Leigh2

I bought a 2011 F150 with the V6 twin turbo Ecoboost engine that comes with their Max Towing package. ~11,500 lbs towing capacity. I get asked all the time what I think of the new engine so here's some data after a long trip. The Trailex with GT3 and spares weighs about 6,000 lbs....towed empty to Miller and returned with the car loaded...long trip. You can see that the mileage isn't very impressive...did the whole trip at ~75 mph, rain, heavy winds, 6000 ft+ altitude, some sun. Tows very nicely but disappointing fuel economy, no difference with the car in the trailer. Lots of power, climbed over all three Continental Divide crossings with little drama. Cool electronics...sway control...built in brake controller...turn signals auto-blinks 3 times without trailer and 5 times with trailer. Very comfortable truck...

J richard

Wow, thanks for posting. I was really torn about not getting one, as the tundra gets about 13mpg towing my aluminum enclosed loaded with one of the cars, I was thinking the ecoboost would be the dream solution between the 5.4 and the diesel...guess not. How's the mileage around town? Nice truck tho...

M758

My 2500 v10 dodge got me 10 mpg towing my open trailer to and from miller from phx. It got about 8 mpg with me 24 steel enclosed. I figure that is 7000 lbs with 1500 lbs in the bed of the truck. For me I need the payload of a 2500 as half tons won't carry the weight, but it will pull it.

My v10 gets me 13 mpg empty. Yikes. There is a reason the 99 has only 65k miles. Tows great. If I could get an 8200 lbs F150 with a 6.5 ft bed and ecoboost I would consider changing.

Circuit Motorsports

If you are strictly towing with a truck the ecoboost is a bad idea from what I've seen and I don't think anyone said otherwise. 10.4 with the low profile Trailex is less than I would have expected. I did better than that with a full 7 foot interior trailer with the older Tundra. Where the ecoboost is supposed to excel is at around town and unloaded driving and I haven't heard much about what people are seeing real world in that setting.

Leigh2

18 mpg is the best I've done on the highway and typical city/freeway is 14 to 16. Not quite sure where Ford gets their figures from...even toodling around in snooze mode the mileage doesn't improve much.

Rich Sandor

I have a customer with 10,000km on his ecoboost Platinum F150, and he's had it for 1 month. I lent him a 2010 5.4L Platinum for a few days while his was in for service, and he absolutely hated the 5.4 and couldn't wait to get his ecoboost back. He says the fuel economy and torque on the ecoboost is significantly better compared to the 5.4L. He's doing mostly highway driving going into logging roads way up in the mountains to oversee logging operations. He frequently carries 1 or 2 quads on the truck and says he doesn't notice much difference in fuel economy with or without them, but he is getting around 14-15 L/100km which is about 20mpg.

FYI: the fuel economy numbers on the window sticker are NOT done by Ford or by any vehicle manufacturer. They are done by an independent agency (Energuide in Canada, I dunno who it is in the states) and they are tested based on 20,000km per year on flat roads with 55% city and 45% highway driving. I always tell my customers straight up that they are NOT an indication of what your actual fuel economy may be, but rather a benchmark as to how this vehicle compares to another vehicle, since they were both put through identical tests. The economy depends more than anything on how you drive. No one ever admits to driving in a non-economical fashion, but of course when I ride along and tell them point blank that they have a heavy foot, they get offended. On the plus side I can say that the economy does improve a little bit once the engine is about 6months old.

Also, be careful with the trailer sway control if you have a mechanical anti-sway bar on your tow rig. The trailer sway electronics may fight with the mechanic anti-sway bar. This is covered in your owners guide.

Another inside hint is to keep an eye on your transmission fluid or tranny case. There was a very small run of transmissions made in May or June that had imperfections in the tranny pump seal.. which means those few trucks may be dripping tranny fluid, or at worst puke it all out and put you in limp mode or strand you. I would suggest you drop by your dealer, ask them if they know of the problem, and if yours was built during that date.. may be better to swap in a non-faulty transmission now rather than have it fail at the top of the rockies.

Other than that one small issue that only affects a few units, they've proven to be great trucks so far. Everybody that's bought one from our store is loving theirs, and we sell a lot of trucks to guys who KNOW trucks.

J richard

Joe, I almost went your rout and got a tow only truck and got an old ford f250 D. Made a lot of sense but between the business tax break and the parking situation, a compromise DD made sense, that's where I really like the F150, they are very nice trucks. The tundra is getting 15 pretty consistently now that it's broken in, so I guess I haven't left much on the table.

I'll bet the 4x4 is the reason you're not getting the stated mileage, that or the tow package drops the diff ratio, they get to play a lot of games with trucks, the aren't required to even state mileage on the 3/4 tons...

jrgordonsenior

Peter those are disappointing numbers. I fully expected 14-15 expecially when only towing 6-7k and such a low profile trailer. My F350, CC, 4 x 4, with 4:10 R&P gets better mileage towing 7-8k.....

ukrbmw

DITTO that - I pull a 12K trailer with a Cummins and average around 9-10 depending on where we are going. Not as impressive as I was expecting for this thing.

M758

I have found that the ecoboost gets similar mileage to any big gas motor. Dodge 8.0 v10, GM 8.1, ford v10 6.8 when towing. Hey 420 ft-lbs takes a lot of fuel to generate. It should do much better empty as with turbos you should be able to stay off boost.

Jim my dodge has worked out well, but it is tow only and if I need to daily drive it I might replace it. The good thing is the big gas motor is easy keep going. No special diesel maintenance. The gas motor can sit for 2 months and fire up without drama. Plus it was a lot cheaper that a diesel. If I had a 10 mile commute might daily drive it, but with a 38 mile one way drive 12mpg is not acceptable and 18 mpg is not much better. At least my 530 gets 28-29.

Leigh2

At one point in the trip it was getting around 12mpg but it's a tough trip from Edmonton to Salt Lake. You climb from 2400 ft to almost 7000 ft and through mountains for most of Southern Montana, Idaho and Utah. Plus the prevailing wind from southern Alberta through to Northern Idaho is always a factor. We were also in a hurry so the needle was at 122kph ~75mph the whole way with little consideration for fuel economy.
I had the truck into the dealer just before the trip for an oil change and had a 5.4 F150 loaner which was terrible compared to the ecoboost. Last trip down to Salt Lake empty the average mileage was 15.4 l/100 km so about 15 mpg (us), again wind and speed were factors. no question slowing down a bit would help the mileage.

Eifeler

We were holding off on replacing the Expedition EL hoping the Ecoboost would provide a significant mileage improvement. Sounds like mileage is about the same or perhaps marginally better but with more torque. Hopefully as the platform matures they will be able to tweak a little more efficiency out of it.

Potomac-Greg

Efficiency aside, it will be interesting to see how these smaller, boosted engines hold up. I suppose that if you build them right, they should be able to withstand the stress. I have to believe that, with a trailer, those turbos are spooled up almost the entire time.

The European turbo diesels used in truck (e.g. Sprinter) and SUV platforms are generally 3.0 liters or less.

Lemming

Heck, my F250 turbo diesel (6.4L) is spooled up (20lbs) most of the time I'm pulling my 28' trailer

jonmacs22

there is a key factor that people are not discussing. The OP purchased the Max Tow Package which raises the diff ratio to 3.73 and 11,300 towing capacity. Alternatively, he could have ordered the truck with the Ecoboost and all of the towing options (integrated controller, anti-sway, etc) but without the Max package and the diff ratio would have been a 3.31 with 8200lbs of towing capacity.

The impressive fuel mileage results have all been with the 3.31 ratio (16 city / 22 highway, unloaded). If I were towing only a Trailex, this is what I would have selected if I was worrying about mileage.