On the way home from MINIsOnTop …
GBMINI#2 at 20,000 miles
Complaints: none; Smiles: many! Very pleased not to have suffered from a dead fuel pump due to the dreadful ethanol gas games that USA gas companies are currently playing – sorry Josh to see your car at MoP today!
M&I / GBMINI 
Oh you saw it…were they working on it or was it just out front?
It will be back again soon for its Service II.
Josh, your car was already out / finished when I got there, but I chatted with Gary and learned your issue was the same orange fuel / corroded pump issue that they’ve seen lots recently.
They first learned how bad it was when they replaced pumps without draining the tank, and the next morning the new pump was dead too!
uh, what’s orange fuel, the E-10 mix?
It sure would have been nice of them to tell me the same information. Or at least a reply to my email with the details. 😦
Chris,
It’s not supposed to be orange, but when the ethanol mixes with water (and maybe with fuel pumps), that’s apparently the result!
So are you taking bets for gbmini3’s milage before you trade in for gbmini4?
22,000? 😀
I have no trade-in plans, Josh 😉
If ethanol is the cause it hasn’t hit my MINI (yet). We passed 16,000 miles on the way home from MOT and I’ve only had the car since October. Well on my way to having the highest mileage MINI in a few years…
Voodoo
The orange fuel is most likely caused by “varnish” cleaned off the bottom of an underground tank by the ethanol. As well as bonding to water ethanol is an excellent “gunk stripper”
GBMINI has been happy with the Mobil-89 I filled up in Sugar Hill this weekend; I wonder it it’s still “pre-ethanol”?