Real World Fuel Consumption?

[guest18]

Just a thought, as the manufacturers refuse to admit the fuel consumption of their products, and journalistic figures seem to be either a grandad who does 27mph everywhere or an idiot who has the engine on the limiter every second it's running I wondered if we, as a club, could produce a table or "real" measured fuel consumption figures? Ok we will not achieve a proper double blind test, but we can establish some real world expectations for a given bike...

So I'll kick off, with three suggested figures,
Worst case: measured over a full tank to reserve, using the tripmeter for mileage and the petrol pump for quantity of fuel, the worst "economy" you can ever remember getting from your bike. Indicative of full throttle heavily loaded and probably speeds you only obtained on a private road officer.

Average: What you normally get on the daily commute, ideally a mix of traffic and open road but realistically, your usual..

Best case: I had to do a tankful specially for this  this is the best economy you can wring from your bike without lying on the tank and doing 55 everywhere... gentle acceleration, reduced top speed, just being as gentle as you possibly can and trying as hard as you can to get max mpg over at least one tankful.

So, as I said I'll kick off...

2002 MuZ Mastiff 660cc
Worst: 36 mpg
Average: 50 mpg
Best: 59 mpg

Over to you, oh and no "cheating"!! Get the calculator out and work it out *exactly*!! only then can we get a fair comparison. (and don't blame me if you get a fright  )

[Bruce]

Not an accurate reply.

When I attended Dent last years it was a round trip of 330 miles and I used £25-00 of petrol assuming £5 per gallon this works out as 65mpg.If I had been able to travel at a slower rate rather than 50mph I believe that  would have had a fuel consumption in excess of 70mpg.Whilst the Norton is not fast it is cheap to run.

[guest18]

Thanks for the reply Bruce, and yup, I know what you mean, the old British Iron seems to do particularly well on fuel, but then a decent run will always return better mileage than several stops and starts, using estimated figures the MuZ appeared to be managing nearly 70mpg on a run on the continent two up but in perfect weather and draughting trucks at 56mph... but estimated figures are always deceptive, now the average gallon is around £5.25, then, probably a bit less... I reckon your bike will be in the 60's but I bet if you measure it carefully you can't beat 70mpg... (there's a challenge!  )
It's always difficult to be accurate and having produced proper annual and whole life costings for bikes and cars most people are horrified when they do the sums properly, however many club members here will go through a couple of tanks in a week so it should be possible to get some useable real figures, certainly better than the usual available?
Maybe I should ask Steve to put up a table or a sticky...? 

[bullet350]

my cub 90 (almost a thumper) returned 130mpg on a commute across north london.
Probably about 30 sets of traffic lights each way and ringing its neck at every green light (necessary to stay alive).
Worst i saw was 122mpg.

Cbr600 best 58mpg, worst 38mpg (chasing/beating KTM 1000's), usually almost exactly 50mpg.

bullet350

[squirrelciv]

Dolly is averaging around 60mpg on our 52 mile commute. Best I've got was about 65mpg with the worst being the low 50's and that was SteveH's fault! Fully loaded and blasting it all the way to Dent last year.

[guest18]

The CG125 I used as a town bike did 110 to 120 mpg getting it's neck wrung all day every day, no idea what it's capable used normally of as it was a despatch bike and the throttle only had two positions, on and off   

[guest7]

Standard XBRs routinely get 50+mpg, but my outfit is piss poor at 35mpg, regardless of riding style. The only time it's better is on long slow motorway runs (55-60mph) when it does about 40mpg

GC

[Richard]

MZ 301.

Worst - 35 mpg (thrashing it down the motorway to Devon trying to keep up with an XBR500)  Never repeated (as bits vibrated off).

Average - 50 mpg

Best - 70 mpg (running in when new down the M4 to Carmarthen from London).  Never repeated.

BMW R100S

Worst - 40 mpg
Average - 45 mpg
Best - 55 mpg.

Looking forward to seeing if the twin plugging improves matters as claimed.

Richard

[crackedhead]

My first (and new) XBR used to get 70mpg on long runs. It never went below 60mpg. The current  XBR does about 50mpg

Best ever fuel consumption was on the old Suzuki GS125 .. averaged 110 miles to the gallon on a run from Edinburgh to London.

[guest7]

Looking forward to seeing if the twin plugging improves matters as claimed.

Richard

I remember one old duffer claiming that twin plugging his boxer gave a return of nearly 70mpg. However, his was hitched to a chair and I think he may have been a little optimistic

GC

[Andy M]

One from memory:

1999 BMW F650

Worst: 41 mpg when ridden like a dispatch bike
Average: 69 mpg
Best: 94 mpg riding up Norway obeying the speed limits.

One that still haunts me:

Triumph Bonneville 790 outfit

Worst: 32 mpg in spray from **** and unable to get out of 4th gear due to the wind.
Average : 45 mpg
Best: 62 mpg, must have had a tail wind on the M-62

One that's useless:

BMW R1100R

Worst: 39 mpg : calculation error (see below)?
Avergage: 41 mpg
Best: 41 mpg

Shows how rubbish badly programmed FI moving a ton of Bavarian lard and trying to compete with a Japanese 4 can be.

Andy

[trophydave]

One from memory:

1999 BMW F650

Worst: 41 mpg when ridden like a dispatch bike
Average: 69 mpg
Best: 94 mpg riding up Norway obeying the speed limits.

Andy

Andy,was that one of the carbed Funduros or the later FI ones?

[OMEGAMAN]

 

A few figures from my despatching days (when I used to calculate the mpg every time I filled the tank!) 

Average mpg (but around 80% on m-ways & dual lane roads)  & all bikes fully faired + luggage.

                                   AVERAGE                      BEST

Honda CX500B                    55
Honda CX500 Eurosport        58                             69
Kawasaki GT550                  60                             68
Kawasaki GT750 (knackered!)  (1 litre of oil every 200 miles!!!!!)   (bit smokey!)
BMW R80                           55
BMW K100 (2 valve)            50
BMW K100 RT "                   48
BMW K100 Rs                     55                              62
Honda NTV 650                   58                             79 (honest?)

Honda Firestorm (current bike, no more despatching?)     32 ish? (ouch!)

[bullet350]

Some figures of no use to anyone, but probably of interest:

DAF XF 480 Super Cab:

14mpg all the time (usually 56mph), trip computer could display 1mpg when accelerating from rest.

mine looked like this but with twin rear axles on the unit, and a refrigerated trailer (10 ton unladen!).

http://www.lkw-infos.net/images/themengalerien/showtrucks/nuerburgring-2004/teil-2/DAF-95-XF-480-Transit-100704-1.jpg

I thought this was quite good, considering what some 4x4's get to the gallon.

bullet350

[guest27]

Not a bike either....

Some time back I had a BMW 325SE and tried to keep the trip computer over 30mpg - not too hard.  However the other fun bit was playing and keeping the MPG below 10 - had to drive like a plank in the lower gears, OR risk the license big time - but taught me a lot, then I hit some black ice and wrote it off. Not prating about it must be said mind.

used to expect the RD500 to hit reserve about 120 miles, got this below 100 on the IoM and up to 140 taking it really carefully - forgot wallet for a refill.

Triton had a 5 gal tank and this lasted about 4 years.. or so it seemed, mind Terry Hobbs (of Terry Hobbs fame) reconed that I was not riding it properly as he has big 7 gal tanks for his racing Tritons so they could do 2 or was it 3 laps of the IoM without stopping.

R

Not real mpgs.