Fuel Mileage

Gas warning light comes on around 55 mile mark for me. Got a 3.0 gallon tank sitting in the garage I need to put on.

Jbbarrette wrote:

Gas warning light comes on around 55 mile mark for me.

55 miles????? Ouch.

You sure tank was full when you reset odometer?
You didn't disconnect battery at some point from last fill up did you?

Did bike take at least 1.5 gallons of gas to refill after this?

Locking gas cap?
No leaks?

Did you spend the entire tank running at about 90 mph on interstate?

Just commuting to work and back, less than 3 miles each way.
No leaks that I can see. It's a stock '09 with some after market Maxxis dirt tires (I'm sure that doesn't help). Took about 1.5 gallons after the light came on.

I just picked up the bike a month or so ago. Had only 550 miles on it

Jbbarrette wrote:

Just commuting to work and back, less than 3 miles each way.
No leaks that I can see. It's a stock '09 with some after market Maxxis dirt tires (I'm sure that doesn't help). Took about 1.5 gallons after the light came on.

I just picked up the bike a month or so ago. Had only 550 miles on it

Maybe you accidentally reset your odometer?

Check it again. No way you should be getting less than 40 mpgs.
You should be in the 50-60 mpg range at least. Regardless of tires.

Had the same thing now on 2 tanks.

Need to clean the air filter I guess and have a look around. I don't see or smell any leaks, but I guess you never know!

Check your battery terminals too.

I recall one member got really angry over a very bad mpg reading until he realized he'd disconnected battery to work on something and that apparently reset his trip odometers to zero.

You have a stock bike? Stock gearing? 13/43 ? No speedohealer or speedoDRD device?

No efi programmer?

100% stock?

36 mpg is unheard of unless there's a problem with bike, or (don't get angry here - just saying what's happened) operator error, or bad math.

Completely stock except the tires. I've never touched the battery and know for sure I didn't accidentally reset the odometer.
But I'll check the battery and look for leaks and give the air filter a good cleaning.

Ya, I'll say I was quite shocked at the low mileage. Bike seems to run fine otherwise, but I guess I have nothing to compare it to.

I was getting 200 km's (124 miles) per tank before the mods (stock).

Now I'm getting 100 km's (62 miles) before my light comes on.

Filling it up with 5.5 L (1.45 gal).


FMF Programmer @ 3-4-0.5-8-6-4
FMF PowerBomb
FMF Q4
Ultimate Airbox Mod
K&N
Stock Gearing

Yesterday I got 53.5 MPG with only gearing ,13/48, changed on the bike. Speedo is calibrated by gps and I flog on it most of the time i'm riding. Bike is an 08 with 3,600 miles.   

Be aware that a Canadian/Imperial gallon is 17% larger than a US gallon (4.5l vs. 3.78l)
I tend to get around 4.3l/ 100km's in the city/mixed use, up to about 3.8 l/100km (62 miles) on the highway. Stock bike, geared down to 13/47 with DS tires, or x wheels/tires with 13/45.

Off road? yeah, this bike is pretty thirsty  I probably am around 6l/100km's