This Honda PCX 125 PCX 150 showdown pits a Honda 125 PCX against its replacement, the PCX 150 for fuel economy, top speed and other performance differences.
A good Norwegian friend of mine, who owns a condo several floors above mine, already owned a PCX. He often drove it from Pattaya to Rayong to visit one of his Norwegian pals. So it didn’t take much to convince him to help me perform a comparative road test. We would pit his Honda 125 PCX against the 150 c.c. model that had just replaced it. Bottom line for Peter was, would the new model outperform his 125 enough to convince him to upgrade.
Theoretically, the PCX 150 should have a higher top end and accelerate faster than its 125 c.c. predecessor
at the expense of poorer fuel economy. But Peter, who had helped me do the 135 Yamaha Nouvo Elegance/125 Yamaha Nouvo SX comparative road test, and I had discovered that theory oftentimes departs from reality.
Peter’s 125 PCX could never do more than 105 kilometers per hour, a speed he was well satisfied with But what the hell, if you can get a lot more top end and power out of a 150, why not get one? You only live once and the price here in Thailand for Yamaha Nouvo’s and Honda PCX’s is really chicken feed compared to what we had been paying for cars back in our home countries.
So I rented a PCX 150 up the street, and Peter and I took off for Rayong.
For doing motorcycle reviews Peter and I make a terrific team. In Norway Peter works three months on and three months off on small ships north of the Arctic Circle. Peter is truly a worthy descendant of those Vikings of more than 1000 years ago. With Peter on board, we would perform the road test with precision and daring.
To kick off the Honda PCX 125 PCX 150 showdown we agreed to fill up at the same gas station we used for previous road tests. We also insisted on filling up at the same pump to make sure that both bikes were at the exact same lean angle. After completing our 140 kilometer test loop we’d use the same gas station and the same pump. We would conduct our fuel economy comparisons to perfection. So that no one could question the validity of our findings.
Small motorbikes like the Honda PCX or Yamaha Elegance have fuel tanks that hold less than 2 gallons of fuel. So even the slightest variance in lean angle or failure to completely fill a bike’s tank can cause very significant errors.
To keep our Honda PCX 125 PCX 150 showdown scrupulously fair Peter and I also agreed to change drivers
when we got exactly 50 % through our road test. Actually, we never did include Rayong in our test loop. As one approaches Rayong the traffic changes from highway driving to city driving. So we had decided beforehand to do a U turn approximately ten miles before we’d get to Rayong. Immediately after doing our U turns we stopped both bikes. I had been driving the PCX 150 whereas Peter had been on his PCX 125. This put Peter on the 150 and me on the 125. Since Peter outweighed me by more than 10 kilos, we had already agreed to switch drivers. This was to negate the performance disadvantage the heavier driver would impose on the bike he was driving.
I didn’t quite take the PCX 150 to its absolute top speed. But I came pretty close before fear of all the insane Thai drivers around me convinced me to back off the throttle. As for Peter? I already said he was a worthy descendant of all those fearless Vikings in their long ships. So yes, Peter did wring out the last mile per hour out of the 150.
The Honda PCX 150’s performance in our Honda PCX 125 PCX 150 showdown was very impressive. But the bottom line is I’m still driving my six year old Yamaha Nouvo Elegance 135. And Peter’s still terrorizing the neighborhood on his Honda PCX 125.
to get this head to head showdown between the Honda PCX 125 and the Honda PCX 150 that replaced it.