Your mileage may vary

[ShirleySerious]

Maybe I'm just cautious, but when I first got my bike a year ago, I didn't know what kind of mileage my '78 550E got and it doesn't have a fuel gauge, so I would run out of gas on the road alot. The manual says the tank is 4. something gallons, but when I fill it up after about 100 miles (using the trip meter), the gas pump says I only put in a little more than 2 gallons. Am I just being paranoid, or am I completely underestimating the mileage I can get? I ride semi-normally and don't race.

What kind of mileage does everyone get?

 

[marz]

dear ms.serious.

dear ms.serious.

well depending on temp(outside).
valve clearences.
the way you drive(me no drive fast never)
how clean youre air filter is/isnt.
temp of youre oil.
driving at constant speed/or stop and go.
tire pressure.(extra weight)
all of these things add or subtract.mileage.
if you drive during a v .hot day .then let youre machine cool off.then drive in a cool night (late summer) youll find the milage is really good at night.
i drove in my truckaproximaetly 1000 km
during the night and i got 476 kms to one tank.this is absolutly unbeliveable
as ive never got over368 kms.before without running out of petrol.the next2 days i did it early morn and the consumtion was back to 360/370kms.
hope this has helped (or confused)

marz

 

[salty_monk]

Doesn't it have a reserve?

I just reset the trip meter each time, I usually always get at least 140 before going to reserve on the 550 you should get even more even though the tank is smaller.....

You should be able to get 200 I would think.

Dan

 

[ShirleySerious]

A little. I didn't know if my tank actually held what the specs actually said. I'm talking about on average for say, this time of year, 70-90 degrees and a warmed up engine. I'm sure I could do more than 100 miles on a tank, but I don't want to be the one who runs out of gas on the road doing it.

 

[txironhead]

On an "average" day, fill up the tank, reset your trip meter and then run it until you have to switch to reserve. Then you will know your ballpark mileage per tank, with the reserve being your emergency backup

 

[tkent02]

GS 550 should be around 50+ mpg, cruising.

 

[Vegerito]

on my gs1000 i head back and forth a 110 mile trip one way pretty often to see my gf, i set my speed controll and just cruise at about 68-72mph and get an average of 45-49mpg, im fricken happy with that

 

[Dink]

My 1150 is running a little poorly and getting 38mpg (imp) I have no idea how to convert that to US mpg, I am not especially gentle with it BTW.

Dink

 

[rkubik]

Imperial/US

Imperial/US

multiply by 3.78, then divide by 4.55. That being because a US gallon only has 3.78 L, while bak when we had gallons, they had 4.55 L.

Me, I'll take metric.

How many gills per furlong is no longer an issue.

 

[rkubik]

Imperial/US

Imperial/US

multiply by 3.78, then divide by 4.55. That being because a US gallon only has 3.78 L, while back when we had gallons, they contained 4.55 L.

Me, I'll take metric. How many gills per furlong is no longer an issue.

 

[Pharkmeh]

my old gurl gets 120 m/p tank

100 if i flog it as likes to be riden...\\/

 

[Clone]

I get 300km/tank on the highway
I get 260km/tank in the city
That is 15L at the pump. Because like clock work, when the needle hits the red, I have to switch to reserve as it sputters and dies.
So I am quite pleased with this range.
Works out to about 186miles/tank for you metric distance challenged folks.
And to :shock:46miles to the US gallon. \\/or 56 miles to the real gallon.

 

[the_journeyman]

Um... My GS1150 gets 100 miles/tank ~

JM

 

[dpep]

Fill up the tank; set the trip meter to 0; strap a gallon of gas on the back; and run it dry.

 

[RevRoy]

50 MPG is alright

50 MPG is alright

My 1980 550 GSE has been getting 51-54 MPG almost every week (actually, it went up a few mpg when I started adding Seafoam, and it runs MUCH better). What I do is, at 125 miles on the trip odometer, I start thinking about filling up (usually about 2.5 gallons). If I go to 150 miles, I might need to think about turning the petcock to the reserve setting. Once, I went 165 miles, and was wondering why my engine was cutting out and sputtering ... DUH! A 550E tank will hold approximately 4 gallons, including 1 gallon for reserve.

 

[duaneage]

I just got 49.3 in mixed traffic and highway driving on my 650G.

Not bad I think, considering it's using ethanol. I got 4 more MPG on real gas.

 

[RevRoy]

Just curious, how does the bike run on ethenol? I've heard some negative things about it, mostly regarding fuel injection, which is not an issue on our classics. But I am wondering, does ethenol make it ping, belch, or do anything unbecoming to the breed?

 

[duaneage]

Just curious, how does the bike run on ethenol? I've heard some negative things about it, mostly regarding fuel injection, which is not an issue on our classics. But I am wondering, does ethenol make it ping, belch, or do anything unbecoming to the breed?

Mileage drops 5-8% because of lower caloric content. It also is a degreaser so if you have deposits in your tank they end up in the carbs and so forth. Costs more as well, non-ethanol gas goes for 10-20 cents a gallon less 2 counties over, and that is farther from the refineries. I did not trust it with the 25 year old seals in the carbs so I shlepped 30 gallons of gas at a time from the non-ethanol stations home until I had a chance to rebuild the carbs with new o rings last winter. Maybe it would not have mattered but I did not want to take a chance. I was concerned the inlet valve seals would leak under exposure, or the fuel tube rings would go.

I think it runs better on real gas. I have tried a tank of each back to back to back and real gas wins. Idle is better, mileage is definately better. I didn't do any drag racing so I can't say for sure if it"runs better" or not.
Alchohol attracts water, so when you store your bike for the winter, fill it completely and hope no moisture is in there.

You don't have a choice really, they sell it in your area that's all you get. Nice to have them make decisions for all of us, isn't it? Wait until E-85 gets mandated in some areas, cars get about half the mileage on that stuff with poorer performance.

MTBE was actually better in my opinion. Mileage was about the same and the cost was less. But this former darling of the clean air act was banned as a ground water contaminant, how convienient for ADM and the rest. What was once mandated by law is now banned by lawsuit. Congress refused to protect refiners from frivolous lawsuits over MTBE so they immediately stopped using it May of 2006.

I guess the environmental damage and impact of ethanol production does not count when farmers and ADM are making money from it. "It's renewable, not from the Middle East, and my favorite For The Children" The more you learn about alcohol in gas the less appealing it is.

 

[RevRoy]

It's great, isn't it, having all these "experts" decide what's best for all of us? We are fortunate here in the metro Kansas City area ... ethenol is practically non-existant. I bought some in Des Moines last year ... it was a dime cheaper than regular, and I was driving (my car) to Davenport and thinking that I'd just blow it out the tail pipe. It seemed to work okay, but it was only a one-time deal.

So, I'm still buying regular ($2.52 today) for my GS and dumping in several ounces of Seafoam, or Marvel's Mystery Oil if I run out of Seafoam.

 

[duaneage]

Here it's 20 cents more. They have to truck it in, I guess the transportation costs were not figured in , eh?