Modern Buddy

I did the first fill up on my new Buddy today and I got 74.2 mpg. I would also like to say that the fuel gauge definitely works on the scoot. When it says "E" it means EMPTY. Who knew? At least I didn't have to push it far.

Billy

My 125 won't stop until the needle is lined up perfectly with that last line where the E is.

I'll bet that your mileage will improve. When I first got my 125 my mileage was in the mid 80s but now it hoovers in the low 90s. I only use my scooter to get back and forth to work M-F and I live less than a mile from my job.

You're probably already using it but if not, Fuely is great way of keeping up with your mileage.

Lavish,

I knew the gauge showed near empty but I removed the cap and convinced myself I still had plenty of gas. My Taotao gauge was so worthless it ruined me. As soon as I got the first sputter on my Buddy I knew what it was.

I do use Fuelly and that's where I got my mileage. I topped off when I left the dealer so I had a starting point and used it ALL. It looks like other 170s get between 79.7 and 82.1 on Fuelly.

I fly remote control aircraft for fun and I use my scoot a lot at events I go to. It goes on a rack on the back of my RV. I got a 170 so it would be more useful at home. There is a hill between my house and town that the 50cc just wasn't safe riding. The speed limit is 45 and everyone exceeds that. My 50 was way too slow to do that.

Billy

To be accurate, try a calculation using the first five or more tanks.
My 170i is getting ~105 MPG using a five tank average. Plenty of flatish 50 MPH riding.

GregsBuddy wrote:To be accurate, try a calculation using the first five or more tanks.
My 170i is getting ~105 MPG using a five tank average. Plenty of flatish 50 MPH riding.

I plan to use fuelly which keeps track of every fill up, if you keep up with it. I will be very surprised if I get over 100 mpg. I don't drive like a maniac but I have been especially easy on it since it is brand new and not broken in yet.

Billy

Holy smokes, 105 mpg???

That's AWESOME!!

Steady speed and don't slow down much for corners!

I did my second fill up today and I got 86.0 mpg so my two tank total is 79.4. I think 86 is great.

Billy

I've started a new five-tank MPG test and will post the outcome.

I'd love to compare your five-tank MPG with my Hooligan 170i. It's still new (Only 221 miles so far) so I don't expect to be getting the best yet. First tracked fuel-up was 72.9 MPG (after a couple missed fuel-ups). All of my driving has been in the city if that helps.

One question: Have you found that your 170i engine likes higher octane way better? Something that struck me odd was that putting 87 octane caused my scoot to eat fuel like it was nothing (I was guessing about less than 60 MPG). When I went to mid-grade (89) I was able to confirm 72.9 MPG. Yesterday I filled up with 93 grade and am hoping to see a bit more performance.

EDIT: I just realized I'm getting 72.9 MPG with just city driving. That's 3 times better than my 2004 Toyota Tacoma (at roughly 24 MPG if I'm lucky). Instead of spending $26+ every 2 weeks I'm spending roughly $6 instead.

harpsychord wrote:I'd love to compare your five-tank MPG with my Hooligan 170i. It's still new (Only 221 miles so far) so I don't expect to be getting the best yet. First tracked fuel-up was 72.9 MPG (after a couple missed fuel-ups). All of my driving has been in the city if that helps.

One question: Have you found that your 170i engine likes higher octane way better? Something that struck me odd was that putting 87 octane caused my scoot to eat fuel like it was nothing (I was guessing about less than 60 MPG). When I went to mid-grade (89) I was able to confirm 72.9 MPG. Yesterday I filled up with 93 grade and am hoping to see a bit more performance.

EDIT: I just realized I'm getting 72.9 MPG with just city driving. That's 3 times better than my 2004 Toyota Tacoma (at roughly 24 MPG if I'm lucky). Instead of spending $26+ every 2 weeks I'm spending roughly $6 instead.

At 72.9 mpg, you're in the right ball park. I've been getting 70- 74 with my '14 170i Hooligan. It's now at just over 900 miles total. I don't expect it to get much more than 70 - 74 mpg. 105 mpg? Maybe if I was riding downhill with the wind at my back for a long, long way!

Bill in Seattle
'14 170i Hooligan Matte Green
'15 170i Hooligan Titanium (AZ scoot)

skipper20 wrote:
At 72.9 mpg, you're in the right ball park. I've been getting 70- 74 with my '14 170i Hooligan. It's now at just over 900 miles total. I don't expect it to get much more than 70 - 74 mpg. 105 mpg? Maybe if I was riding downhill with the wind at my back for a long, long way!

Bill in Seattle
'14 170i Hooligan Matte Green
'15 170i Hooligan Titanium (AZ scoot)

If only the Hooligan had a slightly bigger fuel tank. The tiny 6L/1.5Gal tank does force me to fuel up every week. At least it's cheap.

harpsychord wrote: If only the Hooligan had a slightly bigger fuel tank. The tiny 6L/1.5Gal tank does force me to fuel up every week. At least it's cheap.

I've been saying something like that about my Buddy since shortly after I got it.
At 85ish +/- mpg (I don't much pay attention) I put in 1.1-1.2ish gals about every 100ish miles.
It did get to be a bit of a 'pain' for a when my commute was 45 miles round trip for a while. I had to gas up every other day....

KABarash wrote:

harpsychord wrote: If only the Hooligan had a slightly bigger fuel tank. The tiny 6L/1.5Gal tank does force me to fuel up every week. At least it's cheap.

I've been saying something like that about my Buddy since shortly after I got it.
At 85ish +/- mpg (I don't much pay attention) I put in 1.1-1.2ish gals about every 100ish miles.
It did get to be a bit of a 'pain' for a when my commute was 45 miles round trip for a while. I had to gas up every other day....

The Hooli's tank is bigger than the Buddy tanks but not by much. I fill up when the gauge shows 1 bar left and for the last 2 fill-ups it took exactly 1.28 gals. With my Buddy 170i, filling up with the needle on the peg, I was able to squeeze in just a bit over 1 gal.

Bill in Seattle
'14 170i Hooligan Matte Green
'15 170i Hooligan Titanium (AZ scoot)

I rode my Buddy until it ran out of gas. Not intentionally but it happened. I pushed it into a gas station and it took 1.545 gallons to fill it up. The next tank I was a bit more cautious and it held 1.2 gallons.

Billy

If I keep it below 55bmph, I get about 90 mpg.

If I go WOT (about 70 bmph), my mileage drops to about 70.

I have also noticed that if I fuel up at a Chevron station, it's a bit lower - not sure why (getting less gas, or lower fuel octane, who knows?)

Just treated the crankcase with Microlon, doing a little bit better.

It's possible for a bigger motor to get decent economy. I rode a rally on my 174cc Yager while tailing my buddy's '82 Honda MB5. The MB is a lightly tuned 50cc which would run right about 40 with him aboard. I just loped along at 5K rpm or less for the trip and managed 103mpg overall. Steady speed and a light touch on the throttle will do the trick.

Even with overfilling my Hooli (there was gas up in the neck, my bad - I won't do that again) I still managed a cool 76.4 MPG on the last fill-up. That was with premium-grade gas too. I might go back to mid-grade since the difference seems to be almost nil.

My third fill up got 88mpg. It just keeps getting better.

Billy

Somehow, my Buddy can still get places (usually the 1-mile trip to the gas station, as I'm panicking the entire way!) when the needle's resting on the little bar at the bottom of the E section - I like to joke that my scooter's running on rainbows and magic at that point, haha, as there's no logical reason it should still be chugging along at that point!

Fill up number 5 and I got 92.84mpg! I'm pleasantly surprised with that mileage. I won't bore you any further with this but as you see I now have a 5 tank average of 84.2mpg.

Billy

Average all five for an accurate number.

GregsBuddy wrote:Average all five for an accurate number.

Or every 25.

As you can see in my posts, I use Fuelly with each fill up and I intend to continue doing that. So I will have a running average of my mileage.

Billy

KABarash wrote:

harpsychord wrote: If only the Hooligan had a slightly bigger fuel tank. The tiny 6L/1.5Gal tank does force me to fuel up every week. At least it's cheap.

I've been saying something like that about my Buddy since shortly after I got it.
At 85ish +/- mpg (I don't much pay attention) I put in 1.1-1.2ish gals about every 100ish miles.
It did get to be a bit of a 'pain' for a when my commute was 45 miles round trip for a while. I had to gas up every other day....

I'm not even sure it's 6L/1.5 gals. I filled up today when the last bar started blinking. I rode about 6 blocks or 1/2 mile to the nearest gas station with it blinking at me. The most I could squeeze in was exactly 1.331 gals.

Bill in Seattle
'14 170i Hooligan Matte Green
'15 170i Hooligan Titanium (AZ scoot)

My Buddy holds 1.545 gallons. I ran it totally out of gas and filled up at a gas station. There is no question about the capacity of my tank now.

Billy

iwannascoot wrote:My Buddy holds 1.545 gallons. I ran it totally out of gas and filled up at a gas station. There is no question about the capacity of my tank now.

Billy

How far did you have to push it to the gas station?

Bill in Seattle
'14 170i Hooligan Matte Green
'15 170i Hooligan Titanium (AZ scoot)

I was very lucky and only had about 3 blocks, mostly down hill, to the nearest gas station. I pushed it about a block and coasted while riding the other two blocks.

Billy

iwannascoot wrote:I was very lucky and only had about 3 blocks, mostly down hill, to the nearest gas station. I pushed it about a block and coasted while riding the other two blocks.

Billy

As a suggestion, try to avoid running your fuel-injected scooter out of gas. The Buddy 170i has an in-tank fuel pump, so it's likely that the pump is cooled and possibly lubricated by the fuel in the tank. Running low or out of fuel could damage the pump. At $300 for a replacement pump, that's a part I wouldn't want to have to replace.

I have been much more attentive to my fuel gauge since this happened. I certainly did not do it intentionally. Thanks for the warning.

Billy

All these high MPG results are encouraging, as long as we overlook the fact that the Buddy speedometer and odometer are wildly optimistic. I just about always ride with a GPS and know that the speedometer is, on average, about 10% optimistic and the odometer is almost as inaccurate (no, they're not the same, strangely enough.)

It doesn't really matter unless you're going on a trip and trying to figure out if you'll have enough gas in the tank. If the ride is 100 miles, you need to plan fuel usage as though it's closer to 110. Besides that, just enjoy the high numbers, fictional or not.

jd

I just filled up again and got 88 mpg. I also checked to odometer against a speedometer app on my iPhone and found that there is a 6.2% error in that. It of course reads further than you have actually driven. I only did this for 50 miles but it gives an idea of the percentage of error. My corrected mpg is 82.5 but I think I'll stay with the indicated mileage since it gives me a bigger smile.

Billy

You guys are getting amazing fuel mileage. The best I've seen for my Blur 180 is GPS 57 mpg. If I go by what the spedometer says, I get somewhere in the high 60's. But then, we have a lot of hills around here...all hills, really. Of course, my riding style might have a small bit to do with it.

I get mid 80's MPG but it's a Buddy 150 (and CA fuel isn't as quality as that in the other states).

Had to comment cause I ran out of fuel before the weekend. Felt it start to sputter and was "oh no."

The Buddy odometer is quite close as are most motorbikes. The speedometer almost always indicates faster than actual.

GregsBuddy wrote:The Buddy odometer is quite close as are most motorbikes. The speedometer almost always indicates faster than actual.

From my experience, bike speedo's are generally 10-15% optimistic. The one on my Blur is about 11-12% optimistic.

I also have noted that while the speedometer on my Buddy is off by roughly 10% (depending on a number of factors), the odometer is usually quite accurate, as measured by my GPS.

Both my Buddy's speedos are off by 7 mph.

Clydeo wrote:I also have noted that while the speedometer on my Buddy is off by roughly 10% (depending on a number of factors), the odometer is usually quite accurate, as measured by my GPS.

Strangely, that's true. My odometer is also quite accurate. Not sure what's up with that.

After lots of testing I found out that the odometer on my Buddy was between 8.8% and 10.2% higher than actual. That was over hundred and hundred of miles of tests using both a 3.5x10 and a 100/90-10(a new 100/90 was the 8.8%.) I compared distance to both a GPS and Google maps. The 10% is not that big of a deal but over the life of my scooter than adds up to about 4,000 miles.

When figuring gas mileage I usually just rounded to 10% odometer error.

Also, when planning long trips I tried to have planned gas stops ever 70-80 miles real world distance.

GregsBuddy wrote:The Buddy odometer is quite close as are most motorbikes. The speedometer almost always indicates faster than actual.

Please note that I'm stating that the odometer is accurate.

GregsBuddy wrote:

GregsBuddy wrote:The Buddy odometer is quite close as are most motorbikes. The speedometer almost always indicates faster than actual.

Please note that I'm stating that the odometer is accurate.

Missed that, thanks for clearing that up.