Few are in real world conditions. The one I drove yesterday showed an average of 15.6mpg but the instant readout would drop well below that quickly when I put my foot into it on the highway at 80mph. The nice thing about that was it still pulled me back in the seat, lol. Depends on what a person wants and needs. For a mid sized truck, it's nice to have the low RPM torque and HP when it's needed and have better efficiency when it's not.
Hey covey... they still make Tundras ya know :D The only problem, is that you won't need another one for a really long time :D All kidding aside, I've liked the smaller EBs I've driven but seems like MPG isn't quite up to spec. At least you feel like you're getting good mileage with that giant fuel tank.
Yeah, a lot of vehicles make it into the 200K range okay, it's quite a departure from when I was a kid and people kind of figured the life of a car or truck was around 100K miles. I've got two other Ford trucks over 200K miles. One is a 1997 F-150 with a 4.6L with 225K and the other is an 1999 F-250 with a 5.4 (without the electronic phaser design) with 230K. Both are still decent trucks, no rust and run pretty good, I still use them around the farm from time to time. I have a bunch of old stuff I need to sell, probably enough to pay most of a new one, haha. Except for my 1953 deluxe cab 3100 pickup...she stays with me and gets locked in a crypt when I'm gone cause I'm taking her with me when I go, lol.
I bought a new 2012 F150 Lariat with the V8 after driving both. I pulled a tractor with it and a camper and had no problems at all. If you know how to use and set trailer brakes, it was a non-issue for me. I traded that truck in for a new 2015 F150 Lariat and went with the same engine. I like the sound of it, and the economy is really not much different than the eco. And, its pretty bullet proof. If you want the "boost" you can set the transmission to the sport setting and have all the fun you want. Change it to tow mode when pulling and again, good to go. I don't drive enough miles to worry about fuel economy, (2012 only had 27K) but again, there is not that much difference between the two engines in real world use.
Well, I'm pretty much convinced, if I go with a half ton pickup I'll go with the 5.0. I stopped in at a dealer today and the salesman there even told me he thought I'd be happier with the 5.0. I generally take anything a salesman says with a grain of salt but this is the biggest dealer around and they have gobs of both equipped trucks so I don't really see that he had any reason to be pushing one over the other, especially considering the 3.5Eb is the more expensive option. This salesman said that he had sold a lot of the eco's that customers were unhappy with the gas mileage and every 5.0 he'd sold everyone was pleased with. He said the eco's were no joke performing and were fine except drinking gas when pulling and on an absurd level. Which I hear from every person that drives one and pulls much with them.
One more thing to think about. My 5.0 was burning a LOT of oil at only 75k miles. Like 2+ quarts in a 5k oil change. I was anal from day one about changing every 5k miles and ran only Mobil 1 after the first oil was drained. I did some research on the problem and it's apparently a pretty common thing. You might want to do some research before you spend the cash. That's why I unloaded mine so quickly and got my current truck. I really liked my 5.0 but I was very uncomfortable with the long term health of the engine with it burning that much oil.
Thanks, I'll look into that. My current 5.4L uses no oil whatsoever, oil usage is not normal or acceptable and especially not for a 75K mile new truck engine. I will say I'd never use anything in a ford engine other than Motorcraft motor oil though.
Actually many (not all) manufacturers across many different engines print (even in the owners manuals) that it is very normal to consume oil and this is why capacities are so large on some of these engines....oil fill capacity and and operating capacity are two different things...I had a lady get so mad at her brand new $80k Mercedes when she brought it to me with 5800 miles on it and there was a noise in the engine....the dealer told her 7500 on the oil change but they did not tell her that Mercedes prints in black and white that the oil needs to be checked every 1000 miles as it may lose up to 1 quart of oil in that time....i showed it to her in the book and she couldnt believe it....she traded it in the next day....can't say I blame her...just know what you are getting into a head of time by doing a little research....generally though I will say the 5.0s and the ECOs i see (including mine) don't have a large problem with consumption....within the hash marks is considered normal at a base oil change interval....that means 1 quart low at the end of an oil change is not considered abnormal....I do my ecoboost every 3000 with full synthetic (yeah it's not otherwise necessary to do it that often but I do) and I'm always full with about 55% left on the oil life monitor Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G935A using Tapatalk
I did a lot of reading last night around over the net and I did find a lot of reports of the 5.0 using oil. Some seemed to be mfg flaws, a lot of them turned out to be break in period usage that stopped several thousand miles in (6-12,000). The collective thought seemed to be that the piston rings were super hard and required a long break in time to properly seat. Some were using Mobil1 oil and changed and it slowed or stopped, some changed to 5w30 from 5W20 and oil usage stopped. More reported no problems at all. These were all the first gen 5.0's from 11 to 13. I don't know but I'm assuming some of this has been worked out in the newer versions. Ford has had a 5.0 engine for years but this one is just as new as the ecoboost.
I had a 2015 with the 5.0 for about two months as a loaner while I waited for delivery of my new Tundra . It was a relatively stripped down version being a rental, but the 5.0 was solid and had quite a bit of response. I found that the transmission would miss hard under load (especially on steep hills), but I also chalked that up to rental abuse as it did have close to 8,000 of most likely hard miles). I averaged 18.5mpg mixed highway and rural. I get about 15.5 now with the same routes, but on winter blend. I expect about a 2mpg difference between the two trucks given the weight differences and rear ends (the F150 had a 3.55 and my Tundra has a 4.30) I test drove a '13 Platinum with the 3.5, and the engine was definitely more responsive than the 5.0, but like others have said, the economy on them isn't as advertised (not that you really buy a truck for the fuel mileage). I also test drove a '15 with the 2.7 (my buddy owns one as well) and wasn't very impressed. Ford makes a decent truck, and you are ultimately the one who has to look at it and drive it every day. Good luck.
I have a 2012 with a 3.5 L EcoBoost in it. After my most recent trip I'm just a touch under 68K on the clock. At about 50K I started having a bad rattle on cold start. It pretty much sounded like a box of rocks inside the motor. Apparently it's a common issue on 2011's and 2012. Luckily for me Ford decided to cover the repair when I was just inside of my 60K factory warranty. They rebuilt pretty much the entire front end of the motor including timing chains, cam phasers, etc. While they had the motor torn apart I had the plugs replaced as well. This particular issue was fixed on 2013 and newer models so you'd be in the clear if you go that route. With the exception of that one problem I haven't had an issue with mine. I have a Livernois Motorsports tuner on it and run the 93 octane performance tune most of the summer and fall, then drop it to the 87 tune when the crappy winter gas mix comes out. With the performance tune it pulls extremely strong and I've beat a few folks who probably wonder what happened when the full size truck with a topper on it just left them in the rear view. My bro in law has a '14 with a 5.0 in it and we just made the same trip to PA together doing 75-80 on the highway most of the time. Both trucks have 275/80R18 LT's on them so gas mileage has dropped off since the addition of the bigger/heavier tires. We both averaged in the mid 16's for the full trip. With the stock P rated tires keeping the truck around 70 I used to get well into the high 19's or low 20's on a highway trip. Once you get these trucks over 70 the mpg's go to hell. At some point I'll be trading in/up to a newer model and fully intend on either another EcoBoost or if Ford has pushed out a 1/2 ton with a little diesel in it I'd go that route.
I'm still completely undecided as to what I'm going to do. Right now all I care about is getting mine fixed so I can haul some diesel fuel, lol. Heck, I can't even decide for sure if I want to gamble and go down to a 1/2 ton. I keep jumping back and forth between the two. I'm afraid of the thought of spending $40K+ and finding out I should have stayed with a 3/4ton. I found some really nicely equipped F-250 XLT's priced just under $40K and I was almost at that with the used 2013 F-150 lariat I drove the other day. The thought of having a brand new 3/4ton feels more comfortable than the thought of maybe overworking an F-150. One is magnetic grey and the other is denim blue, both equipped with the 6.2L gas.
Well, yeah...you kind of can but when you need that much truck you just really need it. An F-250 isn't really very practical when I need to run to town 40 miles away for parts, the gas mileage is a little rough for the most of the time when I'm just running empty. A half ton would be more practical all around but when I need to pull my seed tender cart around I'm just not sure an f150 is gonna handle it.
