On the way down to JLG in Pennsylvania, I covered 500 miles in 7.5 hours – very few traffic delays helped, and travelling “somewhat quicker” than the speed limits helped (always safe, of course – and never too fast …)
Coming back, I didn’t have any deadline, so I chose more relaxation, taking the Taconic Parkway and maintaining speeds close to posted – and slower than many vehicles (about 5mph above) … I was able to enjoy driving GPMINI, listening to the stereo, and admiring the scenery:
On the way down, I got about 380 miles on a tank of gas – calculated average MPG was about 28.3 … coming back at about 10mph less, I got over 450 miles from the tank, and the MPG rose to 32.8! So if you want to save gas, just obey those speed limits š
GPMINIs OBC calculation of MPG is pretty close – much better than the 10% optimism I’ve seen in previous MINIs – my calculated 32.8 was displayed as 33.6 (better than 2.5% error):
Postscript:
I remain VERY HAPPY with the quality & choice of music on Sirius satellite radio – but it continues to amaze me the places where I’ll lose satellite signal … along I-90 near worcester (no buildings or trees, just a hill in the distance), drop-outs from bridges (narrow ones, with the dropout occurring for about 2s, but a way further up the road), that sort of thing. It seems to me that I’m just not always receiving both Sirius satellites – their advertising claims that two are always visible, but I don’t believe them. Maybe it’s better in more southerly locations.
Nevertheless, it works for at least 58 minutes out of the hour, and is great to listen to … during the drive I spent many hours on “Super Shuffle” and enjoyed pretty well every track – it also tells you the “normal” channel for each artist being played, so gives a great idea of “what goes where” š
M&I / GBMINI 
It seems mini slowly fixed the inaccurate OBC. Mine is horrible, typically adding 4-5mpg. Thankfully my scanguage allows me to make correction adjustments for both speed and fuel consumption so I get fairly accurate readings from it.
Due to the unusual orbit, there is usually just one sirius satellite serving the sky, especially the further north you are. See the orbit animation at this site:
http://www.dogstarradios.com/sirasasecoma.html
I have problems in my Mustang with Sirius too, but I got 3 different channels to try but if one is bad I can switch to the other channels. Not sure if they lock on to a specific sat, but it does clear up the signal.
Winslow
Kittie & I just returned from MITMs and our holiday to Santa Fe, NM and Sedona, AZ. Our OBC gave us 33.1. I checked this against my calculator and it was fairly accurate as it showed [calc] 32.+ in real MPG.