Tyres and fuel consumption
 

I do the same 130 mile journey from Hastings to London and back on my 620 Multistrada most days of the week and I have noticed that different tyres make a dramatic difference in fuel consumption.

Changing the front does not seem to have much affect, but the rear does.

I recently changed the rear from a Diablo to an Avon Storm ST and the fuel consumption immediately improved by 10%. This was averaged over many journeys, I use the same petrol station in Hastings, do more or less the same speed every journey and the weather was pretty constant.

Has anyone else noticed this?

Douglas

Different tyres can, and do, have difference rolling resistences.

Some car tyres are marketed as being especially energy efficient.

I would have expected the front to have an effect as well, but maybe less so.

Different tyres can produce different readings on the same rolling road dyno, same day. How worn the tyre is can affect things as well. I.e more or less transmission losses.

Having said all of that I'm quite surprised you are seeing such a big difference though.
You may also be seeing a mileage error creep in over time. What happens as the tyres wears is that the speedo/odometer tend to over read as the tyre reduces in size, it might only be a few millimetres but it stacks up.

The only time I worry about fuel consumption is when the warning light comes on and I've no idea how far to the next petrol station:)

Ray.

erk -this just proves how much of an anorak i used to be when despatching.
gpz550 - 80mph = 6,000 rpm. Worn tyre - 80mph = 6.500 rpm.
terribly sorry.....

the storm st from memory has a deep tread pattern, 2 or 3 mm deeper than the normal tyres. Undoubtedly this affects the rolling radius.

I have a garmin zumo on my bike, and the speedo reads near on the same as the zumo with a new tyre. When the tyre is nearly shot it reads 10% high (indicated 95 is shown as 95 on gps).

From my experience, doing 90 miles to/from the south coast each day, tyre wear is noticable when maintaining higher speeds (e.g. 95mph). Drop it to near legal speeds and the tyres last much longer (like 1k miles longer). This means a new tyre every 10 weeks instead of every 8 :rolleyes: