First Fill-Up

Odometer: 92.5 miles

With 90+ miles on the old odometer, it was finally time to put gas in the scooter over the weekend. The gas tank on the Metropolitan is on the floor board, just next to where your feet go while you are riding. To open the tank, you press the button to pop open the lid, and then insert your key while turning to take off the gas cap. Apparently, Honda thinks that some thieves like the challenge of stealing gasoline one gallon at a time. So, thank heavens for the key lock!

Though I was told that filing the scooter would be like putting gas in a lawn mower, having never actually put gas in a lawn mower before I was uncertain whether the pump would automatically switch off like it does for a car or whether I would have to keep an eye on it. I ran my credit card and started pumping – lucky for me, it switched off automatically because it was full in a jiffy! At $3.89 per gallon, the total tab for my 92.5 miles came to $3.45. The gas pump clearly didn’t believe that I was finished, because it refused to give me a receipt. I guess in this day and age, the practice of “putting a few bucks in” at the pump is nearly impossible. Except on a scooter.

When I got home, I did the math:

$3.45 = 0.871 gallons = 106.1 miles per gallon

Holy cow! That’s even better than the 100 MPG that the salesman claimed. In my 19 MPG Ford Escape (not a hybrid, couldn’t stomach the extra $10K at the time), the same mileage would have run me 4.868 gallons, or nearly $19. Total cost savings so far: over 15 bucks. Not too shabby.