I've always wondered about the rental prices for jet skiis. I mean you can rent a car for 24 hours for the same price you can rent a jet ski for 20 minutes.

Car rental fees usually don't include gasoline costs, but these are obviously included with jet ski rentals.

A typical 2-stroke jet ski will swallow up to 20l/hr of gas at full throttle, about 600 Baht/hr at current local prices. Add to that a very unforgiving (corrosive) sea environment and expensive replacement spare parts, a relatively short lifespan (5 years if lucky), and it's practically impossible to run any jet ski for under 1000baht/hr in running costs.

What a dumbass, useless invention!

You've obviously have never been on one. The fun factor is unmeasurable, specially away from crowded beaches and/or out in the open sea swells.

:D

I didn't consider or know about the massive fuel consumption, so I learned something.

Now my question is, why doesn't a two-stroke motorbike run dry in a few minutes of driving? Why do jet skis burn such tremendous amounts of fuel in such a short time?

I didn't consider or know about the massive fuel consumption, so I learned something.

Now my question is, why doesn't a two-stroke motorbike run dry in a few minutes of driving? Why do jet skis burn such tremendous amounts of fuel in such a short time?

First of all, I don't think you can even find a new 2-stroke jet-ski anymore- I believe they've all been 4-strokes for about 10 years (correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure they are all currently based on US and Japan-spec 4-stroke motorcycle engines).

A 4-stroke engine of 600cc-1000+cc can easily burn off quite a bit of fuel with one hour of full-throttle operation- I've been on some very fast big-bore bikes on high-speed runs where the fuel needle moved to the left at a surprising rate.

Most people who rent jet-skis are constantly opening up the throttle to full-stop and then chopping it closed- that burns quite a bit of fuel- definitely way more than medium-speed pleasure cruising.

I don't know where the operators get their 2-stroke jet skis, but the majority seem to be of the older 700cc 2-stroke variety.

Jet skis (personal water craft - PWC) are very efficient by regular boat standards, but they still have to displace a lot of water to shift their 400Kg combined mass, and this requires a lot of energy. By comparison, a road bike or car only has to put up with minimal rolling and wind friction. I doubt that any recreational watercraft can achieve better than 3km/litre - by comparison, I regularly get 50Km/litre on the small bike.