Kodiak Bear

I have about 16K on my 2013 3.5L Ecoboost, which I bought new just under a year ago. No problems whatsoever, I love the way the engine just purrs like a kitten, and no shortage of "umph" when you kick it. I've made a couple of 2000 mile round trips with it, averaged around 20-21 MPG over the road, (generally around 19.5 around town) mostly eastern seaboard flatlands. My real test will be next month, when we make a 2000 mile trip from Florida to Arizona, and will be towing a 6X12 U-haul, not at full capacity, but definitely with a decent payload. I have no idea what to expect as far as MPG on this trip, anyone got and ideas? My truck specs are in the signature line, the trailer, well, the advertised empty weight is 1920lbs, max payload, 2480, trailer GVW 4400lbs max. Just guessing on my trailer weight, an ATV, some furniture, lots of boxes of stuff, etc. let's say about 1500 lbs of "stuff," which would make for around 3500 lbs being towed.

Anyone with a similar vehicle had any experiences with a similar scenario? Would appreciate some idea of what I might expect as far as MPG.

mvander

Your mpg while towing will be largely dictated by the aerodynamics of the trailer.

Big flat front enclosed trailer I would expect no more than 13mpg on a good day.

Lower profile will get you better.

atwowheelguy

Georgia to Colorado and back. 9800 lbs. GCVW as weighed on the CAT scales. 6x14x6 v-nose enclosed. 4276 miles. Includes about 800 miles IN the Colorado mountains. 16.2 mpg.

acadianbob

As previously stated, it will largely depend on the aerodynamics of the trailer; and road speed; and wind direction/velocity.

I would guess 10 to 13 mpg. We get 11 mpg pulling a 5,500 lb RV trailer at 60 mph.

Myersd1

My truck won't come close to that empty driving Miss Daisy around. Congrats!

smokeywren

My 2012 F-150 is almost identical to yours, except I have the 6.5 bed. Last year I towed my 7x14 enclosed cargo trailer from west Texas to the Snake River on the Oregon border and back. (Ontario OR on I-84). One way loaded to 13,420 gross, including stuff under the camper shell, and returned with an almost empty trailer and grossing closer to 7,500. About 9.5 MPG on premium gas going west loaded to the gills, and about 10 MPG on the return trip. Cruised at 65 to 68 MPH both ways. So with the empty trailer and nothing in the bed except the camper shell, we got very little better MPG than when overloaded about 900 pounds over the GVWR of my F-150. My trailer dragging wind was the MPG killer, whether loaded or not.


Just for grins I slowed down to 62 MPH for a while, and noticed no increase in MPG per the lie-o-meter.. So when those twin turbos are working, the MPG is nothing to brag about.


Earlier towing trips I noticed that premium gas 91 octane just about paid for the price difference. That EcoBoost engine loves premium gas, but the MPG improvement on premium is just about equal to the increased cost of premium. So I burn premium when towing heavy, but otherwise run regular unleaded 87 octne.

brulaz

With a an enclosed trailer, it'll be your cruising speed that determines your mileage. And your mileage gets exponentially worse as your speed increases over about 50 mph.

And every mph of head wind also counts against you. Tail wind helps, of course, but I always seem to get the head winds for some reason.

Trailer weight will come into play when in the mountains, during stop-n-go, and if you like to punch the throttle and accelerate hard off the line all the time.

So it depends. My guess is 9 to 16 mpg depending upon speed, wind conditions and driving style.

Norotso

If you go back to the summer months you can see my mileage....

Kodiak Bear

Okay...sorry it has taken so long to get back with a trip report, but after a couple of weeks, we are pretty settled and I have time to post this now.

We left North Port, FL on a Tuesday morning, arriving Snowflake AZ on Friday total driving distance was about 2150 miles. We followed Hwy 27/98 through Tampa, then I-10 to Mobile, US 98 & 49 thru Hattiesburg MS, intercepting I-20 at Jackson MS. We left I-20 at Tyler TX following Hwys 69 & 82 (to completely bypass the DFW complex), then on thru Sherman TX & Wichita Falls on US 287, intercepting I-40 at Amarillo Tx, then on to Holbrook AZ and south to Snowflake.

The entire route is not really "hilly" - just the occasional rolling hill, so no serious elevation issues as far as towing is concerned. Our 2000+ mile rise from 52 feet above sea level to 5700 MSL in AZ could only be described as "gradual."

We took two days loading the 6X12 U-Haul trailer, and we literally had it packed to the gills. As soon as we got it loaded, we drove down to the nearest Caterpillar Scales and got everything weighed. The truck had one of our ATV's in the bed (about 400 lbs) plus me and my wife inside and the trailer. We were a bit surprised that the trailer weighed in at 4500 lbs, about 100 lbs over it's maximum recommended weight. Sigh...* (So much for my original estimate of around 3500lbs!) *Sigh...* So, we went home and removed some luggage, weighed it and such, removing from the trailer a total of 135 lbs. This now put the trailer at 4365 lbs -- still packed to the gills, but now within legal weight limits. The entire weight of the truck, trailer, passengers, the ATV, with a full tank of fuel, came in at 11,280 lbs. Fully within the GCWR for this vehicle & trailer. Then we filled up the back of our supercrew cab with more stuff - I gonna guess about another 300 lbs max, again keeping the truck weight under it's GVWR of 7100 lbs. So, for the purposes of this trip report let's assume the gross combined weight of the truck, trailer and contents were probably in the neighborhood of about 11,500 - 11,600 lbs of weight.

As far as performance, I could not have asked for a smoother towing experience. The truck easily towed the trailer smoothly, no bucking, no sway issues, and plenty of power. I experimented with the sway control somewhat and decided that unless I encountered some sway issues I was probably better off without it. So for pretty much the entire trip, sway control was not utilized. There was never any problem and I had no issues with any lack of power. Clearly this F-150 3.5L EcoBoost combination has been designed to do its job, and on this trip it did it well.

I'm posting some pics with this report, and you can see from the trip odometer that our overall average moving nearly six tons of weight over 2100 miles was right at 12.5 miles to the gallon. I was not unhappy with this figure. I also discovered that regardless of what U-Haul recommends, the 6X12 can easily be towed over 55mph with no problems. A couple of times we hit 80 on the Interstate going around some tractor-trailers, but for the most part we found a comfortable cruise at around 65mph. Seemed a good compromise between not going to slow, yet not too fast as to seriously affect fuel consumption. Being used to getting around 500 miles to a tankful in our routine usage of the vehicle, we discovered on this trip we had to belly up to the fuel pumps about every 250 miles - just to maintain a decent reserve fuel level. (At around 55-60mph I could boost the MPG to around 13 or so. If I drove at 70-75, the MPG dropped to around 11.5)

Overall it was one of the easiest cross-country towing trips I've ever made. I just love my F-150 and the EcoBoost engine even more. Hopefully this report will provide some insight for other truck owners as to what you might expect when towing with this model. For me, all I can say is I am one happy camper!


My wife is the consummate loadmaster. Notice the lack of any wasted space!




In our Florida driveway ready to go!




Just got the weight certificate...




Rest stop somewhere in New Mexico.




End of trip. Well, in this case, the figures don't lie!

130428

thanks for the report... Wifey looks like "dude, when you're done taking pics for your online buddies, maybe you can get your *** in here and give me a hand", no?

glad to hear you enjoyed the tow, hopefully I'll do the same thing across Canada in 2-3 years time! (one way that is!)