RickNY

LOL... Ethanol!

RickNY

You're missing the point completely on that method of checking fuel economy.. You are completely removing the majority of fuel usage out of the equation -- acceleration. Second - the dealer did it on a one mile stretch of roadway. The sample is much to small to draw a conclusion such as "The truck is getting 21.7 MPG"

depami

Water.

depami

It's a comparison only. They have nothing else to go by. If the brakes were dragging or a wheel bearing were over tight, it would show up in their test.

Re-flashing and changing shift pattern could certainly change mileage but they have no way to check for that.

There are so many other possible variables that could be responsible that you really can't blame it on the dealer even though it's seems compelling that they caused it.

Have them flash it back to what it was and see what mileage does.

jeffinthebag

You never heard of a gas station getting caught putting water in the tanks? When the tanker pumps all the gas into the underground storage tanks. Someone will pump water into the tanks intentionally. If it is to much, the car will ping on acceleration. To much water and your caught. If you own 3 or so gas stations, by diluting (cutting) the gas with some water will put $50k of pure profit right in your pocket yearly.
Not ethical, Not right but it is done everyday all over the country.
I know a few stations that got caught several time and lost their franchise under one name and a month later it's a new major name franchise.
In your tank form regular consendation their is water.
Just saying.............

RickNY

Clearly I'm not getting anywhere here.. If you have a vehicle that has an EPA sticker that is rated for 15 City, 19 Highway, with 17 combined -- and in reality, you see a combined MPG of 14.1 MPG over 10K miles for a vehicle that is a) driven conservatively b) not used for towing or hauling -- and that doesn't bug you a bit, well thats fine..

I don't want to hear about the EPA test being done under "optimal conditions" and that nobody should expect to achieve those numbers. Since the EPA changed the testing methodology several years ago, every vehicle I've had from Nissan and Mazda all fell right in the range of what their EPA ratings were. No -- I did not buy a truck for fuel economy -- who does? But when I was shopping for a vehicle, I compared the stickers between my choices - and while fuel economy wasn't the primary factor for my choice of the F-150, it did play a role. If Ford wants to tweak the numbers and stay within the EPA guidelines for the test to advertise better than realistic numbers - they can do that. Other manufacturers report what the consumer can reasonably achieve.

The deception in economy carries through to the vehicle electronics as well -- since they know most people are going to look at the dash and see what the vehicle is reporting, instead of logging their mileage.. One just has to look at my lifetime trip meters to see how off these numbers are:

Last Tank (what dash said):



Lifetime (Trip B which has never been reset -- miles flipped at 10K, so its 10535):



And then the reality:




I'll live with it.. My complaint wasnt the actual economy -- but the methodology the dealer used to dismiss my concerns about it.

sdmartin65

Water dilution ....that's complete nonsense. When water gets into the tank it will be pumped out in its entirety before any fuel.

depami

WOW! Thanks for this useful thread. I learned a lot. I never would have expected that any of the manufacturers would mislead us on economy.

Are the brakes okay now? Did Ford have a problem with rotors?

jeffinthebag

I'm saying water put into the gas stations tank intentionally so they can make a pure profit. It's fraud and illegal, but they why they lose their franchise license. It's done every my friend, like it or not.

RickNY

Thanks for the sarcastic jab.. Ford cut the rotors and de-glazed the original pads and stuck them back on. They work fine now.. Then again, they worked fine when I got the truck new 11 months ago. We'll see what happens in another 11 months.