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New GS owner...how many miles before fill up?

  • Thread starter Thread starter texaninseattle
  • Start date Start date
T

texaninseattle

Guest
Hey guys, I just picked up a 1982 gs850G last night. I have about a 300 mile ride planned for this weekend, and I was wondering how many miles approx I should be able to go until I start looking for a fuel station?
I realize this bike is equipped with a fuel gauge, however I would like to use the trip meter as backup incase the gauge is wonky.

Thanks in advance
 
130ish before you should go ahead and fill up. YMMV though, literally. :D
 
texaninseattle said:
Hey guys, I just picked up a 1982 gs850G last night. I have about a 300 mile ride planned for this weekend, and I was wondering how many miles approx I should be able to go until I start looking for a fuel station?

Thanks in advance
Click to expand...
I leave mine on reserve and I will get 190-200 miles to a tank with 4.0+ gals used out of 5.8 gal tank before I need to re-fuel.

with that in mind I would suggest going no further than 150 miles until you have a better idea how much fuel mileage you will be getting.

***have you taken it on a shake down run yet?***
 
Well, I drove it a couple of hours last night and plan to do that again tonight...So far everything seems good.
She has about 16,000 miles on the clock and is in really good shape from what I can tell so far. We will be going from about sealevel in Seattle, Wa to way up in the mountains to Winthrop Wa, and back down again...Should I expect any weirdness with all the altitude change.

This is the second bike I have owned...The first was a 1978 cb550
What a difference in bikes man, this is a MUCH classier ride.:D
 
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i go about 200 miles befor i have to switch to reserve, actually ive never had to switch to reserve yet, i normally fill up about 200-210 ish, on about 4-4.3 gallons
 
No problem pulling the pass on an 850

I run my 1000 from sealevel to 4-5,000' regularly
 
Don't understand keeping on res. all the time. Keep it in on position, when you start to run out, swtich to res. then you have appx 1 gal. on res. You can normally figure between 40 & 50 mpg, but don't cut it too close. Personally, the next reasonable station after on res. is good for me. You will learn on the first tank when to start expecting a sputter. Don't forget to put it back in "ON" position after fill up. I did that last year, when it sputtered I reached for the petcock & felt it in the res. position, I knew I was screwed as soon as I felt it. Still can't imagine keeping it in res. I must be missing something. Just my opinion
 
Have not ridden my son's 850 enough to get a feel for mileage, but my wife's 850L (smaller tank) will go between 130-160 miles before switching to REServe.

A LOT of that depends on travelling speed. If you are on the freeway at 70+ mph, your mileage might be in the lower 30s to upper 40s. We have actually seen lower 30s on her bike while trying to stay with a group that was doing about 75 into a 10 mph wind. :eek: Later that same trip, with no adjustments to the bike, we saw upper 50s by keeping it between 55-60 mph on the two-lane roads of West Virginia and Kentucky.

.
 
with my 1100 i get 35mpg city and up to 50 highway. since most my riding is on the lower end of mpg i'll gas up after about 60 to 70 miles on a tank, putting in about 2 gallons. i'm a tank half full rather then mostly empty kinda rider :p
 
Res

Res

I don't understand leaving it on RES, either. If you're going to predict when to add fuel, why not leave it ON and plan on a fuel stop when it gets close. For one thing, you give up a backup in case the fuel usage is somehow altered or you forget to reset the trip, or someone does it for you when you weren't looking, or there's a leak...the list goes on. But the point is made, why give up the RES feature?

I prefer to leave it in on and refuel before it runs out so I never have to use reserve. On the GS1100 I'm looking for a gas station between 100 and 120 miles. At a steady 40MPG that leaves lots of room.
 
Use the petcock, at least every now & then, just to be sure everything is working properly
 
Yeah, didn't you know it's easier to push the bike to a gas station than it is to flip a lever? :D

(That is for us OLD farts that can't always remember to look at the gauge. :o )

By the way ... there is an advantage to using REServe a little more often. Water is heavier than gas and tends to collect at the bottom of the tank. If you never hit REServe, there might just be a lot of water down there. By using REServe every so often (not necessarily all the time) you will minimize that build-up.

.
 
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Steve said:
Yeah, didn't you know it's easier to push the bike to a gas station than it is to flip a lever? :D

(That is for us OLD farts that can't always remember to look at the gauge. :o )
Click to expand...
When it gets to "E" I have 1.5 gallons left... :D
OLD! I resemble that remark...
 
rustybronco said:
When it gets to "E" I have 1.5 gallons left... :D
Click to expand...
Yeah, but you actually have to LOOK at the gauge every so often and try to remember when it hit the big E.
Sometimes the ride is so nice that it's nice to have that little slap on the face that says "move the lever, dummy".

All that being said, my Wing does not have a lever. :-\\\

It does not have a REServe. :eek:

It does, however, have a big ol' light on the dash panel that comes on when there is 1.3 gallons left in the tank.
My problem is that the sending unit for that light is not working, so I HAVE to watch the gauge. (ever try pushing a Wing?)

.
 
I wanted to chime in here about using the reserve tank too, because this is something I've been thinking about. It's obvious that RES will save you if you actually run that low on gas and need to flip it to get to a gas station - I know this is controversial but it seems to me there is just A LOT of gas down there that is reserved for emergencies that might as well be used normally.

I have a 650G - I believe the tank capacity is 3.9 gal but I usually fill up before having to switch to RES - every 120 miles or so - and I usually get in about 2.5 ti 2.7 gal - that leaves over a whole gallon in reserve which is like 25% of the tank's capacity.

I want to use it but I'm also afraid of running out of gas, and I feel like I'm not suppose to be using it normally - that's why they call it "reserve" right. It just feels like I'm always going to the gas station just to top off a tank that still has more than a little gas in it.

- Brad
 
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