Derbi Cross City Review and MPG

[olanzapine]

Hi all, after been out of biking for about 25 years I rekindled my interest in bikes and post taking my CBT I purchased a Derbi Cross City 125 and would like to share with you some of my experiences.
I bought the Derbi bike new from my local dealer about 3 months ago, I was attracted by fact the bike came with a conditional 2 year warranty which is the same as any other Japanese bike.

Having received the bike at my house I worked up the confidence to take to hills and as I was riding the engine just conked on me( fuel starvation), having roll to a stop and fiddling with fuel tap the bike started up again no trouble, after I decided to fill the petrol tank to the brim, going by the petrol pump it's tank was at least 1/2 full, anyhow the same scenario happened twice, I would be going along and the engine would just die.

Contacted the dealer (Monday) who promptly came to collect it and by Friday I got a phone call saying they'd found the problem and all was well and by that Friday afternoon I had the bike back, when I asked them what the problem was, they said it's fuel filter was blocked, I checked, with a torch shining in the petrol tank, and sure enough the fuel filter had been not cleaned and replaced but removed all together.

From then on things seemed to be going okay for a few weeks but I had my doubts, for instance if i was coasting along down hill at 30mph there would be a big step or jerk between the throttle being slightly on and then to off or vice versa, the engine seemed to be running rich.

Then, about 1 month ago, I began experiencing engine cut out when approaching a road junctions or stops, I just want to point out that this was very dangerous if I had cars behind me or if turning right from a carriage way into a country lane?

At this stage, I decided to take the bike back to the dealer whereby I was told by one of their younger technicians that I was trying to run the bike on choke, so off I went with the choke switched in the opposite position, I still got same behaviour, so I decided to try and understand the choke mechanism and found the choke lever wasn't actually doing anything to the spring loaded butterfly, went back to the dealer and saw the senior tech. he took one look at my choke mechanism and said yes there is a problem here and took the bike for repair.
One week later, I got my bike back they played down the choke problem and claimed it was also the petrol tank filler cap breather
being semi blocked, but when I looked at the choke mechanism I immediately saw it was working correctly.After this episode, it was like riding a different bike, at last my bike was fixed.

Basically, the choke butterfly mechanism was just floating or feathering so when full throttle is open the butterfly would close or go full choke or vice versa.

Just the other week I noticed, whilst the bike was idling, that petrol was pissing out of the carb. overflow pipe, took it to the dealer and having shown him the problem he removed the drain/screw and blasted it clean with compressed air, refitted and it has solved the problem.

All seems fine at the moment, however one of the star attractions of all 125cc bikes has to be MPG and not MPH
I decided to check the MPG and it came out to be more or less 60MPG no kidding
Note, hyundia i20 1.4l petrol supermini car, 75kw,99BHP=50MPG

Before you blast me that I should have bought Japanese, the Derbi Cross City 125cc is Spanish however all my problems mentioned have been related to the carb., which is made by Mikuni (Made in Japan), I rest my case.
____________________
Bikes previously owned:TS50ER(1982), DT175MX(1983), XT250TL(1984/5)
Had foreign full license but let it expire.
Current bike is Derbi Cross City 125cc Learner

[Jodie]

Hi Olanzapine.

Me and my fella bought a brand new pair of Derbi's last August as we got a really good deal on them.
I got a cross city and he got a terra.

I had a tank of petrol in and whizzed round happily til it ran out.

I filled it up and ran around til it started chugging to a stop, we had a good look at it put it on reserve blah blah.
Ran it some more til it chugged to a stop again etc...

He had a good search on tinterweb looking to see what this could be, no luck! He was baffled as he's good with engines etc.

The next day we managed to get it 20 miles to a Derbi dealer the next day and he mentioned something about the petrol cap.

It suddenly dawned on the other half that it was exactly the problem that air couldn't get in or out (I've no idea that could be wrong there lol)

Anyway when you put the petrol cap on make sure you put it on with the lift on the flap facing you (the right way round).

Not saying this is your problem but sometimes you could put it on the right way and sometimes you might not as it is easily done.

I have had no problems with it since (touch wood) and get 80 odd miles out of my fiver fill up.

We looked into these bikes before we got them as he works with a spaniard who said they all ride Derbi's and Rieju's over there and they go on forever which is why we got them.

His Terra is nicer tho with with comfy seat and electrics and goes faster as it's 15bhp grrrr.

[olanzapine]

[quote="Jodie"]Hi Olanzapine.

[olanzapine]

Hi Everyone,

Just to prove with some evidence that the Derbi Cross City only does 60MPG here's a link:
https://www.fixya.com/motorcycles/t2748586-when_half_tank_petrol_bike_cuts_out

The op fills his tank up then does 60 miles and hits reserve!, mine does the same and in fact I measured main and reserve tanks a couple weeks ago.
Main tank=4.5l=1 gallon
reserve=2.8l
i.e., 60/4.5=60MPG
Owners book claims 7 litres main, 1.5 litres reserve.
____________________
Bikes previously owned:TS50ER(1982), DT175MX(1983), XT250TL(1984/5)
Had foreign full license but let it expire.
Current bike is Derbi Cross City 125cc Learner

[Jodie]

I'm thinking that perhaps you're carrying a bit more timber than me then because I swear to you that £5 of fuel gets me 80 miles plus.

What speed do you max out at, if you don't mind me asking? It's just that I can exceed 70mph (indicated) and my other half barely hits 60mph when he has a go on mine, and he's not exactly fat at 6'4" and 13.5st.

[herulach]

It will depend on how large you are, bigger sillouette = slower and uses more petrol.

That being said, 60mpg from a 125 sounds very wrong. Crack the plug out and check the colour, see here and here to see if it's running rich or not.

I'd say take it back to the dealer but it sounds like they're pretty shit.
____________________
YBR 125>FZS600

[olanzapine]

[olanzapine]

[Jodie]

Olan...

I don't know where you stand in this situation, sounds like 1 big headache from the start. You've given them plenty of time to fix this and it obviously hasn't worked.

I would have a good look round and see if you're in your rights to demand a new bike.

Tell them how much danger you're putting yourself in etc.

Good luck.

[olanzapine]

[herulach]

If the bowl is overflowing then you need to fix the problem, not just keep draining it.

See if you can get a workshop manual, and go read this page
https://www.dansmc.com/carbs.htm

Read the bit on floats, I'd put money on something being set wrong in there causing the bowl to overfill. If it's leaking even slightly that could be the result of your craptacular fuel economy.
____________________
YBR 125>FZS600

[olanzapine]

[Jodie]

Olanzapine.

I know I'm only "A woman" and don't know much about bikes but I know how to put petrol in and know roughly how many miles I get.
I've had this bike a year now and done over 1000 miles on it.

I must admit I did squeeze an extra 30p in the last time I filled up and that was put on reserve for about 100 yds to get me to the petrol station

T'other half did his workings out for you last night and he gets approx 75 mpg on his. He can also hit 75mph but not the two at the same time, I'm sure

His bike is a total different set up to mine as its a liquid cooled 4 valve engine and has a larger fuel tank and the posh git has a petrol light so doesn't have to chug to a stop ever. He just fills up when I do, and spends about 10% more to do so. grrr.

[olanzapine]

[olanzapine]

[spanglish]

Hi there,
I'm new to this forum, I live in Spain, so natural choice for my 1st bike was a Derbi.
I bought my City Cross in December 2009, I've done just over 6000kms on it commuting to work, 8 litres of petrol does me 300kms, sorry, can't work that out in old money!
I had the common fault with fuel starvation, took it back to dealer, he cut a hole in the petrol cap seal with his penknife! Works fine!

But, check your welds regulary! Here in Almeria, we don't get rain, but today riding home from work, my back box fell off! The welds under the seat frame (X2) have snapped! I don't use this bike off road, so its not like the tire has hit the box, its just snapped, a bit of rust visable on the 2 welds.

Thought I'd share this with you, I'm going to explore the rest of this site now.

Steve

[olanzapine]

Hi Steve,

My Cross city 125 was stolen about 6weeks ago if not a bit longer, no problem though because my insurance paid me out and so I went out and bought me a Suzuki GN125H (made in China under licence of Suzuki), I'm very happy with my new bike and dare I say it, the thief that stole my Derbi did me a favour.

Your Cross city is almost doing 40 km/litre which is very good the most I could get out of mine was 22km/l.

So whats your opinion of Derbi now that your frame has snapped?

Cheers
Olanzapine
____________________
Bikes previously owned:TS50ER(1982), DT175MX(1983), XT250TL(1984/5)
Had foreign full license but let it expire.
Current bike is Derbi Cross City 125cc Learner

[spanglish]

Still love it!

I'll weld up the brackets tomorrow, and be back out on it by midday.
The area where I live is perfect for this bike, we have excellent curvey roads, ramblas (dried up river beds) and the Derbi can handle both without a problem.
Like I said in my first post, 6K plus and only 1 thing so far has fallen off. (Actually, I tell a lie, I've fallen off twice. Once swerving to miss a wild boar, no damage to bike! 2nd, the bike slid out from under me on a corner with a diesel spill, no damage to bike, my knee took i all)
Of coarse I'd have loved to have bought a DT125, but the Derbi was under 2000 euros brand new, with a years insurance, helmets, gloves ect.
Excellent bike for starters like myself!

[Jodie]

Hi spanglish, sounds like you got a good deal there, especially with a years free insurance.I got a pretty good deal too plus the benefit of 2 yrs 0% finance.

I also love mine and just passed my test on it. We live in the country so it's great around all the country lanes. It's a pity Derbi don't do a decent big bike as I'd definitely consider one.

[spanglish]

Hi Jodie,
Yeah, its a fun bike, here I can only ride 125's on my Spanish licence, I will be putting in for my bike test later this year. Unless someone out there can tell me how to get a little bit more out of my Derbi. Flat out on a straight road it tops out at 110 kms. I'd be happy with 20kms more.



For now

[Nexus Icon]

Spanglish.

You might need to shed a bit of timber to get the most out of the Cross City. I've got the Terra and it has 3 hp more (plus a small but helpful screen), enough to get me up over 70+MPH on the flat but a Cross City won't hit 60MPH with me on board. At 13.5st (86kg) and 6'4" (1.93m) I'm not exactly presenting a small drag coefficient when perched on a bike.

[pie guy]

hi everyone!
i have had my cross city for 2 years now and as everybody keeps saying i had carb troubles aswell it cost me £100 each time i went to get it fixed even tho i had my 2 year warranty which done absolutely nothing
anyhow when i got it i didnt run it in it has been off roading since day 1 iv come off it a handful of times and just spent £600 on new bits for it saying all that i have had 80 mph out of it next to my mate on his er-5 i gave it an iridium spark plug which gave it a tiny bit more go and i drilled a hole in the exhaust to make it sound nicer. So its not had an easy life in anyway shape or form but i love it to bits and iv enjoyed every centimetre of my 20000 miles. i dont understand why everybody keeps topping out at 60 mph i raced a cross city the oother day and he creamed me so they cant all be bad???????? xxx