Thursday, May 15, 2008
Motorcycle MPG
It's silly when people think about getting a motorcycle to save money on gas. Sure, you'll get great gas mileage with a bike, but you just paid anywhere from $3k to $10k on the bike!
So, I didn't spend money on a bike to save money on gas, but I am impressed with the mileage on these Hondas. My last 3 tanks I've gotten between 59 and 60 mpg. My car gets 38 to 40 and my old bike, a '96 Kawasaki ZX-11 Ninja, only got 37. I'm not saving a ton of money riding the bike over driving the car, but I do have a lot more fun.
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3 comments:
I'm considering a motorcycle to get around town and for weekends when I'm travelling alone to see friends, and I'm in your group of people that are looking for good MPG (seems like the V-twins from HD and Buell seem to do fairly well). I'm also a geek, and threw together a simple spreadsheet to calculate how much I'd save on gas w/ a motorcycle.
Based on 5000 miles/year driven/riden, at $4 gal a 15mpg difference in MPG comes out to ~$10/mo difference in money paid for gas. I use this 5000 miles/year figure to calculate cost differences between 2 motorcyles I'm looking at. I actually drive about 10000 mi/yr normally, currently split between my Chevy Avalanche and Audi S4.
Assuming I only drove my truck (14mpg) and rode my bike (65mpg) in a 50/50 split, I would save ~$100/mo in gas at $4/gal. If I was to use the car (24mpg) & bike, it would be more like $40/mo. If gas hits $6/gal, increase those numbers by %50. If you have and need an SUV, but can get by without it and ride a bike half the time, you could save over $1200 a year just on gas!
Regardless of how much you pay for the bike, they're also usually cheaper to insure and maintain, so there's some savings on those items over your car(s) as well (remember to decrease the milage driven on your auto policy).
Then there's the option of selling an existing vehicle to pay for a motorcyle. If I was to sell my Audi, I could probably get $15k, which would buy alot of bike and some good safety gear, most likely with some left over, so it's not always like your spending $3000 to save a few bucks a month - you may end up with some $$$ in your savings account.
I too have run a spreadsheet or two, and you're absolutely right. There are savings to be had, and it feels good to have 'em. My bike is mostly for leisure but back in the day when I all I had was a bike, it was awesome to get 70mpg (1989 Suzuki GS-500E). It's great that you've got a car to sell to offset the cost of the bike. Save away! (and get good gear). :)
I thought I'd share this website I found. It seemed to be pretty helpful in comparing MPG on motorcycles (I've wanted one for a long time, but wtih gas prices rising, I now feel more justified in getting one ;-) ) Thanks for the math Lee, i wouldn't have worked all that out on my own. Anyway, here's the site
http://www.totalmotorcycle.com/MotorcycleFuelEconomyGuide/
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