Originally Posted by GearheadGeek

Huh... I just see dirt on the step bar, and a dipstick in the foreground.

Originally Posted by tommott77

Hi all,

Posted here in search of advice on finding the right used truck for myself a couple times. Well I finally bought a well-equipped XLT 2.7L Ecoboost 4x4 Supercrew. This is first foray into modern automobiledom and was very impressed with this new fangled wizardry gadgetry (Synch, reverse camera, ect) that has now entered my life along with the initial build quality of the truck itself when I first took possession of it Saturday night.

Just to give you some background I bought this truck to make some near 1000 miles round trips from Wilmington NC to the mountains to build a cabin on some property we bought. I was initially considering the Ram 1500 ecodiesel as fuel economy was my #1 concern with any truck on the trip. Found that the ecodiesels were having a bunch of problems and right about the time I was looking to purchase the EPA laid down the hammer, causing Chrysler to not sell any 2017s, and leading the demand and prices on the used trucks to skyrocket....to the point where the most efficient F150 (or so I thought) became a better option.

It was when I started my 700 mile trip back home with the truck from Cinncinati OH to Wilmington NC the next morning when my glee turned outright horror for a bit. AS soon as I hit the highway home I reset the MPG meter and the first hundred miles or so of the the trip the readout was indicating 17.5 MPGs! It was cold and in the teens when I left. The initial highway was very flat with very little traffic. The numbers improved a bit when I got into the mountains where it warmed up a bit and the read out climbed to slightly over 20mpgs by the time I was through my first tank. My first fill up gave me true MPGs of around 19.2. The rest of the trip home saw some improved readings on the computer of around 24 mpgs in the hilly sections, only to decrease again on the flat part of the highway where temps had declined again into the 30s pulling into Wilmington, around 20 mpgs on the read out. Taking a couple trips around town last I actually seemed to get much better MPG in the city than I did for the most of the highway drive.

Is there anything for me to be concerned about? As stated the largest factor of getting this exact truck was for its perceived highway efficiency. I did some quick research on this on the topic on a couple of my stops and did find that there seems that others have had some issues with MPGs in cold weather as well. I'll be doubling checking things like tire pressure, and oil level today, but want see if there is anything else I should be aware of or keep an eye on? EPA has the truck rated at 23 mpgs on the highway. On the computer I probably averaged right around 21 mpgs, but that seems to be about 1 mpgs optimistic from own calculations. For what its worth the previous owner had a 8000 something mile trip on the computer that had a total MPG measure of 18.7 mpgs, which doesn't seem bad if that includes mixed type driving, but there is no way to know for sure that it was predominantly highway driving.

Any input/shared experiences would be greatly welcomed. Here's a pic of my new (used) pertty truck as well....

Originally Posted by Aashu

On a 3.73 diff, I find it avg 1.5 mpg lower than a 3.55 .