Early fuel flashing ?

[Johnny Fuel]

I have found the same thing. My fuel gauge starts flashing at ~150 miles when by all accounts I should get at least 200 miles from a tank. I wouldn't consider at 25% fuel capacity remaining "low." 

 

I recently ran my bike to 170 miles, then the fuel gauge started flashing. I drove another 30 miles on purpose (with a bottle of gas with me just in case) and pulled into a gas station. At this point I would expect the tank to be pretty low. When I filled it up it only took 3.35 gal. Yamaha lists the tank capacity at 4.2 gal. Is that really the capacity? 

 

If so, that left me with .85 gal left. At 57 mpg that means I could have driven another 48 miles.

 

Has anyone run it dry to measure the actual tank capacity? 

Edited October 9, 2020 by Johnny Fuel

[YukonPete]

I reported on another thread that I filled my tank to the brim and then did some riding on the local highways at an average speed of probably 85 km/h, just to see how far I could go. I went over 500 km! And there was gas still in the tank. My last bar started flashing at around 360 km, so I went around 140 km with the last bar flashing! Nuts. The gauge said I averaged 3.4 L / 100 km. Obviously, not many of us are going to ride this slow, but it is still interesting to know that in a pinch one can just slow down and go a long way on a tank of gas. On my 3,000 km ride home, when I purchased this bike, I probably averaged 100 km /h (Alaska Highway) and got 3.9L /100 km, giving me about 400 km per tank. I like cruising between 95-105 km/h on this bike which I find very relaxing on my northern roads.  And I'm never in a rush anyways.

[Johnny Fuel]

I'll have to run the tank dry to be sure, but it would same the reserve starts flashing ridiculously early!

 

Have to say I find it hard to believe you can drive 500km on a tank. That's 310 miles. Even at 60mpg that's only a range of 252 miles. Something extraordinary has to happen, like a major tailwind, great aerodynamics, slow speed, overfilled tyres, etc. Are you sure you calculated it accurately?

[YukonPete]

1 hour ago, Johnny Fuel said:

I'll have to run the tank dry to be sure, but it would same the reserve starts flashing ridiculously early!

 

Have to say I find it hard to believe you can drive 500km on a tank. That's 310 miles. Even at 60mpg that's only a range of 252 miles. Something extraordinary has to happen, like a major tailwind, great aerodynamics, slow speed, overfilled tyres, etc. Are you sure you calculated it accurately?

Ya, pretty ridiculous range I'm claiming, but true! I think the key is going slow. If one graphed the curve of fuel consumption I bet it is pretty flat until 90 km/h, but then goes up steeply there after. I was going around 85 km/h, which even for me is darn slow. There were a couple sections where the road was being redone, so in those sections I was probably going 60-70 km/h, for maybe 30-40 km. But anyways, this was my route: Whitehorse, past Haines Jct, then back and then to Carcross and back. Incredible. No wind, stock tires, normal pressure. Maybe I just got a good "sample" of a bike! Or maybe the very cool temps while riding helps?

 

Maybe if the weather holds I'll do another test early next week, just for the fun of it. Never get tired of riding this bike!

 

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