Mileage

[jlemkow]

I am only getting 26 mpg with my new Spyder RT Limited. @130 miles, the light is on warning me. It can't be all my driving habits, can it?

 

[Ivorspyder]

I have used fuelly.com for the past 3000 miles and my average is 26.1 mpg.From looking at a bunch of others who use fuelly.com the average is very similar so you should not be concerned.
I make a point of filling up at around 120 miles.Have never seen my low fuel light come on yet.

Ivor:spyder:

 

[Fusionfool]

I am only getting 26 mpg with my new Spyder RT Limited. @130 miles, the light is on warning me. It can't be all my driving habits, can it?

You will find some other threads on this site about fuel economy. Depending on miles on the bike, you may still be breaking in the bike, so fuel economy may get better. You did hit the nail on the head though, it all depends on how you ride as well as what fuel you use. I personally never put any ethanol fuel in the Spyder. I get the best fuel available at the pump. Prefer 92 or better octane. Next is if you ride with higher RPM rather than lower. I know this sounds a little backward, but Spyders like higher RPM. You will also find threads here discussing when to shift up. I personally shift up at about 5K to 55K rpm. Do not feel as though you have to use all gears. Keep the RPM up and do not lug the engine. With myself and the wife, not small people, 420 between the two of us, we get an average of 32 mpg. The best we have gotten is 37 mpg, but the conditions were optimal. Flat land riding, speed not greater than 55 mpg. Also note the fuel light will go on usually around 130 to 150 miles, when you fill you will probably have about 1 1/2 gallon left. I set my GPS to warn at 150 miles. When GPS warning comes on I know I should be looking for nearest station and have about 30 miles to do so.

 

[Ivorspyder]

You will find some other threads on this site about fuel economy. Depending on miles on the bike, you may still be breaking in the bike, so fuel economy may get better. You did hit the nail on the head though, it all depends on how you ride as well as what fuel you use. I personally never put any ethanol fuel in the Spyder. I get the best fuel available at the pump. Prefer 92 or better octane. Next is if you ride with higher RPM rather than lower. I know this sounds a little backward, but Spyders like higher RPM. You will also find threads here discussing when to shift up. I personally shift up at about 5K to 55K rpm. Do not feel as though you have to use all gears. Keep the RPM up and do not lug the engine. With myself and the wife, not small people, 420 between the two of us, we get an average of 32 mpg. The best we have gotten is 37 mpg, but the conditions were optimal. Flat land riding, speed not greater than 55 mpg. Also note the fuel light will go on usually around 130 to 150 miles, when you fill you will probably have about 1 1/2 gallon left. I set my GPS to warn at 150 miles. When GPS warning comes on I know I should be looking for nearest station and have about 30 miles to do so.

I do everything you say above with 2 exceptions which I guess is the key to better mpg.I use all the gears when shifting both up and down and usually ride 5-10 miles above the speed limit which puts my speeds usually 60 mph plus unless I am in a low speed zone.

Ivor:spyder:

 

[Fusionfool]

I do everything you say above with 2 exceptions which I guess is the key to better mpg.I use all the gears when shifting both up and down and usually ride 5-10 miles above the speed limit which puts my speeds usually 60 mph plus unless I am in a low speed zone.

Ivor:spyder:

This may be Key: I did not mention, I also manually shift down when slowing. I am not sure if it helps the fuel economy, but just habit I guess. It could be a contributor to better mileage I also ride like Ivor states, about 60 mph when I can, but we live in a bluff area with lots of windy curves and hills, so majority of riding around home is as described in my post above around 55 mph and slower.

 

[rock]

mileage

i didnt see how many miles is on your bike..it will get better..we have 2010 rts and it also started out getting about 26 mpg..at around 6-7000 miles it was up to about 29-30...now with 23,000 miles on it, we are getting 33-35 mpg and in perfect situations as high as 38 mpg..i always have my wife with me and we weigh in at around 350....so be patient, it will get better...use all the sugestions you see here, and always use good grade high test fuel...we use sunoco 93 octane when possible...

 

[gypsy_100]

Riding style, high speed, low speed, city traffic, etc will all play a big part as others have said. Beyond that, the fact that our tanks are small means that any variation in fill-up will have a big impact. For that reason I don't trust individual tank calculations but do trust averages of several readings. For example, if you went 130 miles and put in 4.0 gallons, you'd get 32.5 mpg. If 4.5 gallons, then 37.1 mpg; if 3.5 then 28.9 mpg. Big differences from only a half-gallon either way. You can easily vary that much based on the pump accuracy, whether you're facing uphill or downhill, etc. All of this hides the true mileage variation from tank to tank. When I see an amazingly good or bad tank, I ignore it -- it will usually get compensated for the next time. I have a 2011 RT-S SM.

Now here's some averages based on my experience. When I rode to Alaska, I tracked every tank and did daily averages which were usually three or four tanks. Over 8,000 miles my daily averages ranged from a low of 28.8 to a high of 34.7 mpg. I had one day's outlier of 25.6 mpg that may be accurate because of really high headwinds that day. Ignoring that outlier, my average for the whole trip was 31.6 mpg. This is right in line with my daily mileage around here -- we don't ride to the store or in daily traffic, we ride 200-mile jaunts for fun. I'm sure daily commuting would be worse.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[Bob Denman]

A lot of it is your wrist and the loud grip's relationship to one another... pps:
Keep your tires aired-up, don't run the windshield any higher than you need it, Don't shift any higher than necessary; just enough to keep the ESSIE's clutches fully locked.
With that; I get between 31 and 32 mpg... :thumbup:

 

[ARtraveler]

The light coming on at about 130 miles is right on the money if you still have your analog gauges hooked up. You have 50 or so miles left in the tank--but most people go for the fill up shortly after the light goes on.

Your mpg will probably improve as you put a few more miles on the :spyder2:. Most people end up in the 30 mpg range.

 

[NitroCircus Spyder]

Fuel??

So I currently use regular unleaded fuel between 87 or 89 octane and use a fuel additive along with this. If I want to try a tank of higher premium gas will this hurt in any way? Also if you use a higher premium do any of you still use a fuel additive? From what I'm reading on this forum it sounds like if I switch to a higher premium gas that my mileage will improve? Have almost 12,000 miles.

Thanks.

 

[gypsy_100]

So I currently use regular unleaded fuel between 87 or 89 octane and use a fuel additive along with this. If I want to try a tank of higher premium gas will this hurt in any way? Also if you use a higher premium do any of you still use a fuel additive? From what I'm reading on this forum it sounds like if I switch to a higher premium gas that my mileage will improve? Have almost 12,000 miles.

Thanks.

Follow your owner's manual. Running a higher octane gas than specified is a waste of money. As far as I know, only the RT's require "premium" at 91 octane; the RS's just 87 octane, at least through 2012 models.

Now RT's can be safely run on lower octane because they do incorporate knock sensors on each cylinder that will take care of any incipient knocking problems and keep you running safe and sound. In theory, with an engine set up and designed for 91 octane, you will get slightly lower power and fuel economy if you run a lesser octane. I say in theory because it may take you many tanks to accurately detect the difference in mileage. In my post above re my 8K trip to Alaska, I had several scattered tanks of regular 87 octane because that was all that was available in some places. Lucky to get that! I could not detect a drop in mileage on those tankfuls but as I said above, I don't put faith in single-tank calculations. If the drop had been dramatic I would have seen it and it would have repeated each time I used lower octane. It didn't. If someone would like to run a 1,000 mile test with each octane, now that would be interesting.

 

[Wazoo]

I have 1,100 miles on my (new) 2011 RT and am consistently getting 22.5 mpg on premium fuel. Anyone else seeing numbers like this?

 

[Phyxius]

I'm averaging 27.9, had my lowest MPG of 21.3 at last fill up but I'm going to blame that on weather and city driving. Fuelly is a neat app that I update from my phone every time I fill up. I'm a fairly aggressive driver. I like to accelerate quickly. I shift in around 5500 RPMs and manually downshift to keep it around there when approaching a stop.

https://www.fuelly.com/driver/phxyiusspyder/spyder-rts

You can also compare similar vehicles - like other RTs - https://www.fuelly.com/motorcycle/can-am/spyder rt-s

 

[Bob Denman]

I saw almost a 10% drop in fuel mileage when running on 87 for several test runs...
The engineers that say 91 octane don't work for the oil companies; they probably have little, if any stake in just what fuel you buy...
I'd tend to go with what they say! :thumbup:

 

[boborgera]

Over the life of my 08Gs, 19 thousand miles, My mpg was 33 to 38, I didn't drive slow or fast i just drove it.
As far as shifting {Sm5} i shift by ear not by the tachometer, I do that with my Tri, Just like i do with any bike, and car. Also Some bikes that i had didn't even have a tach, The last one without a tach was my VTXc 1800.,:dontknow:

 

[Wheelgunner]

I ride my 2010 RT to work and have 10,000+ miles on it. I use regular gas and get 29 mpg. Only 1 mpg better than my MINI Cooper Roadster.

 

[AnthonyG]

what kind of milage do u get with pullinng a trailer

 

[jlemkow]

I have used fuelly.com for the past 3000 miles and my average is 26.1 mpg.From looking at a bunch of others who use fuelly.com the average is very similar so you should not be concerned.
I make a point of filling up at around 120 miles.Have never seen my low fuel light come on yet.

Ivor:spyder:

So we have a 6.6 gallon tank that acts like a 883 Harley sportster 3.8 gal tank. I had a full bagger Harley 1100 pounds with me on it, 5.9 tank got 200 miles riding as hard as I wanted to. RT Limitied is Tupperware, 1/2 the cc engine and gets only 130 for 6 gallons????

 

[NancysToy]

So we have a 6.6 gallon tank that acts like a 883 Harley sportster 3.8 gal tank. I had a full bagger Harley 1100 pounds with me on it, 5.9 tank got 200 miles riding as hard as I wanted to. RT Limitied is Tupperware, 1/2 the cc engine and gets only 130 for 6 gallons????

Sorry, you can't compare. This thing has the largest frontal area of any "motorcycle" on the road, and the aerodynamics of a barn door. It will never come close to the mileage any bike will provide...and will be worse than most cars because it isn't as slippery. It is what it is...and it's fuel mileage has been no secret.

 

[Ivorspyder]

Sorry, you can't compare. This thing has the largest frontal area of any "motorcycle" on the road, and the aerodynamics of a barn door. It will never come close to the mileage any bike will provide...and will be worse than most cars because it isn't as slippery. It is what it is...and it's fuel mileage has been no secret.

:agree:Could not be described any better.

Ivor:spyder: