MINI Cooper Forum banner

Phev help pls

3K views 16 replies 8 participants last post by  mike1967 
#1 ·
Hi, Recently took receipt of the new mini phev as my new company car and as I am not very technical minded this car is blowing my mind.

I need help with a few things please:
I can not find any online retailer that supply mats for the car yet and I am unsure as to whether the standard countryman all 4 mats will fit ? I can get a set of there easily and they are much cheaper than the genuine ones.

I will be driving from Leicestershire all the way to the French alps shortly for a skiing trip and I am absolutely clue less as to which mode I should be driving in on such a long journey.

Thanks in advance for any help you may be able to throw my way

Brett
 
#2 ·
Hi Bert,

Congratulations on your new mini PHEV.

The car is an absolute gem on short trips and has plenty of punch for overtaking at low to moderate speed, but don't expect to suddenly shoot past Porsche's at 180+ on the German Autobahn. You would be disappointed. Don't expect it to be frugal on long motorway runs either. It is not and you will be filling frequently on your journey to the alps.

Regarding the mats, the inside is identical to the standatd F60 countryman, minus the front-back adjustment of the rear seat. You will find that standard mats fit just fine.

I agree on the driving modes question. They are complicated at first. Please bear with me as this might be a long and confusing read.

Basically you have three ways to control how the car uses petrol/electricity:

1. The eDrive toggle switch:

* The upper position is "Max eDrive" and forces the car to run on electricity, up to 130kph (about 80mph) and until the battery is empty, which isn't very far on the motorway. I always try to use it around town as without it I find the the petrol engine sometimes cuts in for no apparent reason.

* The mid position is "eDrive" and the default. It is supposed to make smart decisions about when to use battery and petrol and to base those decisions partly on satnav data if you have plotted a destination. In practice I find that it doesn't work very well and on my car, it simply seems to run mostly on bat until it's almost empty, then switch to petrol.
I do use it on long runs if I can't be bothered to control the drive modes manually. It gives you less power on battery before the engine kicks in and the max. speed on battery is around 80kph (50mph).

* The lower position is "Save". which does more than just save the battery for later, it also charges it, which means that you are basically using the car as a petrol powered generator, not a very efficient use of energy. The main uses for that might be:
a. if you have an empty battery and know you are going to drive in an EV only zone later (not sure if they even exist or if PHEVS would be allowed)
b. on long downhill stretches you might possibly (unproven) be able to boost your charge rate somewhat by using both the engine starter/generator and the rear motor/generator to charge, but I suspect that "Sport" mode would do this just as well (see below).

2. The "Drive mode" toggle.

Irrespective of your eDrive setting, you have another switch that affects how you use petrol (and by extension battery):

* The top position is "Sport". If you are not in "Max eDrive" this will force the petrol engine to start. It also tightens up the steering and throttle response. I often use this instead of "Save" (above) as I don't think it wastes petrol by charging the battery, so you can save whatever battery charge you have for later. Be aware that hard acceleration will cause the electric motor to kick in, so you will use some battery power. Braking and downhill stretches will help charge, so you may well end up about even.
If you use "Sport" AND "max eDrive", the car will run on electric power, without the petrol engine up to 130kph, so what I sometimes do on long, hilly runs is to stay in "Sport" and toggle between "eDrive" and "Max eDrive", trying to use electricity for acceleration and uphill stretches (as far as I can) and petrol for flat cruising and downhill. On motorways, there is really no alternative to petrol only. You're better off saving your battery for when you need it.

* The mid position is standard or comfort. Steering and throttle response are slightly lighter and petrol only kicks in according to battery level, throttle, gear selector (see below) and eDrive selection. Leave it there if you want the car to make most of the decisions itself.

* The lower position is "Green" and is designed to save petrol. You'll notice a marked decrease in throttle sensitivity and the A/C is less effective (can be a problem in summer), but basically there's nothing the car does here that you can't do yourself if you're careful with your right foot. You can use it to encourage yourself to drive economically, but I'm guessing you'd have chosen a Prius instead if that was your main concern.


3. The gear selector.

You have noticed a S/M setting on the gear stick. Push it to the left and:

* the petrol engine kicks in even if you're in Max eDrive mode
* the gear change points move down (you'll stay in lower gears for longer)

so this is an alternative to using the "Sport" toggle on the dashboard. When you're in gearstick sport, you can alos force the car into semi-automatic mode and select the gears manually, pushing forward to change down, back to change up. I wold practice this before your trip, especially if you have driven other semi-automaticsm which might have the up/down controls the other way around. The mini engine is very quiet and smooth and you won't notice it until you're revving quite hard, which you probably don't want to do while you're running in. When you're in "M", the car will only change gear by itself at the red line or to avoid stalling. To go back to ordinary "Sport" (auto), you'll need to pull the stick back to D and then over to S again.

To overtake, even if I'm in Max eDrive" I often use "M" mode (once the engine is warm):

Prepare by pushing gearstick over and changing down one or two gears (depending on speed).

You'll find that the car "goes" absolutely immediately when you give gas and you can do quick up-shifts along the way, by nudging the gearstick back.

Watch out for kickdown, as you'll end up wasting valuable milliseconds and over-revving as the car shifts down again. The trick is to push the energy needle up into the little yellow band at the top of the energy meter without triggering kickdown.


That's all! Have fun on your trip. You will LOVE the mini, especially when you get to the alps!
 
#5 ·
Very useful, thanks. BMW should you writing their car manuals for them...I had forgotten about the dash switch to be honest. Few times I used sport, I was toggling it with the gearstick.

Would need to double check, but my car seems to default Max eDrive. Agree that Auto eDrive is a bit redundant. It brings the roof down a little bit before petrol is supposed to kick in, but for my intents and purposes, it isn't low enough. It would have been nice to have been able to define it...for example wouldn't have minded petrol kicking in for short periods when going over 35mph for example, instead of the 50mph or whatever it is set to.
 
#4 ·
Mats - yes standard Countryman mats fit OK as I have just purchased a set of rubber Mini floor mats (my local Mini dealer who supplied my car was doing a 50% discount for Black Friday, what was not to like!) for the winter. I also have found that the rubber boot mat I had from my Evoque owning days fits really well in the Countryman’s boot to protect the floor “carpet” and still allows you access to the storage tray under the boot floor without having to remove the rubber mat - so if you see any of those for sale secondhand at around £30/£50 they are worth bidding on (from JLR they cost >£250 new!)
 
#7 ·
Mine is set to default to autoE drive and I can toggle between that and MaxE as the default. Also if you use Sport in MaxE drive IIRC the regenerative braking is very fierce in braking the car. I’m afraid I am 2000 miles away from the car for a while so cannot remember how I changed the default setting.
 
#12 ·
I will be driving from Leicestershire all the way to the French alps shortly for a skiing trip and I am absolutely clue less as to which mode I should be driving in on such a long journey.

Brett
Good luck with that. You will be though your main electric charge in the first 20 miles or so. Now, I don't know what other peoples fuel gauges show, but when I fill up
it shows around 210 miles, the petrol light comes on at 49 miles, so I am filling up every 160 or so miles.
 
#13 ·
I would get a 2 gallon metal fuel can and take that with you. Then you can risk going low on fuel or plan your route with fuel stops .
We took are standard cooper to Paris and was averageing 46 mpg using the motorways so with the extra weight you should get 40 ish mpg .
Have a good time .
 
#14 ·
Also suggest that you load the PlugShare app onto your smartphone/iPad/tablet as this also shows all the charging points across Europe if you want to recharge anytime. It doesn’t just show the location but also the network running the charge point, hotels cafes and amenities nearby too. I’m in southern Spain now and can see charging points all over the place on that app.

In petrol only mode mine is lucky to get 40mpg, more like 32/35 mpg at motorway speeds......... the engine has a lot of extra weight to pull along - like two dead passengers in battery weight and mpg suffers as a result
 
#15 ·
off topic question, do you spend much time in Spain, if so is there many uk run garages workshops out there, i fancy a change thinking leaving the uk i've always done ok with repairing cars so thinking might as well be in the sun doing it, and i'm getting fed up with all the doom and gloom this government of hate is bringing to our lives. to old to go Australia. can load a truck up and catch ferry easy from down here
 
#17 ·
ha ha thats cool job
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top