Do you carry spare fuel in your cage??
I have found that the gauge in my Spyder (2014 RT-L), is as accurate as any fuel gauge that I've ever seen in a vehicle.
The only time I've ever had a reserve tank was on my first two motorcycles that didn't have fuel gauges. If you have a fuel gauge and an idea of how far you can go between fillups, you shouldn't need a reserve tank.
2013 STL SE5 BLACK CURRANT
SpyderPop's: LED bumpskid
SmoothSpyder: dualmode back rest
T r * * LED:foam grip covers, Tricrings, FenderZ,
brake light strips, wide vue mirrors
Rivico SOMA modulation brake leds
sawblade mowhalk fender accents
minispyder dash toy
Lid lox
KradelLock
Pakitrack
GENSSI ELITE LED H4 headlights
FLO (Frunk Lid Organizer)
BRP fog lights, trailer hitch
SENA 20S EVO
Hi all just got 1 question... Like a motorcycle dose the spyder have a reserve gas tank?? I liked have a reserve tank for that extra piece of mind!
The "reserve" on older bikes wasn't a separate tank, the petcock had two feeds going to the carburetor, the On setting was designed so that when the level got to a certain level it was below the filter screen and would not feed to the carb. The reserve setting chose a feed that allowed fuel to flow until the tank was empty. Fuel injected bikes have a different fuel system and no longer have a reserve setting.
...... Fuel injected bikes have a different fuel system and no longer have a reserve setting.
And fuel injection systems REALLY don't like being run dry (ie. until the tank is empty) so it's best to look for fuel fairly soon after that low fuel warning light comes on!!
Relax... The O.P. is a fairly new member; haven't most of us asked an odd question on here, at one time or another?
I thought it was a fair question. That is why I came on the site, to find an answer to that exact question!
Last edited by Peter Aawen; 08-29-2023 at 05:09 PM.
Reason: Removed pointless Post title - many only see Thread titles, and post titles mess with Searching! ;-)
I thought it was a fair question. That is why I came on the site, to find an answer to that exact question!
It was; and it still is . Glad you found the answer you were after, even if it wasn't necessarily the answer you wanted to to hear!
But please, be aware that before your post, the latest post in this thread was made back in Dec 2015 So you probably shouldn't expect all of the links &/or products suggested to still be around &/or in exactly the same form, & some of those posting earlier are no longer ryding &/or with us...
Last edited by Peter Aawen; 06-24-2022 at 03:47 AM.
Reason: 5 :-/
All motorcycles have a “reserve”. In the old days you turned the fuel petcock down for normal riding and up to switch to reserve.
For most new bikes the light comes on and warns you that you’re low. It’s then that you are on “reserve”. I’ve let it go to where I don’t have any miles left of gas but have gone another 20 miles and had a half gallon left. I don’t do it often as it can burn up the fuel pump.
Though we have the warning light I do miss having to manually change to reserve.
For me for some reason a fuel light coming on just produces anxiety while turning the tap onto reserve when the engine stutters has a sense of reassurance.
Mind you on my RS with the Aux tank fitted I could do 300km+ before the fuel gauge even started to move which meant the main tank became one huge reserve:-)
Though we have the warning light I do miss having to manually change to reserve.
For me for some reason a fuel light coming on just produces anxiety while turning the tap onto reserve when the engine stutters has a sense of reassurance.
Mind you on my RS with the Aux tank fitted I could do 300km+ before the fuel gauge even started to move which meant the main tank became one huge reserve:-)
I just ran mine about 15 miles after the low fuel light came on and I could only get 5 gallons in it. I assume I had about a gallon left still.
If your fuel gauge is working, there is no reason to run out of gas. You have plenty of chances to get gas before running out. If you are way out in the middle of nowhere, do not let it run low.
I got caught where gas was not available last weekend and the distance to empty showed only bars, low fuel light was on and still drove about 30 miles until I found gas. Based on the amount of fuel to fill the tank completely full I still had about one gallon left but I was sweating it.
I got caught where gas was not available last weekend and the distance to empty showed only bars, low fuel light was on and still drove about 30 miles until I found gas. Based on the amount of fuel to fill the tank completely full I still had about one gallon left but I was sweating it.
As you should've been!! . Only that little an amount of gas left in the tank is getting close to straying into the realm of frying your fuel pump &/or doing even more damage to your injector system/engine!! And do you really need to ask me how I KNOW this can occur??
You want details of how this happens?!? Read on if you do - Because it's submerged in the tank, your fuel pump uses the gas in the tank as both coolant & lubricant... so if you let the gas remaining in the tank get too low, below about the last 1/4 of a tank or so and certainly anything much less than when the low fuel warning light should have come on (at just below 1/4 tank - but both the gauge & the light on these things are notoriously inaccurate & unreliable!! ), then your fuel pump IS going to be damaged irreversibly, even if only on a microscopic level to start with!! . And once your fuel pump's been damaged this way, that damage is irreversible short of pump replacement, and it tends to create further damage & accelerate wear as the pump rotates thru use from there on in!!
You might not notice the small loss of power &/or fuel economy initially, because it's so small to start with & then it only gradually gets worse, so it sorta sneaks up on you..... . But once it's started, that damage is there for the (now shortened) life of the pump & it causes wear that gradually gets worse over time, even if it might take anywhere from 5,000 to 20,000 miles or more to start becoming obvious! If you sell your Ryker before it becomes a problem, then you might've dodged that bullet, but eventually, someone's gonna hafta pay for fact that you let the gas remaining in the tank run too low!!
And let's not forget the damage that can be caused if the pump starts picking up the increasingly concentrated suspended crud left hanging around in what little gas remains in the tank as you run it down, something that's bad enough in modern fuel injected engines with the minute solid particles that can be small enough to sneak thru the filter etc; but anything that's dissolved in the gas that's NOT actually gas is just as bad if not worse!! . Microscopic drops of water or other soluble liquids dissolved in the gas will easily pass thru the filters, and once they get into the pump &/or injector system, the heat & pressure can instantly flash them into tiny spots of super-heated steam - even plasma in some instances! And if those happen to hit anything important or get caught between rotating surfaces, they'll instantly blow a tiny crater into it or weld the touching surfaces together as they get squeezed thru the gap, then just as intantly get ripped apart as the surfaces rotate away from each other, leaving tiny but jagged craters &/or peaks on those surfaces that will likely never match up exactly again, instead just gouging a new hole/peak in whatever spot of the opposing surface they hit next time around!!
Those little drops of superheated steam or plasma can also blast holes & craters thru the atomising tips on the injectors too, and chunks out of any other metal or plastic part they might come into contact with!! So not only do you end up with minute chunks of metal or plastic getting ground into everything they touch, but also the injector nozzles can start loosing their ability to properly atomise the gas as it gets injected into the cylinders &/or charge air, meaning bigger fuel droplets that don't burn as well as atomised mist, robbing your engine of power & economy; and those drops can start causing damaging temperature variations that can contribute to creating minute crystalisation spots &/or cracks or hot spots on the cylinder heads & walls, piston rings, piston tops, etc, etc... and that means that gradually, but at an ever increasing rate that will eventually end up well beyond normal wear rates, your engine & injectors, injector system etc slowly chews itself apart from the inside out!!
Isn't it just easier to always use your trip meters to show how far you've come since your last fill-up; to try and plan your trip to avoid running low on gas; to never pass a gas station if you're below about half a tank full & don't know how far it'll be to the next fill-up; and if you do ever happen to get as low in remaining gas that the distance travelled since your last fill becomes too high &/or the low fuel warning light comes on, fill up at very the first opportunity?!? And don't whatever you do purposefully run your tank to empty or even much lower than about a 1/4 tank full if you can possibly avoid it!
Just Sayin'
Last edited by Peter Aawen; 07-06-2022 at 08:43 PM.
Peter - I agree with every statement you made above and believe me I was looking for gas at every turn of the road for over 100 miles but there was just none available. I certainly didn't mean to endorse such conduct just to point out that there was significant fuel available even when the gauge indicates that you are in trouble. Remember this started out with the OP complaining about the lack of a fuel petcock with a reserve selection available. When I started riding many years ago, every bike had a fuel valve with a reserve setting and many years ago, at least in my case, the valve with a reserve setting went away and was replaced with a gauge. I fail to see the lack of reserve setting as a reason for concern. Also, keep in mind that most of the old petcock's with reserve settings operated by taking fuel from a higher level at normal setting and reserve setting just allowed the fuel to be drawn from lower in the tank. If the bike was ridden for months or years at the higher setting and then the reserve was accessed then the reserve fuel was likely full of sediment, water etc. For that reason I prefer not having a valve that allows switching to reserve.
Yep, I too think that whatever one might feel about the lack or otherwise of the 'reserve' petcock, the advantages of modern fuel injection systems largely outweigh the disadvantages (especially on bikes like the Spyder/Ryker) - and I do see/hear a lot of people complaining about how early the low fuel warning light comes on, and some even bragging about how far they can go AFTER that's come on..... all without realising the almost certain potential for eventual expensive damage that they're risking by using too much of that 'reserve' left in the tank after the low fuel light comes on?!?
So I really just took the opportunity of hanging another 'do y'all realise' post off the end of your comment - not that I was aiming the saga specifically at you, but it was such a good lead in & a great opportunity, and there are so many out there who just don't seem to realise... or who outright ignore the risks!!