BMW R1200R R1150R/T F800 K1200R R1100R/T R1250R RnineT Message Board

I have what may be an over-reactionary, silly question. This spring, I have noticed that my fuel efficiency has INCREASED. I have a 2008 with almost 40k miles that I have owned from new. The bike used to routinely average 50 mpg, but all of a sudden I am seeing averages in the mid 50s--my last few tanks have averaged over 54. I thought at first I could have been babying the throttle, my commute is 95% freeway under 70 MPH (3-3.5k rmp) and country roads under 55-60 MPH not during rush hour, but that has been my commute for almost two years now and I have never seen that kind of MPG as an average over the whole tank. On my way home yesterday, I reset the average MPG while in 4th gear pulling around 3k rpm, and was seeing mid to high 50's.

There have been no changes to the bike other than I fitted new suspension over the winter. I'm concerned the bike may be running overly lean, but I am not getting any error codes, and if there is a problem, I can't even imagine where to start looking. Without taking the bike to a dyno, is there any way to figure out the air/fuel ratio? (I have a gs911) Am I worrying about nothing at the moment?

I think your worrying about nothing. I've noticed fuel mileage has increased as I put more miles on the bike, back road riding less than 80 mph and I get 50 mpg or more. Fuel blends are also adjusted seasonally so there maybe something in the mix of fuel you are now getting.

As for the fuel map, I know of no way to get one to dump so you can have a look at it wont help much anyway. Some shops do have exhaust gas analyzers that will examine the exhaust gas for percentage of CO, CO2, and other gases which will indicate how your engine and catalytic converter are operating.

Thanks for the response! It's sometimes nice just to get some confirmation. I pulled the plugs and they didn't seem any different than in the past. Funny as it is, I have had EFI for almost a decade and still know little about it.

I wouldn't worry about the bike or anything having gone mad. As the last response pointed out, there are likely benign reasons for this. What I'd do is do a manual calculation, i.e. not rely on the display only but calculate the consumption over 2-3 tanks by hand.

Did your bike switch to synthetic oil? That might give a few more mpg.

I do all the MPG by hand, and the calculations are close to what the computer is reading. Interestingly, I switched back to the BMW semi-syn this winter because its what the shop had handy and I couldn't find the castrol I normally would use.