525 miles today - ecoboost mpg thread

[Decayed]

Ecoboost fx4 4k towing with stock pirellis.

So we took another trip from the philly area to syracuse and I tracked my mileage. Round trip it's about 525 miles. My best MPG for this trip was about 32 - that was by driving very carefully and trying to maximize efficiency. It was kind of a pain in the ass, so this trip I tried to see how well it could do without trying so hard

Basically the method was to set cruise control to 72 whenever possible. Sometimes it was a bit faster in order to stay with traffic, sometimes it was slower. It was never set higher than 75 mph.

I avoided hard acceleration and basically just took it easy. 72 mph is roughly 2000 rpm by the dash tachometer. There were a few times when I did have to gun it and a traffic jam where we were bumper to bumper for about 20 minutes.

I gassed up last night and drove 3 miles home, then left this morning. We stopped twice and gassed up once we got to Syracuse. We stopped twice on the way back.

Going by the dash display we averaged 29.5 mpg for the trip.

I will gas up tomorrow and calculate it by hand and will report if there is much of a discrepancy. The dash has been reasonably accurate.

For comparison's sake last time I drove fairly (ok very) aggressively and got around 22-23 mpg for the same trip. The ecoboost absolutely thrives at higher speeds and will go from 75 to 95 in a snap. Awesome for passing slowpokes and handles smoothly at those speeds.

The take home is that driving style greatly impacts mileage and it's fairly easy to get decent mileage if you take it easy.

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[MaverRick]

The best I have done so far is 480 miles on a tank but currently getting 34 mpg after a 400 mile round trip to Miami. With some more highway driving I should be able to easily get 500 plus this time around.

 

[Eja20]

Wish you well I hit 643 on a tank at 32 and change at my best that’s cruisin at 68 I’m looking at making a trip to Denver from Dallas hoping to hit a 700 but we’ll see

 

[dcs12345]

Beats the hell of the 13-14 mpgs that I get out of my ‘07 1500…

 

[Decayed]

Wish you well I hit 643 on a tank at 32 and change at my best that’s cruisin at 68 I’m looking at making a trip to Denver from Dallas hoping to hit a 700 but we’ll see

I bet you could get better if you could keep it at 60. With some of the speed limits at 70 it would be dangerous to try at least on my preferred route.

On a side note, I was playing with google maps and realized that driving all the way across Portugal the long way is a shorter trip.

 

[JimParker256]

On a side note, I was playing with google maps and realized that driving all the way across Portugal the long way is a shorter trip.

Well, now you've got a good feel for the distances we deal with in Texas... For a few weeks back in 1996, I actually commuted every other day between our home in The Woodlands (just N of Houston) and Plano, TX. That was a little over 250 miles, but due to heavy traffic on I-45 took about 4 hours to drive. And since I had to be at work from 8:30AM to 5:30PM (sometimes later), it made for some very early mornings and late nights. Thankfully, we were able to move to the Dallas area after about 9 weeks of this!

A few years earlier, when I worked for IBM, I routinely had to leave my home in Houston and drive to Austin for the morning, then on to Dallas for the afternoon, and back to Houston that night. By the time you factor in time spent waiting at the airport and rental-car lines, it was faster (barely) to drive than to fly. I did that at least once a week for the better part of a year.

My wife's family lived in El Paso, and we lived in Houston. It was 767 miles, door to door, and we made that trip 3-4 times a year... With kids in the car it made for one VERY long day (15+ hours). We tried stopping mid-way a couple of times, but frankly, driving for 4 days (nearly 8 hours a day for two days each way) to spend 3-4 days with the grandparents was just too much. I do NOT miss that routine!

For contrast, Houston to El Paso is only 10 miles less than the distance bewteen Philadelphia and Atlanta, GA. (Lots more to see on the Philly/Atlanta drive, as well...)

 

[Decayed]

Well, now you've got a good feel for the distances we deal with in Texas... For a few weeks back in 1996, I actually commuted every other day between our home in The Woodlands (just N of Houston) and Plano, TX. That was a little over 250 miles, but due to heavy traffic on I-45 took about 4 hours to drive. And since I had to be at work from 8:30AM to 5:30PM (sometimes later), it made for some very early mornings and late nights. Thankfully, we were able to move to the Dallas area after about 9 weeks of this!

A few years earlier, when I worked for IBM, I routinely had to leave my home in Houston and drive to Austin for the morning, then on to Dallas for the afternoon, and back to Houston that night. By the time you factor in time spent waiting at the airport and rental-car lines, it was faster (barely) to drive than to fly. I did that at least once a week for the better part of a year.

My wife's family lived in El Paso, and we lived in Houston. It was 767 miles, door to door, and we made that trip 3-4 times a year... With kids in the car it made for one VERY long day (15+ hours). We tried stopping mid-way a couple of times, but frankly, driving for 4 days (nearly 8 hours a day for two days each way) to spend 3-4 days with the grandparents was just too much. I do NOT miss that routine!

For contrast, Houston to El Paso is only 10 miles less than the distance bewteen Philadelphia and Atlanta, GA. (Lots more to see on the Philly/Atlanta drive, as well...)

Yeah the distances can be deceiving. I once drove from Denver to Moab and it took almost 8 hours. The guy I was with said 6 hour drives are considered routine out there.

I've noticed that a lot of europeans often vastly underestimate the distances involved when driving in the US. Had people tell me they want to fly into new york, then drive to disneyworld in florida then out to see california all in a week. And you could do it in a week if you don't mind doing nothing but drive.

If you measure the distance from Paris, France to Moscow, Russia something we can all agree is a very long distance, compare it to the distance from Portland Maine to San Diego Ca, The Portland Sandiego trip is about a thousand miles longer.

 

[JimParker256]

Yeah the distances can be deceiving.

I remember when Mon and Dad drove from Knoxville, TX to El Paso, TX for our wedding, back when the interstate speed limits were still 55 mph... I had suggested to them that they stop in Little rock for one night, and a second night in Dallas or Ft Worth before continuing on to El Paso.

But Dad looked at the map, and saw that Texarkana was "only" about another 4 hours past Memphis (hah!), and they had driven Knoxville to Memphis in a half-day many times, so driving to Texarkana would be about 12 hours...

Then he noticed that it was likewise only about "a page and a half" in the atlas from Texarkana to El Paso, so he figured they could make that in about 12 hours also. No need to pay for an additional motel night - they would just make the trip a one-stopper.

That second day's drive was about 820 miles (roughly 14 hours at 60 mph) from Texarkana to El Paso, versus only 670 miles (and 11 hours) from Knoxville to Texarkana... They pulled in just before midnight, having been on the road for almost 18 hours, due to a tire blowout between Dallas and Midland/Odessa. They drove that last stretch (west Texas) mostly in the night, and it's got a bunch of 2-mile plus "straights" connected by very slight (15-20º) turns. Boring as all get-out. And once past Odessa, there was really no place to get a motel at the last minute. All the rooms were taken by 7-8 pm...

For the return trip, he took my advice, and stopped in Dallas and Memphis: Two longish days, followed by an easy one on the 3rd day...

 

[Decayed]

I remember when Mon and Dad drove from Knoxville, TX to El Paso, TX for our wedding, back when the interstate speed limits were still 55 mph... I had suggested to them that they stop in Little rock for one night, and a second night in Dallas or Ft Worth before continuing on to El Paso.

But Dad looked at the map, and saw that Texarkana was "only" about another 4 hours past Memphis (hah!), and they had driven Knoxville to Memphis in a half-day many times, so driving to Texarkana would be about 12 hours...

Then he noticed that it was likewise only about "a page and a half" in the atlas from Texarkana to El Paso, so he figured they could make that in about 12 hours also. No need to pay for an additional motel night - they would just make the trip a one-stopper.

That second day's drive was about 820 miles (roughly 14 hours at 60 mph) from Texarkana to El Paso, versus only 670 miles (and 11 hours) from Knoxville to Texarkana... They pulled in just before midnight, having been on the road for almost 18 hours, due to a tire blowout between Dallas and Midland/Odessa. They drove that last stretch (west Texas) mostly in the night, and it's got a bunch of 2-mile plus "straights" connected by very slight (15-20º) turns. Boring as all get-out. And once past Odessa, there was really no place to get a motel at the last minute. All the rooms were taken by 7-8 pm...

For the return trip, he took my advice, and stopped in Dallas and Memphis: Two longish days, followed by an easy one on the 3rd day...

Google maps and such are very handy for getting a handle on how long a trip should take. Back in the days of paper maps you couldn't tell if a long stretch of road was a 65 mph highway or 25mph and stop signs every few hundred feet.

We have our syracuse trip locked down to knowing exactly which rest stops we will use. Forget driving straight through. At my age I can handle about an hour and a half then we are stopping.

 

[JimParker256]

Yeah, back in '96 I could make that Woodlands to Plano drive non-stop. These days, I'm hoping to only have to stop once...

 

[MaverRick]

Best so far is 505 miles with low fuel light on and range estimate showing 14 miles left. Actual mileage for this tank was 31 mpg with a 16 gallon fill up. Heading back down to Miami today but this time I will be running the AC and also carrying a heavier load. Currently overall average is at 28.3 mpg with 4300 miles on the Truck.

 

[Decayed]

Best so far is 505 miles with low fuel light on and range estimate showing 14 miles left. Actual mileage for this tank was 31 mpg with a 16 gallon fill up. Heading back down to Miami today but this time I will be running the AC and also carrying a heavier load. Currently overall average is at 28.3 mpg with 4300 miles on the Truck.

That's a pretty good overall. Do you do a lot of highway driving?

 

[MaverRick]

Still haven’t done an actual road trip in this Truck. After another round trip to Miami the average mpg has ticked up to 28.6 but currently showing 30 mpg so definitely wont be getting 500 miles on this tank.

 

[Dmthomp32]

My FX4 has Wildpeak AT’s on it. So far I’m at 24 mpg with nearly all city driving. I’ll be on a decent road trip for work next week, I’m excited to see what MPG’s I can pull driving through the blue ridge mountains!

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