Left the house yesterday morning to buy a BMW 330Ci....

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and this morning picked up an R53 Cooper S. After seeing the umpteenth 3 series with rotten arches I dropped into a local trader on my way home yesterday and spotted what was to become the latest addition to the family.

It's a 52 plate with 40k miles. It has the panoramic sliding sunroof which is nice. Mechanically spot on, no trim creaks (yet) paintwork needs a little bit of TLC.

I'm very pleased & am looking forward to getting to know the little fella.

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Evo said:

Looks great, I'm just about to start looking for an S in grey for my work runaround.

After a week of pounding the M23 and M25 I can confirm that it works pretty well for that. At 60mph around the M25 I'm even getting an indicated 46 mpg too which is a bonus (and most likely over-reading like a bd)

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Challo said:

46mpg does seem quite high. I never get more than 35 on a run at 60

I'll take a pic the next time I do that run. I was expecting something closer to late 30's.

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Challo said:

46mpg does seem quite high. I never get more than 35 on a run at 60

This was today. Haywards Heath to Stockley Park with about 30 mins delay on the journey.

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I'm slightly sceptical of the figures to be honest. I did a cross country run to Poole over the weekend and it was in the mid 30's which is expected but that was mainly A-road rather than motorway schlep.

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I think I'll try a brim-to-brim just out of interest. Distance travelled is pretty much spot on but something doesn't quite feel right. It won't change anything but during the commute I'm pretty economical (I coaxed 34mpg out of my BMW 540 on the same journey once).

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Silent1 said:

but it makes 250bhp at the wheels and doesn't have any emissions crap any more and the diverter valve works properly so i don't have a boost leak like 90% of all supercharged minis do from the factory (although that's more a power issue not economy)

That sounds very sensible, those pesky overtakes need to be as fast as possible.

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eybic said:

Have you reset the MPG counter?

Yes, it was averaging mid-30's (not sure over what time/distance/driving style) when I got it. I reset it to see what it would do on the once weekly M23/M25/M4 journey and was surprised to see firstly 46 and then 47mpg. The weekend trip was closer to what was expected mpg wise.

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p.s. I have checked that it's not diesel and there is a supercharger whine which is not just a failing water pump.

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So to bring this to a close I did a brim to brim measurement from home to Maidenhead and back. I used regular unleaded and air on was on.

OBC reading was 45mpg for the trip. Brim to brim calc was 41.3 mpg so within the ballpark. While appreciate that these cars aren't about mpg (I was banking on 35 on motorway), they are a tarted up shopping car so something reasonable shouldn't be beyond expectations.

For all considering a MCS I would definitely urge you to try them. They are a hoot to drive and mine certainly places quite highly for fun factor among all the cars I've owned previously. Some more power & better brakes would be nice but that is nothing that can't be sorted relatively easily.