break 300 miles per tank.

Your mates with the boxter and s5 do not have superchargers, the porsche is N/A and the S5 is turbo, which means he can drive that car off boost and return a somewhat decent MPG, something you cannot.

I have no idea about the noise sorry.