Yamaha 125 Nouvo SX vs. 135 Nouvo
Elegance: Shootout Review
Jack Corbett's detailed comparison of Yamaha's
Nouvo SX 125 and Nouvo Elegance 135 after a 126-km ride.
Our
route was from
Pattaya to Ban Chan, Thailand. Which is on the route to Rayong. Since I have been unable to find any
meaningful heads up comparisons between the two motorbikes,
I rented a
brand new Yamaha Nouvo 125 c.c. SX for two days to pit against my own
Yamaha Nouvo Elegance 135 in a direct comparison test pitting one bike
against the other to determine which offered better fuel economy,
acceleration, smoothness, engine vibration, handling and overall
excellence at handling a variety of driving conditions.
The Motorbikes
   
   
   
  
Representing last
year's model is my own 135 c.c. Yamaha Nouvo Elegance which is now
nearly 4 years old but still has just under 11000 kilometers on its
odometer. The bike is rated at 11.2 horsepower. Torque
according to Wikipedia is rated at 10.6N-m (1.08kgf-m) /6,500rpm.
It is water cooled but it is carbureted rather than fuel injected.
Stock tires on all Nouvos including the
Elegance 135 and this year's Nouvo 125 SX are 70/80 16's on the
front and 80/90 16's on the back.
However I have
recently upgraded my tires to 80/90 and 90/100 Michelin Pilot Sports
tires which are higher quality than stock while being roughly
15 % wider on both the front and rear.
I rented the 125 Nouvo
SX just up the street from a German shop. Although paying
more than the usual, I know the German owners well so I was sure that
anything I rented there would be almost new and very well maintained.
The rental I got had just 2200 kilometers on its clock so what I ended
up with was my own very well maintained Elegance against an almost new
SX. I figured that if either bike was not well maintained our tests would have
zero credibility and from what I've seen of a lot of rentals, they
simply fall far short of what they should be due to sloppy maintenance.
The Nouvo SX sacrifices 10 cc's to the
Elegance's 135 c.c. cylinder which limits its horsepower to 10.5
and torque to 10.47 Nm / 6.000 rpm. That's 6 % fewer
ponies but just 1 % less torque for the 125. The weight
and dimensions of the two bikes are identical at around 230
pounds.
Per, a ninety kilo Norwegian was my accomplice, not only for the
comparative tests between these two Yamaha Nouvo's, but in my first
shootout when we compared his Honda PCX to my Nouvo Elegance in a round
trip to Rayong. But seeing that I weigh 76 kilos, if I were to
drive the 125 SX and he were to drive my 135 c.c. Elegance to Ban Chan
and back, or vice versa, the 125 SX would have the advantage due to the
SX having to haul 14 fewer kilos around. Obviously, the only fair
way to test the two machines against each other was to have Pier drive
the Elegance one way while I drove the SX, then on the way back, we'd
switch bikes with my driving my Elegance on the way home. I also
should mention that we drove both motorbikes to the same gas station
where we filled up together after making sure the attendant filled both
gas tanks to the brim as we held the two bikes up perpendicular to
eliminate all errors due to one bike leaning more than the other.
Upon getting home we'd fill both bikes up to the brim again and simply
divide the number of kilometers traveled by the number of liters it took
to fill the tanks.
After going roughly 6
kilometers of very moderate city traffic we arrived on Sukhumvit Road
where we were able to maintain average speeds of 50 to 70 kilometers per
hour with several waits idling our engines at traffic lights at major
intersections. After half an hour we were able to hit
substantially higher average speeds of 60 to 80 kilometers per hour on
the highway, once in awhile getting up to 90. However, we were
driving appreciably slower than we did while doing the Nouvo
Elegance--PX shootout to Rayong that we did last year when we were
driving 90 kph much of the time while getting up to 105 kph several times.
This time we rode through Ban Chan to the beach where we had lunch before
heading back to Naklua. On the way home we got off Sukhumvit at
Jomtien where we were forced to detour through a mile or two of road
construction as we navigated down a muddy dirt path to the main Jomtien
Beach Road. From this point on we found ourselves in city
traffic until we reached the gas station just North of Big C in Pattaya.
Before returning the
Nouvo SX to the rental shop I did a city test loop where I
logged another 27 .2 kilometers through
some very heavy city traffic.
Road Test
After filling up the
two bikes at the Naklua gas station near Soi 12 on Naklua Road, we drove
a couple of kilometers up to the lights where we turned down the street
leading to Sukhumvit Road. We decided not to take the main highway
to Rayong as we had done when we pitted Pier's 125 c.c. PCX against my
Nouvo Elegance agreeing instead to take Sukhumvit all the way out to
Sattahip where we'd stop to have lunch. From this point on I let
Pier be the leader while I played the role of follower simply because
Pier does a lot more driving on his motorbike than I do. I started on the Nouvo SX
with the intention of having Pier drive the rental on the way back with
Pier on my 135 c.c. Elegance.
Although the traffic seems to move at a
scary pace on Sukhumvit Road, our average speed was around 50
kph which is equivalent to 30 miles an hour. It is
important to realize that driving a small motorbike in the 125
c.c. class at 30 miles an hour through Pattaya under Thailand
driving conditions is in my opinion just about as fast as one
can prudently drive a motorbike. First of all there's a
lot more traffic here than there is in Western countries.
Second of all, there is no attempt by the police to make
motorists obey the traffic laws whatsoever with the exception of
expecting motorcyclists to wear their helmets, but even this is
only enforced sporadically and only for the sole purpose of
generating revenue for officialdom. On the street I
live on, there's at least one police officer directing traffic
everyday as the school lets out. Most of the school
children go home on motorbikes, oftentimes riding three and even
four children on a motorbike with very few of them ever wearing
helmets. I also want to mention that in the seven years
that I have lived here not once have I ever seen anyone stopped
for running a red light, driving the wrong way against the flow
of traffic, or for reckless driving. Because there
is no penalty to be paid for breaking the traffic laws, people
do whatever they want here, which includes even driving down the
few sidewalks that exist here on their motorbikes. All of
this results in the drivers here being some of the most
reckless, irresponsible in the world, and if this isn't bad
enough there's all those hand carts, Soi dogs and Russians
wandering down the streets. People who think they can rent
or buy large motorbikes and drive them like they do in their
home countries are simply not thinking clearly.
While driving down
Sukhumvit we encountered a fair amount of traffic and had to stop at
several red lights which had to have affected our gas mileage adversely.
But keeping in mind what I just said about 30 mile per hour speeds, I
found that the Nouvo SX was handling Sukhumvit just as proficiently as my
Nouvo Elegance ever did. Both bikes have all the power you will
ever need for meeting all traffic conditions in this area, at least
until one ventures out onto a four or six lane highway. Their
engines and automatic transmissions are tuned to accelerate very quickly
up to thirty and it takes just a few seconds longer to get all the way
up to fifty miles an hour (equivalent to 80 kph).
One can definitely feel
substantially more torque while accelerating at slow speeds with the larger 135
c.c. Elegance than one does with the Nouvo SX. There is also
significantly more vibration in the hand grips. But this is not
objectionable by any means. It's just there to let the driver know
that the Elegance is very quick in city driving conditions. By
comparison the 125 c.c. SX almost feels as if it's higher geared.
But enough power is there. One simply has to reel it on with the
throttle as the bike continues to build up revs. I noticed too
that the SX was noticeably quieter at all driving speeds than my Nouvo
Elegance. I would find out later on as we increased our
driving speeds that the new SX was simply quieter, more vibration free
and overall smoother than my Elegance.
I began to feel that
the fact that the rental bike had just 2200 kilometers on its clock to
my almost 11,000 on my Elegance might be having something to do with it.
Before refilling our fuel tanks, Pier and I would spend something like 3
hours driving the two bikes, after which he remarked, "I could feel a
little numbness in your handle bars, Jack, so I almost wanted to stop
and rest my hands a bit." But speaking for myself, I have never felt that
this slight tingling in the handle grips make me
want to stop and rest my hands, or at least not for the hour and a half
it might have taken me to reach my destination on the several longer
outings I've taken my Elegance. Visions of having my dealership
replace my drive belt started to fill my head as I considered the
various reasons for why the new SX was surpassing my Elegance in overall
smoothness. From what I could determine from the experiences of
other bike owners and what both Honda and Yamaha recommended for drive
belt maintenance 25,000 t 30,000 kilometers was about what one could
expect for the average life expectancy of a drive belt. And here I
had only 11,000 kilometers on my kilometer for the nearly four years I
have owned my bike. But what the hell, it costs less than 1000
baht or $32.00 to replace a belt and then I might get a little of that
initial newness back I had first experienced upon buying my bike
Such thoughts went out
of mind upon returning to my condo however. There I met up with my
neighbor, Lenny, who was just coming back on his Nouvo Elegance from
some errand or another. Lenny had passed me on my way to
exercise at the Centara Hotel. Both of us had our
girlfriends on the back of our bikes, but I had been driving the rental
instead of my own bike. I noticed that Lenny's bike seemed a
little loud coming into the condo parking lot. Lenny then
volunteered how quiet the Nouvo SX was compared to both of our two Yamaha
Elegances. But Lenny had just 5000 kilometers on his Elegance or
just 3000 miles which meant that his bike was barely broken in. I
therefore concluded that Yamaha had simply once again improved what was
already a great thing by somehow engineering into its Nouvo SX even
greater quietness and smoothness than it had achieved with the 135 c.c.
Elegance.
The truth is, the Elegance
is not a loud bike. Nor does it lack in smoothness.
It's just that the new Nouvo 125 SX is so refined and so perfect that it
makes the Elegance look a little rough by comparison. As far as
the lack of vibration on the highway, part of this can be explained by
its smaller displacement of just 125 cc's compared to the 135 of the
Elegance. This means about 8 percent less rotating mass of its piston.
Still, the overall quietness of the SX seems significantly greater than
that.
But is there to be a
price to be paid for all that overall smoothness along with Yamaha's
decision to downsize what I considered to be a terrific engine? We
soon found ourselves on a four lane highway where we were able to open
up our bikes more. If found myself driving 80 kph much of the time
with an occasional burst up to 90 kph. But never did I get
anywhere close to 100 kph whereas Pier and I had often been exceeding
that when we had driven his PCX and I had taken my Elegance to Rayong
over a year earlier. The SX seemed just about as quick to 80 as my
Elegance. If there was any difference, that difference would be
meaningless as both bikes seemed equally proficient.
On much larger bikes
which typically weigh in the neighborhood of 400 pounds to the 230 pound
Nouvo's and their much larger tires 60 miles per hour seems pretty slow.
But on a 230 pound bike with its much skinnier tires, 60 miles an hour
is pretty fast. At such speeds I would have expected my Elegance
to feel a lot more comfortable than the Nouvo SX which was riding on its
stock tires whereas my Michelin Pilot's had to be clearly superior,
particularly since they were appreciably wider. But to be truthful
I really couldn't say that I could feel that they felt all that much
more stable. But there were some stretches while traveling over bumps
that my Elegance showed off the superiority of its tires. Suffice
it to say that while on the highway Pier and I found very few Thais
driving their Honda Waves, Mios, and Finos keeping up with us. I
believe it's all on account of the small tires such bikes use which
causes them to be completely outclassed by a Yamaha Nouvo
or Honda PCX.
Truthfully, a man really can find happiness on a 125, and if
one considers it logically, a lot more happiness than one
can find on much larger bikes. One can easily tour Thailand
with one, but this requires a few words of explanation.
On two lane roads they are a blast to drive and fast enough.
I've toured around Krabi on a CBR 150 Honda, a 125 Honda
PCX, and even a Honda Air Blade and thoroughly enjoyed
myself on all three while not wanting anything larger.
No, they won't do it on American superhighways where one is
often driving 70 to 80 miles an hour. But this is
Thailand where driving such speeds amounts to a suicide
mission. Twice, I've had motorists pass my car
on the shoulder of the road coming back from Rayong even
though I was driving over 100 kph, and had I not gotten my
Honda Civic several feet over both motorists would have
sideswiped my car. I've seen a lot of examples of
miserable driving in the U.S., but not once have I ever
experienced this degree of complete lunacy. I have
owned a number of much larger motorbikes in the U.S.
starting with a 350 Honda from which I moved up to a 450.
A few years later I got a 500 Honda dual purpose XL which I
traded a couple years later for a 650 R-65 BMW. My
last street bike was a BWM 1000 c.c. KRS, a four cylinder
that developed 90 horsepower and which never felt in its
element until one got it up to at least 80 miles an hour.
Although it could do even faster, I once had it up to over
130 miles an hour over a bumpy two lane road. So fear
of larger bikes and higher speeds than these 125 c.c. class
bikes can go is the least of my concerns. I'm just
scared shitless of all the idiots driving around me, and the
fact that the police do absolutely nothing to enforce the
existing traffic laws. No matter how good a driver one
is or how responsive his bike is, it's impossible to deal
with the handcart that suddenly appears in one's traffic
lane or the Thai guy who suddenly pulls in front of you,
stops his bike, and starts to tie his shoes at the speeds
such larger bikes are capable of.
For that matter, even
such 125 c.c. class bikes can go a lot faster than their light weight
bodies are capable of dealing with. Now that I've upgraded to the
larger Michelin Pilot sporty tires, I'd have to rate my Nouvo Elegance
as the equal to the Honda PCX in the tire department. The Honda
has fat tires that seem to be as large as much larger middleweight
motorcycles of the past such as my Honda 350 and 450 used to have.
Because the Honda PCX weighs roughly 50 pounds more than my Yamaha
Elegance even though my new tires are a match for the PCX at highway
speeds, the extra weight gives the Honda PCX more stability than my
Elegance at high cruising speeds. But the 280 pound PCX is not
nearly as stable on the highway as my 350 pound Honda CB 350. For
that matter my old 350's replacement, the Honda 450, weighing it at 400
pounds was noticeably superior at express hi way speeds. The 125's
were designed to slice and dice heavy city traffic and to handle
exceptionally well at urban traffic speeds while delivering phenomenal
fuel economy. In city traffic the larger bikes are simply
outclassed especially when the traffic is piled up bumper to bumper and all I
need is a two and a half feet gap and to squirt through the cars in front of
me. There is no way I can do that on a much larger bike
which means from point A to point B the smaller bikes are much faster
than practically anything else. Around here, over 99 % of my
driving is in the city.
Fuel economy
Anyone who claims that
these automatics suck a lot of gas compared to their manual transmission
counterparts simply doesn't know what he is talking about. On the
roads to Ban Chan and back Pier and I both used 2.32 liters of fuel to
go 124 kilometers. That's 53 kilometers per liter which is 126
miles to the gallon. The trip computer on the Yamaha Nouvo SX put
our fuel economy at 45.8 kilometers per liter. However, this
reading cannot be accurate. Just keep in mind that Pier and I
fueled both bikes at the same pump while holding each bike in an
absolutely vertical position to eliminate any possibility of error from
differing lean angles. We did the same when we finally refueled.
Other than repeating the same route several times, nothing could be more
accurate.
Compared to many
reports I've been hearing from others, these optimistic numbers would
seem to be unrealistic. But there it is--we got the same identical
results on two different bikes. However, when I later did the city
driving loop from my Naklua condo to Threppasit Road with a couple
little side trips in between, I logged just 27 kilometers while using
9/10ths of one liter of fuel for an average of 30 kilometers per liter
which comes out to roughly 71 miles to the gallon. However
these were very rough city miles, as rough as one can get, which
included a number of stops at red lights including one that must have
lasted over ten minutes when the bike was idling and using fuel without going
anywhere.
This city mileage was
even less than the 75 miles to gallon I had averaged over at least
several tankful's with my Nouvo Elegance, and I had often driven my
Elegance with my girlfriend riding behind me. However I must
stress again that those 27 kilometers were under just about the worse
conditions possible. Meanwhile the Yamaha SX's trip board computer
showed a wildly optimistic 45.8 kilometers per liter, once again proving
the total unreliability of the apparatus for accurately checking the
SX's fuel mileage.
Lessons to be learned
from all this are 1. A driver can get nearly twice as many
kilometers out of each liter driving moderately on the highway than he
can in city traffic. 2. Do not trust the Yamaha SX's
veracity for fuel mileage, 3. There has been no advantage
whatsoever to the Nouvo SX's fuel injection system or its lower engine
displacement in fuel economy over the Elegance's larger 135 c.c. engine
which utilizes the old technology of a carburetor. and 4.
The larger 135 Nouvo Elegance seems to offer no meaningful seat of the
pants advantages for either superior acceleration or higher cruising
speeds.
However several days after completing our shootout, I
was riding up the large hill overlooking Bali Hai Pier
with my girlfriend on the back. I could
really feel the torque of that 135 c.c. engine working
for me. I doubt if the smaller 125 c.c. engine of
the SX would have given me the seat of the pants feel of
so much torque. Another advantage of the 135 c.c.
Elegance over the 125 c.c. Nouvo SX is its larger fuel
tank which at 4.8 liters to 4.3 provides an additional
half a liter of capacity, which is good for an
additional 60 kilometers of highway cruising.
Conclusion
In spite of some
possible advantages in hill climbing ability that might be evidenced by
the subjective feel of the Elegance's greater torque, there is no real
advantage to the larger engine size of the 135 c.c. Elegance over its
replacement, the 125 c.c. Yamaha Nouvo SX. Both machines are
equally road worthy whether in the city or out on the highway. If
anything the smaller new offering is even better under nearly all road
conditions due to its having less vibration in the hand grips and its
greater quietness. On the other hand, one should not knock
carbureted engines. Whereas the new Yamaha SX has the latest
and greatest fuel injection technology, the larger displacement 135
Elegance matches it for fuel economy on the highway. And from
the one city test loop I put the SX through, the Elegance also seems a
match for it in city fuel economy.
(small wonder then that Yamaha held onto the
Elegance's carbretor technology for so long
This means the 135 c.c. Elegance with its larger 4.8
liter fuel tank is going to get a little longer range
than the SX with its smaller 4.3 liter tank.
However, one must put this in perspective. It only
took 2.32 liters of fuel on both bikes to manage the 124
kilometer test loop so both bikes had ample reserves of
fuel left even if their fuel gauges might have said
otherwise. Once again in the new 125 c.c. SX
Yamaha's engineering prowess showed itself. As I
have said in an earlier article, the 135 c.c. Nouvo
Elegance had trumped its predecessor the 115 c.c. MX in
a number of ways besides its much greater horsepower and
superior water cooling system. For instance its
seat had been moved forward 2 inches closer to the front
tire while being raised another inch or two.
Most people would never have noticed this, but what it
did was to make the Nouvo Elegance a more responsive
quicker handling bike compared to the MX while still
possessing all the smooth riding characteristics of its
longer wheel base. By the same token, even though
it's lost 10 cc's in engine displacement the new SX is
significantly quieter than the Elegance's 135 and it is
almost completely free of vibration. It also seems
just a bit smoother in its transmission and throttle
response. And it's not that the Elegance is rough
in either department. It's just that the SX
is so close to perfection. Most people wouldn't
notice all the subtle little improvements Yamaha keeps
making in its top small automatic. In my mind this
is by far the best small scooter out there, regardless
of manufacturer with the possible exception of the Honda
PCX, which will be the subject of my next review--a
road-test of the new Honda 150 c.c. PCX against last
year's 125 model.
To anyone who'd like to comment on this
article, especially those who own a Yamaha SX, Nouvo Elegance
or similar bike is cordially invited to participate in the Jack
Corbett Blog.
You might also
be interested in a newer article
with stop watched times of
the Honda Click 125i, the Nouvo SX, and the Nouvo Elegance 135
from 0-50 kph and 0-80 kph. Also included are city fuel
mileage results for all three bikes.
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