Ecoboost Mileage

[German59731]

Anyone tow with a 3.5 ecoboost? I’m towing a 252s with a 2020 Expedition and the mileage sucks. 7-9 mpg average. Is this normal for the ecoboost?

 

[marcham]

What speed are you towing at? Turbos do get fuel hungry when you start loading them up...

 

[AboveTheBest]

Anyone tow with a 3.5 ecoboost? I’m towing a 252s with a 2020 Expedition and the mileage sucks. 7-9 mpg average. Is this normal for the ecoboost?

That’s pretty close to what I get with mine.

 

[Inlikeflinn]

I have a 2017 3.5 crew cab with a 3.5” lift and 35” tires. Pulling our 4K pound travel trailer we get 9-11 pulling our new ar190 we get 12-14. Without anything we average 19 on the hwy cruising at 75. Got really terrible mileage until I learned to use manual shifting to lock out speeds 8-10 and even further down for steep climbs. Basically this uses gearing vs the turbos. Turbos help w mpg when mildly used but when their used to compensate for gearing they suck up a ton of gas. I love hearing them under normal conditions but when towing that sound means to gear down.

 

[RobbieO]

Anyone tow with a 3.5 ecoboost? I’m towing a 252s with a 2020 Expedition and the mileage sucks. 7-9 mpg average. Is this normal for the ecoboost?

I have a 3.0 ecoboost, twin turbo. More air=More Fuel. Yes, my mileage sucks too. My SUV is a rocketship, but the mileage is horrendous when towing. Ecoboost is a marketing ploy so they can build small engines and claim they are fuel savers, and have more power. My SUV gets 23 when not towing, but I’m lucky to get 15 when towing.

 

[seanmclean]

I get around 9mpg with my 242 in tow (3.5 Ecoboost)

 

[Babin Farms]

Just remember that when towing, mileage is going to be crap compared to daily driving without a trailer no matter what. When i had my diesel pickup I would get 20mpg daily no trailer, hook up to a trailer and go 80mph down the highway and it would be 13mpg. Now with my 6.0 gasser I get 14mpg daily but hook up to the boat and get 8mpg. Another thing to think about is our trucks are shaped like bricks so mileage is not going to be great.

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

All good posts here….

I‘ve seen lots of posts about fuel mileage on different vehicles, mostly turbo charged diesels and gassers. It’s all about crude power vs. required power, not unlike a power / prop graph. Just look at the boat test / boating magazine test articles on boats and best economic cruise speed, most of the Yamaha boats get their best mpg between 28-32 mph, go faster than that and the mph drops off dramatically. To wit, the 255 FSH E at 5000 rpm goes 31 mph, using 14.8 gph and gets 2.1 mpg, raise the rpms to 7400 and the boat goes 57 mph, the gph rises to 44, and the mileage drops to 1.1.

As @Babin Farms so eloquently explains it, unloaded you get much better mileage than when towing. For every 10 mph over 55 mph the wind resistance doubles, so when towing at 65 mph you have doubled the wind resistance compared to 55 mph. If your tow vehicle is squatted down in the rear, the wind that would have been pushed to the sides is now flowing under your vehicle and dramatically increases the wind resistance. It goes without saying that the tire pressure on your tow rig should be at max for the best efficiency.

I have found that 65 mph seems to produce the best mileage when either unloaded or towing with my 6.7 liter diesel as well as my old 6.0 liter diesel. Turbo chargers by nature make a given engine way more efficient, it harvests calories that would otherwise just go out the exhaust, so as you put more load on a turbo charged vehicle the engine becomes even more efficient, it’s still going to use more fuel, just more efficiently than a normally aspirated engine. I had a great example of this when coming home from a long road trip, I was getting 11.4 mpg towing at 65 mph, 50% throttle, 12 psi of boost, and egt of 700*. As the road turned south I came into a 40 mph head wind, wheels still going 65 mph, but the paint job was going 105 mph. I had to increase the throttle to roughly 85% , 27 psi of boost and egt of 950* I thought that my mileage would drop to 5, but to my surprise my mileage only dropped to 10.3.

The other thing that impacts fuel mileage is driving style, if you stick your foot in the fan every time you make a start or speed adjustment it’s going to use a lot more fuel, it takes a lot of fuel to push you back in the seat, it feels great but there is a price to be paid in fuel consumption. They way I like to put is like this, Horsepower is the quickness of speed gain, and torque is the amount of pulling power. So, if you can just push down less on the pedal and let the turbo charger work you will still pick up speed at a much more efficient rate. Typically, the higher the boost at a given rpm the more efficient the engine is working.

Today’s turbo charged, fuel injected, computer controlled engines make so much power per liter/cu in it’s incredible when compared to just a few years ago. Older tow rigs didn’t make as much power, and got crappy mileage, like really crappy mileage, 3.4 mpg.

Using the correct octane fuel, making sure your tires are at the correct psi, and being less aggressive on the throttle will help raise your mpg.

 

[captainhook]

I don't tow far or much above 55-60 due to speed limits but in my 2017 F150 3.5 Eco towing I get about 13 MPG. Commuting unloaded 19-20 (mostly highway).

 

[German59731]

Thanks for the replies. So it seems mine is about normal. I don’t really tow over 70. The Expedition is very powerful, no complaints when merging, accelerating, or just generally how it handles the weight, but those turbos make it drink fuel I guess. Perhaps I should slow down haha

 

[BlkGS]

Air going under the vehicle creates lift. Lift effectively decreases your vehicles weight because the air is lifting it and so that weight isn't converting to drag on the tires.

Ford is in serious trouble with the expedition if they don't put the diesel in it asap. GM has been killing it with the Tahoe and suburban diesel. One of the highest diesel take rates. It's tough to compete with 30mpg highway and 20ntowing when you've got a gasser doing 10mpg less in both cases...

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

Thanks for the replies. So it seems mine is about normal. I don’t really tow over 70. The Expedition is very powerful, no complaints when merging, accelerating, or just generally how it handles the weight, but those turbos make it drink fuel I guess. Perhaps I should slow down haha

Glad to hear the performance is there! Nothing worse than a gas guzzler that is a dog.

Turbo = more air + more fuel=heap powerful kemosabe!

 

[German59731]

Air going under the vehicle creates lift. Lift effectively decreases your vehicles weight because the air is lifting it and so that weight isn't converting to drag on the tires.

Ford is in serious trouble with the expedition if they don't put the diesel in it asap. GM has been killing it with the Tahoe and suburban diesel. One of the highest diesel take rates. It's tough to compete with 30mpg highway and 20ntowing when you've got a gasser doing 10mpg less in both cases...

I thought I heard talks of a diesel F150 so it seems it wouldn’t be much of a stretch to put one in the Expedition. I always thought it was a little short sighted of them to only offer one engine option in the Expedition anyway. And to your point, my dad has a F250 with the 7.3 Powerstroke and sees minimal change to his mileage when towing his 22ft Four Winns.

 

[BlkGS]

I thought I heard talks of a diesel F150 so it seems it wouldn’t be much of a stretch to put one in the Expedition. I always thought it was a little short sighted of them to only offer one engine option in the Expedition anyway. And to your point, my dad has a F250 with the 7.3 Powerstroke and sees minimal change to his mileage when towing his 22ft Four Winns.

They do offer the diesel in the f150 for the past 2 years or so. It's pretty sweet.

My dad has a Cummins ram, same deal.. Gets 20mpg no matter what's behind it.

 

[Edward]

Your ecoboost mileage sounds about right. I used to have an f150 ecoboost and would see around 8 when towing. If you are in the boost then you are drinking down that gas.

my wife has a newer expedition with the 10 speed ecoboost and we haven’t towed with it yet but I expect we’ll see similar results.

I currently run an eco diesel and get somewhere around 11 when towing. Ready to get out that truck though as she’s been a pain and in the the end the TCO is the same if not more than the regular gassers.

Additionally, to get better gas mileage, tow with the boat window open. I would make sure your carpet is stowed away especially on the highway (long trips) as the wind will get underneath and pull them up.

For even better mileage, add stickers. Ordering products from @JetBoatPilot you get stickers to include on your truck and we all know more stickers means better mileage.

 

[suke]

Geez! I must have a unicorn. I hear all these numbers loaded and unloaded for EB's and they're terrible compared to what I get. I have a 2017 3.5EB with maxtow and I get 12-14mpg towing at 73mph all day long. Unless you're in really hilly areas that seems terrible to me. Unloaded just yesterday I got 22.6 mpg doing nearly 80 on the highway. Averaged almost 24 mpg driving to/from Orlando (so flat and highway) with an average speed of 73-74mph.

 

[Fordman]

I think it's all in driving habits cause I'm with @suke , I have a 2019 max tow and average 21mpg and towing 12-14. Only difference is I stay 65-70 mph towing and I live in Tennessee with lots of hills. @65mph will get 14 easily and at 70mph will be closer to 12mpg. If you use a lot of throttle your going to burn gas like crazy. Take it nice and easy, truck has tons of power, so there's not a huge need for heavy throttle.

 

[four_the_kids]

Geez! I must have a unicorn. I hear all these numbers loaded and unloaded for EB's and they're terrible compared to what I get. I have a 2017 3.5EB with maxtow and I get 12-14mpg towing at 73mph all day long. Unless you're in really hilly areas that seems terrible to me. Unloaded just yesterday I got 22.6 mpg doing nearly 80 on the highway. Averaged almost 24 mpg driving to/from Orlando (so flat and highway) with an average speed of 73-74mph.

We've been able to achieve very similar ratings with our 2014 Crew-cab with the 5.0 (Coyote) engine

 

[SCP1]

Big ECOBOOST fan (2017 F-150 gen 2 - 3.5 with the 10 speed), obviously never had a problem with mine. The only way to achieve great mileage is to keep your foot out of the gas which honestly if driving on flats is pretty easy to do with the 10 speed you easily accelerate at a reasonable pace and still keep the rpms low. I'm not talking about annoying slow so anyone behind is irritated, keep the rpms below 2k to achieve great mileage when accelerating. However I didn't always drive like this! Needed a 3rd row big SUV and wanted an Expedition however I came across a deal on a Suburban I couldn't say no to, however I sure miss my 3.5. GM's 5.3 is far from my 3.5, I'd even say my 2014 F-150 with the 5.0 was way better. Obviously if I'm sticking with GM for my next purchase I'm going to need the 6.2 or the 3.0.

 

[2kwik4u]

Air going under the vehicle creates lift. Lift effectively decreases your vehicles weight because the air is lifting it and so that weight isn't converting to drag on the tires.

Ford is in serious trouble with the expedition if they don't put the diesel in it asap. GM has been killing it with the Tahoe and suburban diesel. One of the highest diesel take rates. It's tough to compete with 30mpg highway and 20ntowing when you've got a gasser doing 10mpg less in both cases...

I've been saying for years that GM would kill that segment with a diesel. Now they've gone and proven me right. 95% of those owners give ZERO craps about speed/acceleration/etc. They want to take 8 people with them and not break the bank on fuel usage.

I have to admit though, the 7,800lb tow rating is a little low for something of that stature. I was hoping for more.

Also.....in more thread title relevant info.......I know mine isn't an Ecoboost, but it is a forced induction 3.0L V6. I just got 26mpg both ways on a trip from Louisville, KY to Gatlinburg, TN and back. Towing I'm getting around 14mpg with my AR190 on the back. I'm guessing aero is better on the German midsize SUV as compared to a domestic fullsize SUV/Pickup. Still, similar numbers when towing.......As an interesting comparison.