Fuel Economy Update for February - 2015 Ford F-150 Long-Term Road Test
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Fuel Economy Update for February - 2015 Ford F-150 Long-Term Road Test
2015 Ford F-150 fuel economy for February.
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The other truck weighs 5150 lbs. and its powertrain is capable of accelerating to 60 mph in 6.4 seconds.
How likely is it that they'll both average 20 mpg?
Both vehicles will be used for towing. Both are still very new.
For what it is, the Chevy is doing pretty well. For what it is, the Ford is doing awesome.
99% city and 1% highway is considered mixed driving too. How about some more details? Recent history of this truck also tells us that at least one of your editors may have left a sledgehammer on the gas pedal.
And the turbo-engines-are-complex deal is overdone. There's cylinder-shutdown hardware in the heads and the fuel-injection system of the Silverado's 5.3, and it all has to be controlled by the ECU, which is major-league number-crunching. The Ford doesn't have that complexity - it runs as a V6 all the time. Is that a reason to avoid the Silverado? Of course not - that's how GM (and Ram, too) is solving the upcoming fuel economy mandates, and turbocharging smaller, multivalve engines is how Ford is doing it.
It all adds complexity - pick your poison. Both strategies seem to work.
I can't speak to any aluminum-related issues - have not heard of any with the F150.
And we're not all leadfoots around here, as much as all y'all like to think otherwise. And many of our editors live miles away and drive the same freeway-heavy route as me. We have flexible hours, so people tend to avoid the worst of the commute traffic, which means most of us are driving in conditions between wide open and bumper-to-bumper. My freeway commute has some traffic, but it moves along at 40 to 50 mph in a slow-and-go fashion, which is actually good for mpg. In those conditions I've set some the longest EV range segments in the electric vehicles we test, gotten the best hybrid mpg tanks.
Not as many as you think live on the densely populated west side, and those that do shy away from the trucks in our fleet because of parking and LA County's penchant for social engineering through miniature parking spaces.
So, yeah, this isn't the wide open spaces of the midwest. But that's why we compare our year-end and monthly summary results to EPA combined instead of EPA highway. It fits our driving mix almost perfectly. With our usual crew of drivers and the same basic mix of driving the F-150 2.7-L EBoost is currently falling far short of EPA city, let alone EPA combined. My single tank two weekends ago is testament to that. And a different 2.7-liter EB F-150 has done poorly on our evaluation loop, a course where most cars fall between EPA combined and EPA highway. A loaner Ford press truck both fell short of EPA city out there.
I've been holding this back because of our F-150's low mileage. But it's past break-in now. That 16.9 mpg weekend should have been over 20 per the window sticker and the way I drove it.
Meanwhile, I drove the Ram the weekend after the F-150. I didn't drive as much freeway, but my weekend average was running at 23.1 mpg (per the meter) before I had to have it towed to the dealer. OK, it's a diesel, but that number was just above the truck's EPA combined rating over a route that had a higher percentage of city miles mixed in. I lost the opportunity to calculate that chunk of fuel economy data when they drained the remaining fuel from the tank.
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The 4WD Explorer I had for over 12 years, got it's best mileage at 120k (about 10% over the EPA Highway rating). It never had a tune up. The only parts touched on the engine were a PCV and the serpentine belt tensioner pulley.
These were not DI engines, so I'll find out that goes as time goes on.
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