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Hi I'm a weirdo who lives in a Philadelphia suburb and whose main transit mode is 50cc scooter (even in this fuckshit cold ass weather).
Some advice:
- practice tight and quick turns without tipping over
- wear helmet and high vis always
- ride like you're invisible. assume that nobody sees you
- wear bandana/scarf tucked into bottom of helmet & collar of shirt/jacket. insects can get sucked up into your helmet otherwise...
- get anti fog helmet shield and if you wear glasses get some anti fog cleaning wipes
- get a cover and use it (i store mine in the seat trunk)
- make sure you know a mechanic who can work on it if you can't do it yourself
- have backup transit for dangerous weather (I'm lucky to live in an area with bad but usable public transit and Lyft)
- don't underestimate wind
- put high octane gas in it. it's such a tiny engine that the extra energy density makes a noticeable difference in acceleration
I spend $2/week on gas, $240/year on insurance, and have spent less than $200 on mechanic's fees (oil changes, etc.) in 3 years of owning it. I have been crushing my debt with the money saved not having a car. It's a powerful way to save money if you're willing to sacrifice comfort, item/passenger transport capacity, and to some extent reliability
I am with you 100% and you're living the dream. I am jealous, but my present commute would never accomodate this :(
Higher octane gas is not more energy dense than normal gas. Octane is a measure of the fuel's ability to resist combustion. Some more highly strung engines require higher octane fuel. Others will run fine on "regular", but have sensors that enable them to do things like advance the ignition timing, change cam timing and phasing, etc to make more power with higher octane fuel. The final camp of engines is optimized for regular fuel and putting higher octane fuel in them won't measurably impact performance (power, fuel economy), but it might make the engine sound a little nicer due to reduced pinging. Not that you would even hear that in a modern vehicle thanks to all the optimization and sound deadening.
But! At $2/week in fuel you have very little to lose. If it's fuel injected and has coil on pack ignition, it might even be able to take a touch more power by running more aggressive ignition timing.
I keep going back and forth about whether I'm imagining it gives better performance or it actually does 😅
I vaguely knew "higher octane" didn't mean higher percentage of 8-C hydrocarbons but definitely believed the misconception that it was higher energy density. Hm.
It definitely doesn't have much in the way of sensors (though it does seem to adjust the idle speed in cold weather through some mechanism). It has spark plugs and a carburetor so no dice on coil on pack ignition or fuel injection.
The mechanic I took it to did say he thought it would run better in cold weather with higher octane fuel but didn't elaborate.
There's very little to run at your fuel consumption rate, so go for it!
It's probably a difference of ~20¢ when I fill it yeah, lol. And doesn't seem to be causing any knocking or other ill effects so no change at worst and real/perceived improvement at best yeah
Knocking is usually pre-ignition and higher octane fuel will reduce that. Knock sensors are one of inputs to the engine control algorithm's "how much can I mess with timing" game.