Crazy high fuel consuption

[Cypher]

Crazy high fuel consumption

Hi all!

I've been "monitoring" my fuel consumption and I can't believe the numbers I'm getting - 35mpg or 8.5L/100km!

I've seen people on other forums as well as this one posting numbers closer to 45-50mpg and I never expected a bike to be as thirsty as a car, if not more, but that's what I'm getting.
Is it normal for a bike like this?

Unfortunately 100% of my riding is currently limited to daily London traffic, however I'm riding quite peacefully and not doing anything crazy.
Here's a sample of my boring everyday ride if anyone's interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ry9eg2dsqkQ.

I'd be interested to know what seasoned riders like you have to say but for now I'm a bit disappointed that only doing around 10 miles per day I have to fill up every week...

Today, ironically, I ran out of fuel literally 30 metres before the petrol pump F-TRIP was showing 16 miles after I pushed the bike to the pump, which is not really much if I understand correctly.

P.S.
Here's my Fuelly profile which is pretty close to truth: Yamaha MT-09 (Yamaha MT-09) | Fuelly

P.P.S.
Another thing - I totally ran out of fuel and filled the tank up to the very brim. I managed to squeeze in 13.08 litres. Where is the missing litre? I thought the fuel tank was supposed to be 14 litres :?

 

[Chris West]

That doesn't sound good Cypher.
Are you getting these figures from the bikes display?
Personally, Im commuting from Basingstoke to to Holborn and getting 50+ per gallon (according to the bike).
Can do a wee bit better if I take it easy on the M3 (but that is soooo dull)

 

[stevecbr]

My trip is showing 48mpg on average, and working it out every fill its a bit optimistic, actually around 45-46 mpg. Thats commuting, mainly A roads, so not much sitting in traffic. when on a longer run, ie using a tank in one go and riding fast with mates on sportsbikes, its 50-55mpg. If most of your journey is sub 30mph, with lots of traffic, and the first few miles of a short journey the engine is cold, so the fi version of a choke is on, sub 40mpg is acceptable. Bikes arent that economical, the hondas I have had have never done over 40mpg

 

[SlanGlad]

I don't think it's a normal consumption, even in heavy traffic conditions.
Do you usually go high in the revs? Did you check the instantaneous consumption on the odometer?

 

[marcusfordus]

What mode are you running the bike in Cypher ?

I'm the bloke who managed 68.1mpg on the bikes display for a whole afternoons test ride, two thirds of it being in B mode. Yours does sound low.

 

[rob5006]

Had 63.1 in B mode and recently 54.7 riding like a madman in combination of all modes -mostly B then std and A for a bit of spice here and there (You know how it is, boys will be boys with their toys !)
Is your 'eco' mode flashing up and what gear and revs are you in?

 

[Cypher]

Are you getting these figures from the bikes display?

It's both, indicated and calculated.
The display on the bike shows overall average as 33.5mpg. I had ridden 224 miles (360km) now and have filled up 3 times so far - 9.5 litres, 10.5 and 13 (33 litres all together, or 7.26 imperial gallons). 224/7.26 = 30.85 miles per gallon. Almost like a small SUV :/

Is your 'eco' mode flashing up and what gear and revs are you in?

ECO is on almost all the time. Gears - usually 2-3 around town 3-4k revs. I'm always riding in B mode. Never really do high revs. It's still in break in anyway so don't go higher than 4-5k.

I did some riding today and intentionally switched display to the the instant consumption mode. I noticed that I am sometimes even getting 70mpg when just cruising, mostly though around 40mpg so it doesn't seem too bad.
Yet again, if anyone's interested, I uploaded the footage to Monitoring the fuel consumption on Yamaha MT-09 - YouTube. The consumption is visible at all times as is my style of riding, which I think is rather calm (not predending for the camera ).

 

[marthy]

55 MPG avrg on the dash and 47 MPG in real life. I was able to get 155 miles out if a tank riding 70MPH about steady. 140 miles before it get on reserve then another 15 miles. I out 3.2 gals. So I had a bit of range left but at 150 miles per tank its way pass my expectations!

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using Tapatalk

 

[biggiep]

Bit late to this thread but I watched the YouTube video and I can't help think you stay in too low a gear all the time? You were going for quite a while at 40-45 in 3rd! You could easily be in 5th by that point really, the idea of the triple is to have bags of torque. On most bikes I've owned around town I've always done 1st gear to 10, 2nd to 20, 3rd to 30, 4th to 40 etc and usually ended up mid 40's MPG.

That's all I can think anyway if your figures haven't improved.

 

[Stripy]

Biggie, you're spot on with that.
However, make sure you don't let the engine labour - I'd said the first 1k-1.5k miles you should let it run very freely.

Another point could be, if you ride in through town, and then forced to stop at many light - do you turn of the engine while waiting for green? I do in quite a few occurrences when commuting to work, it makes a good difference as well.

Doing 30 in 3rd is okay. Doing 30 in 4th is also ok, the bike can handle it, and you will see a great difference in consumption just that one gear up - but still have in mind the labour - it's all about looking and thinking ahead of the road you're riding, not just the next 3 meters.

 

[biggiep]

I totally agree, the best thing to do is just ride the bike as normal to run it in, don't have any extremes of too slow and too fast. When running in I go to 4th at 33 and so on just a little bit more. But I have always found it make a huge difference for fuel consumption. I'd never for example be doing 44 in 3rd

Also as a note for running in best thing to do is not go on a motorway at a single speed for hours on end go up and down the rev ranges but without stressing it out.

Totally agree SMB planning ahead is the future, now if only we could drill that into the average car driver!!!

 

[misscrabstick]

Cars these days tend to run out of fuel before the tank is empty, this prevents a "dry" fuel system that causes trouble restarting after fill up, the vehicle actually stops due to a signal from the gauge sender unit in the tank and the ecu shuts it down until it sees a higher fuel reading. Maybe this is explains the lower than expected fill up litres?

 

[misscrabstick]

The other thing is I would wait until the bike has a few thousand miles under it's belt before you start worrying over fuel consumption, loosening up etc.