[M2siast]

Why do you think the fuel consumption is so high in the M2?

It used to be the case I’d fill up the 135i and get 600km estimated range.
Never got 400 in the M2… that’s a considerable difference that I can’t pinpoint why.

[c1pher]

I would get 28mpg in my 135is. I think the sticker said 25 highway. I’ve been wondering what it’s really going to be in the M2.

[JustinHEMI]

For me it's because I drive fast in sport+ everywhere.

[npirnia]

I think the fuel tank it a bit smaller than the 1 series, which was 14ish versus 13.7 gallons for the M2.

But powerful engines just burn more fuel at baseline. The M2 has an engine that nominally puts out 500 bhp and it uses rather short gear ratios for that much power.

Add to it, the M2 is ~600 lbs heavier than the 135i and it simply requires more energy to do everything.

My average is around 20 mpg operating in one of the worst traffic environments in the US - my average speed is about 22 mph per my prior 340i's trip computer.

If it makes you feel better, I took out my Viper today and it is averaging 13.5 mpg. At least half of a given drive is highway driving to the good roads so that isn't all performance driving. The Viper probably has ~130-140 more horsepower, but is also a full 500 lbs lighter and has much longer gears.

For what it is, the M2 does pretty well.

-Nick

[cmgbk75]

Originally Posted by npirnia

I think the fuel tank it a bit smaller than the 1 series, which was 14ish versus 13.7 gallons for the M2.

But powerful engines just burn more fuel at baseline. The M2 has an engine that nominally puts out 500 bhp and it uses rather short gear ratios for that much power.

Add to it, the M2 is ~600 lbs heavier than the 135i and it simply requires more energy to do everything.

My average is around 20 mpg operating in one of the worst traffic environments in the US - my average speed is about 22 mph per my prior 340i's trip computer.

If it makes you feel better, I took out my Viper today and it is averaging 13.5 mpg. At least half of a given drive is highway driving to the good roads so that isn't all performance driving. The Viper probably has ~130-140 more horsepower, but is also a full 500 lbs lighter and has much longer gears.

For what it is, the M2 does pretty well.

-Nick

Say what!?!? You get 20 MPG in a real city in the M2? I BARELY get 19 on the Highway. Only time I’ve seen 20+ is driving through a Thunderstorm for a few hours.

[Xspeedracer]

I have a 2001 Honda insight that gets 70+mpg to compensate for the poor fuel mileage of the new M2 I ordered

[Squidget]

I did an 800 mile highway trip and averaged 24.4 MPG. Roughly 80 MPH almost the whole way, MT transmission, Efficient mode, and I'm a pretty smooth driver, so that helps.

I personally think this is great for a 450+ HP engine. Of course, I drove a 76 Regal that got 8 MPG, so maybe I'm biased.

The fuel tank is SMALL, so you gotta factor that in of course.

[M2siast]

I think my problem is that I’m doing mostly city driving as of late, and may be comparing to a mixed/highway driving I used to do.
Admittedly I haven’t even measured consumption at the pump yet, just surprised with the autonomy I’ve been getting every tank, filling up so frequently with a tank that’s about the same size.

I think the weight must be killing consumption, but I also noticed a very high consumption when idling (almost 2l/h). So I don’t know if it runs richer than other cars…

[Kevin_The_Clean1]

Originally Posted by npirnia

I think the fuel tank it a bit smaller than the 1 series, which was 14ish versus 13.7 gallons for the M2.

But powerful engines just burn more fuel at baseline. The M2 has an engine that nominally puts out 500 bhp and it uses rather short gear ratios for that much power.

Add to it, the M2 is ~600 lbs heavier than the 135i and it simply requires more energy to do everything.

My average is around 20 mpg operating in one of the worst traffic environments in the US - my average speed is about 22 mph per my prior 340i's trip computer.

If it makes you feel better, I took out my Viper today and it is averaging 13.5 mpg. At least half of a given drive is highway driving to the good roads so that isn't all performance driving. The Viper probably has ~130-140 more horsepower, but is also a full 500 lbs lighter and has much longer gears.

For what it is, the M2 does pretty well.

-Nick

With the V10 you can start off in 2nd gear, like I use to do with my 04 COBRA & E39 M5. If you were to drive the M2 like a grandma & put it in economy mode, I'm sure many could get slightly better MPG figures. But what is the fun in that?

[RockCrusher]

135I:
Horsepower: 306 hp
Curb weight: ~3200lbs

M2:
Horsepower: 453 hp
Curb weight: ~3800lbs

Even if you don't call upon the full 453hp of the M2 when driven in identical way to the I35i the M2 engine will still use more fuel.

I have no 135I experience but my M2 fuel mileage ain't bad and compared to other recent (and not so recent) cars pretty darn good.

The M2 is running 20mpg+.

My 2020 Dodge Challenger Scat Pack 6-speed (with 485hp/3600lbs) given the same usage as my M2 delivered around 15mpg.

The flip side is my 2023 MINI JCW 6-speed (with 228hp/~2800lbs) delivers ~30mpg.

To state the obvious fuel consumption for a specific vehicle is quite dependent upon how one drives. My experience over the years with a variety of high performance cars is with aggressive driving fuel consumption shoots up like crazy.

In your M2 bring up instantaneous fuel consumption and observe under what operating conditions and usage bring about a rise in fuel consumption and when you can avoid those operating conditions and change your usage to obtain better gas mileage.

[c1pher]

I have wondered if there was some way to expand the fuel capacity another 2-5gallons like a fuel cell. The trunk is pretty large so a small tank wouldn’t impact much.

[RockCrusher]

Originally Posted by c1pher

I have wondered if there was some way to expand the fuel capacity another 2-5gallons like a fuel cell. The trunk is pretty large so a small tank wouldn’t impact much.

No way I'd want even a "fuel cell" in the trunk of any car I drove.

[Ravenseal]

Originally Posted by M2siast

I think my problem is that I’m doing mostly city driving as of late, and may be comparing to a mixed/highway driving I used to do.
Admittedly I haven’t even measured consumption at the pump yet, just surprised with the autonomy I’ve been getting every tank, filling up so frequently with a tank that’s about the same size.

I think the weight must be killing consumption, but I also noticed a very high consumption when idling (almost 2l/h). So I don’t know if it runs richer than other cars…

I don’t know about Canada, but we have city MPG in America.

The EPA has given the M2 fuel economy estimates of 16 mpg city and 24 mpg highway when equipped with the six-speed manual;

[Humdizzle]

its worse than the 135i because its 400-500 pounds more. That 3.0 is having to work harder. Then when you spool up those big turbos its really burning fuel.

[npirnia]

Originally Posted by Kevin_The_Clean1

With the V10 you can start off in 2nd gear, like I use to do with my 04 COBRA & E39 M5. If you were to drive the M2 like a grandma & put it in economy mode, I'm sure many could get slightly better MPG figures. But what is the fun in that?

Well first goes to 63 and 2nd goes to 90….would be fairly hard the clutch to start in 2nd. I’m pretty sure the gear ratios where very different for the E39 and Cobra.

The better strategy is to shift 1-3-5-6 since the gear spacing is quite tight and normal driving leads to a 300-400 rpm drop with each shift.

I can get 17ish driving mixed, but it is the backroads stuff that uses fuel.

-Nick

[npirnia]

Originally Posted by cmgbk75

Say what!?!? You get 20 MPG in a real city in the M2? I BARELY get 19 on the Highway. Only time I’ve seen 20+ is driving through a Thunderstorm for a few hours.

My average since factory (1500 miles so far) is 19.5. It was 20 until Saturday, but I finished the break-in service and have been driving a bit more enthusiastically. But I keep the engine between 1000-2500 RPMs during normal commute driving and often skip gears to keep RPMs low. Traffic often moves so slow where I live so light engine loads are easy to come by.

-Nick

[ronin13013]

Its better than my E92 M3.

[cmgbk75]

Originally Posted by npirnia

My average since factory (1500 miles so far) is 19.5. It was 20 until Saturday, but I finished the break-in service and have been driving a bit more enthusiastically. But I keep the engine between 1000-2500 RPMs during normal commute driving and often skip gears to keep RPMs low. Traffic often moves so slow where I live so light engine loads are easy to come by.

-Nick

Color me impressed.

[zero21]

Pussy-footing the gas pedal I got 20.5mpg mixed driving. Anything "enthusiastic" saw a decrease to roughly 16-17mpg. I monitored every trip, but this was only for the three weeks I owned the car. For a vehicle making this much power and outputting less than 300g/km CO2 it's actually one of the most efficient engines made.

The short-ish 1st and 2nd gears is what really confused me - with that much power and torque it's just not necessary and obviously contributes to consumption.

[Ma_Deuce]

I grannied the M2 this weekend since i didnt have a premium fuel pump close by, I got 25.6mpg at start/stop 60mph average highway speeds.

[RockCrusher]

Originally Posted by npirnia

Well first goes to 63 and 2nd goes to 90….would be fairly hard the clutch to start in 2nd. I’m pretty sure the gear ratios where very different for the E39 and Cobra.

The better strategy is to shift 1-3-5-6 since the gear spacing is quite tight and normal driving leads to a 300-400 rpm drop with each shift.

I can get 17ish driving mixed, but it is the backroads stuff that uses fuel.

-Nick

Skip shifting or short shifting is a good way to improve fuel economy. Starting off in 2nd gear won't help fuel economy but does shorten clutch life.

If one observes instantaneous fuel consumption the most economical way to get the car moving is start out in 1st with low RPMs as is reasonable and minimal clutch slippage then as soon as the engine will accept the up shift without protest shift up.

And as you offer one can skip shift the transmission.

A couple of my cars came from the factory with a skip shift feature that would pretty much force the shifter after leaving 1st gear to 4th gear. This was I believe as much a thing to game the EPA fuel economy/emission tests as anything. But it was real enough.

First encountered this in my 2002 Camaro Z28. I learned to drive in such a way to avoid triggering this feature. Or in the case of my 2006 GTO I used a coding tool to disable the feature. Then in my 2020 Dodge Challenger Scat Pack once again I just adopted a driving style that avoided the skip shift activation.

[JustinHEMI]

Originally Posted by RockCrusher

Skip shifting or short shifting is a good way to improve fuel economy. Starting off in 2nd gear won't help fuel economy but does shorten clutch life.

If one observes instantaneous fuel consumption the most economical way to get the car moving is start out in 1st with low RPMs as is reasonable and minimal clutch slippage then as soon as the engine will accept the up shift without protest shift up.

And as you offer one can skip shift the transmission.

A couple of my cars came from the factory with a skip shift feature that would pretty much force the shifter after leaving 1st gear to 4th gear. This was I believe as much a thing to game the EPA fuel economy/emission tests as anything. But it was real enough.

First encountered this in my 2002 Camaro Z28. I learned to drive in such a way to avoid triggering this feature. Or in the case of my 2006 GTO I used a coding tool to disable the feature. Then in my 2020 Dodge Challenger Scat Pack once again I just adopted a driving style that avoided the skip shift activation.

Yep I was going to say my Challengers had the "skip shift" "feature." I always installed a "skip shift eliminator" though.