What petrol to use

As motorcycles go, I'm a complete newbie, having just bought my very first - a
nice new Honda VTR250.

Salesman said to use only premium petrol, manual says nothing of the sort. What
say you, please?

 

In aus.motorcycles on Mon, 17 Mar 2008 11:26:38 +1000

If Big's experience with at VT250 is any guide, it will run on
standard unleaded, but be happier on something with more go.

Bike motors tend to be in a higher state of tune than car ones, and
prefer better fuel.

So I'd say "use premium if you can, standard if you must".

Zebee

 

You can always tell when a salesman is telling a lie....the lips move. ;-)

Someplace in the owner's manual it will tell you what is the recommended
fuel.

For a VTR250, I'd be surprised if it was higher than normal unleaded, 91.

You may find that, if you do feed it 98, it _may_ go sufficiently much
further to a tank of petrol to make it worthwhile.

I found this with a Honda Hornet 600.

As they say: Your Mileage May Vary.

regards,
CrazyCam

 

If the manual says the bike will run on regular ULP, use regular ULP.
The 98 octane fuels contain more cleaning agents in them, so you might
find that maybe every 4th or 5th tankful if you pay the extra and use
the more expensive fuel it may keep your bike running a bit better in
between services.

Nev..
'07 XB12X

 

Yeah ditto on the TRX - got better mileage out of Optimax than 91RON
on the open road - inconclusive vis a vis 95RON (didn't try it often
enough to be sure - probably better).

OTOH the Bandit def.didn't care and the KR1 didn't seem to care. Have
only ever once filled the Raptor with anything other than 98RON and
topped up that tank with 98 less than halfway into it so can't comment
for it.

JL

 

JL,

What sort of km/l were you getting with the TRX? i have one of these
motors in an XTZ super tenere and it seems a little bit heavy on the
fuel usage. I seem to be getting about 400 k's from 25 litres.

Regards

Steve

 

You're better off googling it! I know I posted it at one time.

From memory I got about 30-40 K per tank extra - which I think was 280
vs 320Km but I could be wrong - that's 6 yrs ago now. As for being
thirsty, well the bike before it was a ZZR11, the bike after it was an
R1 (briefly) then a bandit12, so no in that company it seemed quite
miserly on the fuel. IIRC it only had about a 16 or 17L tank so it had
decent range for the fuel I was carrying again, check with google 'cos
my memory aint what it was.

JL

 

That's 16km/L, dude; entirely reasonable for an 850cc motor pulling
300-odd kg of big dualsport and rider.

You'd expect to do better in freeway cruise, but if you're doing
traffic or twisties, that sort of consumption is quite OK...

 

Unfortunately all highway miles

Just seems a bit high to me. i know it is running rich, as it doesn't
need any choke even in winter to starrt unless it hasen't been used in
a few weeks.

The scarey thing is the lack of space between normal and "reserve" on
the bike. It's meant to have a 26 litre tank and one time i ran out
of fuel and switched to reserve, rode another 20k's (probably less)
then stopped for fuel. I put 26.5 litres into it. I'm hoping that
was due to leaking fuel taps (which i've fixed now) resulting in
hitting reserve "Late" as that is not a lot of range before runnng out
of fuel.

Steve

 

What do you mean not a lot of range before running out of fuel? You
said in the previous post that you could get 400km before running out.

Nev..
'07 XB12X

 

Hmmm, a very vague recollection pops up about ovalling of the needle
seats (there was some fancy name for the bore the needle ran in)
causing rich running... or was that the bandit ?

JL
(wadded my TRX after 54K in <2yrs so I can't comment on the above)

 

The GSXR/Bandit air/oil cooled 1100/1200 motors do suffer from ovalling
of the needle seats (insert fancy name).

My outfit motor (a GSX1100G) suffers mildly from this.


G-S

 

<hands Big a kewpie doll>

JL

 

Has 28,000 on the clock, but who know how many k's the donor engine
had done before hand. (Did i get the apostrophe right Betty?)

I have long suspected the "emulsion tubes" (fancy name for main
jet???) have done the wear oval thing. I'm going to replace them soon.

 

I expected to get a bit further out of it 450 would make me happier.
Much better then the 03 ZX6 i had though.

 

Has 28,000 on the clock, but who know how many k's the donor engine
had done before hand. (Did i get the apostrophe right Betty?)

<donning apostrophe nazi cap - er, helmet?>

Jawohl, zis iss a perrrrrfekt eksample off ze "klarity apostrophe", zo kallt
bekoz it dussn't fit anyvere else in any uzzer off zose schtupid rrrrrrules.

Ja, I sink I chust made zat up. <schnigger> Or vas it all a drrrrream?

betty

 

Well let's boil it down.
Kilometres. Plural.

a) K's DVD's CD's
vs
b) Ks DVDs CDs

Anyone care to pick ?

 

Use "km" for singular and plural: 1 km, 2 km, 99 km, etc.

So, the OP should have written:

Now write it out a hundred times.


(And no, I don't have anything better to do.)

 

Kms or klicks.

Theo

 

Or "has 28K klicks on the clock."

Has a better... umm... meter.

Theo