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Mileage

9K views 38 replies 21 participants last post by  NYB 
#1 ·
I have a 2015 F350 CC 4wd SRW long bed lariat stock with 6,000 miles on it. I took it to the dealership the other day because I'm only getting max 11 mpg and average 10mpg. They said that ford doesn't have to specify mpg as it is a super duty which I understand and when I bought it they told me I should be looking at 18-22mpg. When I took it in they said I should be getting at least 18 mpg and i told them I was getting half that and tired of using double the fuel I should be. It doesn't matter what I do and if it is towing or not I get 10 mpg. Sometimes I get Better mileage when I do tow. Ford took it for a test drive and they said that the truck gets up to 20 mpg when they drive it. I had to force them to give me the results that they found when driving as I told them that I have documentation of every fuel up and how many miles I drove and what my mpg are and I wanted to know if they could teach me to drive as I can never get anything around the numbers they do and for a good reason as they manipulate the truck to get the numbers. I have tried driving slow, fast, granny style, all the above and nothing works. Here are fords results:

No codes for truck

Going 59.0 mph driving 1.8 miles at 1488 rpm they got 18.7mpg

Going 57.2 mph driving 4.6 miles at 1443 rpm they got 18.3mpg

Going 44.7 mph driving 7.4 miles at 1125 rp. They got 20.5mpg

Average mpg 19.6

So I talked with them for at least 20 minutes telling them that I have drove 6,000 miles and I have never gotten anything close to that and they continued to tell me that their state of the art computer doesn't lie and then I told them that my on board computer is faulty as it is telling me that I'm getting 10mpg and it is only off maybe 0.2mpg from fuel up to fuel up for one tank of diesel. They said it's not faulty but OURS is more accurate. Anything I would say they would just point to the paperwork that had the above results and my driving habits are horrible and is the reason for the bad fuel mileage.
On my way home I hooked up my AE and duplicated their results and when I got to the above speeds I would get my normal mpg until I dropped the rims to what they had the truck driving at and my foot was barely touching the pedal and coasting at the speed on a perfectly flat road and I would get 24mpg. At the speeds and rpm they drove at it is basically idling the truck at that speed and is what you get for those rpms. I understand that ford doesn't have any numbers for mpg but I know they know what it is because they wouldn't produce a truck without knowing what the mileage would be and the sales guy told me that I would get between 18-22 mpg when I bought it and asked what the mpg would be since it wasn't stated on the sticker. The service department also told me that it will get better with time and once the truck breaks in and told me to wait til 15,000 miles. I told them that at 15k when it still gets the same and I come back in they would tell me to wait til 20k ect ect until I decide I'm tired of dealing with them or until my truck is out of warranty.
How do customers and the people that spend 50k get any respect and actually listened to when it comes our trucks and things that are wrong. Ford treats us horrible and never wants to fess up and say sorry or that they are wrong or that the truck broke due to them. They always want to blame the customer and get out of spending money to fix these trucks even when we spend good hard earned money for them and the warranties and extended warranties, but when you ask for money from them to fix something ford goes nuts, but are happy as can be to grab our money.
This is starting off to be a bad relationship between me, my truck and ford dealership. I love my trucks and have 4 fords now and this is the first brand new that has a warranty that I actually let ford touch. All the others ford never gets close to them and I fix anything and everything that needs to be fixed and all my vehicles run and last for a long long time. So what do I do as I bought this truck for fuel mileage and I tow majority with my beast the 2001. Shoot I get 16mpg from my lifted 38" wheels on my 2001 and thought the 2015 would easily bypass that mileage. Thanks
 

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#2 ·
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#5 ·
And all my pictures are upside down somehow
 
#6 ·
I find that my truck will at a steady freeway speed get great mileage.

But it won't avg 18 mpg if I have many stop/starts. It takes a lot of fuel to get this 8,000 lb trucks rolling.

For the first 15,000 miles of my 2015 truck, I was driving 80 miles each day for my commute and got about 17 mpg avg. But I would get in and have 1 stop sign between home and the on ramp and then a constant freeway speed of 70 mpg for the next 40 miles, a couple traffic lights after I got off the freeway and repeat for the trip home. This last couple of months I've been working really close to home with lots of short trips and my fuel mpg sucks. 11-12 mpg because of short trips, never getting up to temp, lots of regens because of the short trips etc.


Look at your driving, if you have many start/stops or lots of short drives, your mileage will not improve.
 
#9 ·
I have a 2015 F350 CC 4wd SRW long bed lariat stock with 6,000 miles on it. I took it to the dealership the other day because I'm only getting max 11 mpg and average 10mpg. They said that ford doesn't have to specify mpg as it is a super duty which I understand and when I bought it they told me I should be looking at 18-22mpg. When I took it in they said I should be getting at least 18 mpg and i told them I was getting half that and tired of using double the fuel I should be. It doesn't matter what I do and if it is towing or not I get 10 mpg. Sometimes I get Better mileage when I do tow. Ford took it for a test drive and they said that the truck gets up to 20 mpg when they drive it...
Hi Nyghtryderz,

I'll get your feedback about fuel economy documented in our system so it'll be available for review. To make that happen, PM me your full name, best daytime phone number, dealer info, and any details you'd like me to include. I'll do the rest.

Crystal
 
#22 ·
Brian Canich
626-241-2297
Danny mendholt ford Butte MT
Just can't figure out how their is anything I can change in my driving havits to get their numbers because obviously speed control doesn't help, driving highway speeds don't help. When they did the test they found a long straight flat ground and once at speed they hit the record button and the speed that they were at is what the trick idles at at that speed so in a way he may have not had to ever tough the pedal except to just keeps idle speed. When I bought the truck the sales guy said I would get 18-22 easy even though I told them that ford doesn't put mpg standards on the info sheets taped to the door. Reg
en isn't stuck open either and ford says she is perfect even though they can't explain my situations and why it's happening
 
#10 ·
The difference in fuel mileage between my 2012 and 2015 is drastic. My 2015 gets 5-6 mpg worse. I have the exact same setup as far as 3:31 gears and 4wd etc...
 
#11 ·
I have a 2015 F350 DRW. Two weekends ago took a trip from Minneapolis to IN. Was averaging 19.3 until the regen happened. Overall trip was 18.3 with 2 regens. City driving I get 14.5 - 17.5 depending on how many longer freeway trips I take. I haven't towed real heavy yet, but I average 12.5 to 13 with a 10k Travel trailer.
 
#12 ·
2015 F350 SRW LWB - 20K miles. Stop and go is the key here from what I have seen. On highway I can average 18 mpg going 70-75. To and from work I have a lot of stop lights so my mileage is around 14. If I really baby it like when it was new I may get 15 mpg. Also, expect significantly lower mileage in the winter if in cold locations where they have winter blend.

Towing a 8-9K lb boat I only get 10 mpg at 70-75 mph. This past weekend I was at 9 mpg. These things have plenty of power but suck fuel like crazy. I have seen no difference in mpg as I get more miles on the truck.
 
#15 ·
I don't even start my truck unless I am going at least 25 miles each way. These are not grocery getters, but need to be worked to get warm enough to function efficiently. I get 12.5 towing my 10K fifth wheel at 62-65 mph and 19.5 at 70, but stop and go kills the mpg.
 
#17 · (Edited)
This isn't possible for many users of trucks needing this capacity.

I sometimes need to start my truck to drive less than one block, because I need to haul or tow something heavy from one yard to another.

When I worked on a horse ranch as a teenager, there were trucks that never left the ranch, and yet were needed to haul hay from the barn to the pastures... only an acre or two away.

I help an asphalt paving company from time to time. The worse part of emissions compliance is exactly what you are talking about... the engine has to get warmed up fully and for a sustained period of time. But the bulk of the smaller paving jobs are often within only a 10 mile radius of the equipment yard. I suspect many service contractors face the same local service area situation.

Low mileage operation presents a problem for emissions equipped diesels, no question about it. But it is impractical to limit the use of a truck to only long distances, because obviously trucks are needed for short distances as well.
 
#16 · (Edited)
If you are seeing 10 mpg on the instant mpg display, you are probably stuck in regen. On the 15's Ford changed the regen strategy. It used to be done done in about 10 miles highway or in town, but that required much higher exhaust temps than being used on the 15's. The 15's normally take 30 minutes or more to complete the regen process, but it does not start until the engine is up to operating temperature - that takes a good 10 minutes at 80 degrees, and about 20 minutes at 40 degrees, it may never get there at minus 40.

If you are on the highway all day long you may have a regen every 200-300+ miles, towing, more like every 400 miles. But if all you do is on the highway only 20 minutes then off, then around town, then shut down, you are going to have a regen every 100 miles or so. In this environment, for every 30 out of 100 miles you will get a little less than 10 mpg, for the other 70 out of 100, you get 8mpg during warmup, maybe 13 around town, then 15-18 in less congested driving. It takes a lot of of last type of driving to offset (improve) the 8-10 you get during warmup and regens.

Just around town short warmup cycles will result in even more frequent regens I have seen every 80 if all I do is short hops. Get the picture?

There is no fix for this. You are driving a mini incinerator burn a lot of fuel working it hard or it will burn even more to clean itself because you don't.

Did the dealership force a regen before they hooked up their mpg test? I suspect so.
 
#25 · (Edited)
I'm not stuck in regen as I have a DP Tuner that I use only for PIDS and has NO tune on the program. I know when the truck is in regen and when it isn't. I'm out of town but I think I have regens in the 200ish mile range but that isn't even an average or high or low just a number that I think I remember so that doesn't help. I understand the process and how this truck works but it shouldn't be at the mpg I'm at at all.

For the driving I do mostly highway driving and all drives are at least about 30 miles as that's the closest thing to us. We do stop at the post office on the way out which is 15 miles away but is only a 2 minute stop. What does hurt a little is driving on the dirt road home and when I have to use 4wd as that will hurt my mpg but not much. I do go on 2.5 hour drives quite frequently and use cruise and all highway driving and I could fill the tank up, go on the trip for a total of a five hour drive on the highway all on cruise control and the max would be mid 11.

As for warm up. I don't let the truck just sit and warm for much more than five minutes even in the winter and when it is going to be really cold kill put it on a timer to have the block warm up a little before hand. I haven't had any issues with it needing to really be warm to go unlike my 7.3L who sounds like a badass missile taking off and needs time to warm.
 
#19 ·
My 15 does 17 highway, maybe about 11 towing my 14.5k fifth wheel. Only have about 5k miles, but this is much better than the 2008 did.
 
#20 ·
I had 9800 miles on my truck, and took it to Brighton Ford Quick Lane and did the oil change, supposedly changed the fuel filter, drained the fuel separator, and checked the air filter. Well for the next 5,000 miles my truck suffered. It began with regens every 100 miles almost like clockwork, ran rough like a a guy was jackhammering my engine, really loud valve clatter, torque convertor disconnecting engine from tranny leaving me stranded, and lousy at best 12 mpg's. Prior to the spring Oil change I was super happy Super Duty owner, getting around 15.5 average and saw often 17 to 22 at 55 to 65 mph in my 2015 CC Super Duty Diesel.

Well now I've been to 2 different Fort Quick Lube dealers in the past 2 weeks. paid 276.24 to O'Meara Ford in North Denver, CO for a Fuel Filter swap, check and replace my air filter, and rotate my tires. My truck still had 3 codes on it when I returned yesterday from vacation. Well that dealer didn't exactly do what they charged me for, as I needed to take my truck to another Ford Quick Lane in Brighton, CO to finish the job. They charged me 75 bucks to Reset the engine oil maintenance minder, check the coolant and fix the code, and finally swap my tires around and set the codes for that too. They also put in a new Air Filter for the engine, as the last one was BLACK like OIL was on it somehow, and tons of dirt in it. That's what you get at a Dealer Oil Change from Ford. Some Dealers will charge you and only do part of the work, the other dealer will leave you stranded because they didn't change out the Fuel Filters, and let your truck act up so bad that Ford winds up offering a MEGA warranty because of a bad oil change experience.

I'm not complaining about getting a good Ford Motor Company Experience, they are absolutely great. They gave me a 15,000 hour, 7 year, 200,000 mile warranty extension for my truck acting up for reasons unexplained fully.

I'd only take my truck to a dealer where you can physically watch the techs, actually go to you tires swap them around, and watch them drain and replace your filters.
 
#21 ·
I'm been super busy and had to fly out of state for a month but I have time tomorrow and I'll go through everything and answer any questions or start debating with some regarding numbers and strategie.
 
#24 ·
i have a 2015 f550 4x4 it weighs 11900 and gets under 8 miles a gallon most the time truck only has 4000 miles on it my truck cost over 75k but all go broke in fuel they tell you a story customers report 14 to 18 again when it really gets eight new information by me most trucks have a average reader for mpg take it for a drive and see for your self before you pay out the big bucks no more stories see for yourself
 
#28 ·
The mileage differences are amazing. Some getting 20 mpg, some lucky to see 10 mpg. Sadly there is no explanation for the poor mileage from Ford. They can't explain it other than to say the owners of these trucks either have bad driving habits or don't know how to figure their mileage. Basically they just don't know what the problem is. With all the electronics and computers used on vehicles today if it doesn't throw a code they have no idea what the cause is. It's like the guys that have the "jackhammer" issue. Ford has said they won't have a cure for that problem until March of 2016. Now does that sound stupid or what? Do they have a crystal ball that predicts it will have the answer in March? Seems pretty far out there to me.
 
#30 ·
I think driving circumstances play a bigger role than driving style. I can get 18-19.5 with my regular policy of only using the truck if I am going 25 miles or more so that it gets thoroughly warmed up. But if I take it out just to fuel up 3 miles away and pick up groceries, my mileage plummets without any change in driving style. I would expect low teens if I used my truck for running errands.
 
#31 · (Edited)
Sounds on track to me.. I manage low to mid teens with my 15', if i do the grocery getting routine, which i try not to on this truck.. I also try to keep this truck out of extended idle situations. To me thats about 15 min or longer.. Straight highway trip's with ideal situations[no load,mild hills, and no major cross winds, few stops, the truck can crank out 18 mpg very easy.. The identical 11' i traded in on the 15', saw pretty much the same in town, but was about 2 mpg less on the highway.. I have a 02' with a manual tranny and is 2wd, that sees a best of about 19 mpg , under those same highway conditions.. My dads 02' is 4wd with an auto, the best it ever saw was 16 mpg on the highway, with 15 mpg being the normal.. I say normal as i suspect with the miles it now has, new injectors would likely make a difference.. A good friend of mine has a 15' dodge 3500 equipped the same way as my 15' ford, the absoulte best he has ever seen was 17 mpg, with 16 mpg being the normal.. His father has a 13' dodge just like it, 15 mpg is his absolute best, claims 14 mpg is about normal.. I can honestly say with all the 6.7 owners i know, the only two i know complained about mileage.. One was the f-550 owner.. With a daily weight of near 15,000 lbs, and 4.88 gears, he claims 11 mpg is the best, 9 mpg being average.. The other was a 15' f-350 that was seeing figure's close to my 15, until he installed 35'' tires on his.. He instantly lost about 5 mpg.. Weight, habits, weather, terrain, and so on, all make a difference..
 
#33 ·
I also try to keep this truck out of extended idle situations. To me thats about 15 min or longer..
Weight, habits, weather, terrain, and so on, all make a difference..
Hah, for me any more than about 3 minutes of idle is too long. I turn off the engine for construction hold ups and don't turn it on again until the vehicles in front of me start moving. I have an Edge Insight and can see the soot building up. It takes a few miles of interstate for a passive regen to start working when EGT4 gets above 500 degrees.
I also use minimum dose of Opti-Lube Summer fuel additive and recommended dose of Archoil AR6200 with each fill up. I get about 1 mpg from that. I just loaded the 5-Star Daily Tow tune and it looks promising as it really optimizes gear shifting and doesn't let the engine bog down.
 
#32 ·
Well I guess I can only hope that it gets better than what it currently is. I don't know much of anything I can do to help get more miles per gallon. I don't drive short distances unless you consider the 25-30 miles short. Stopping at the post office once a week for 2 minutes max isn't going to hurt it. All driving is highway driving and I guess that doesn't help. The long trips don't help improve weather I'm in cruise or not. Fuel station is a really busy truck stop that turns fuel like crazy so it can't be the fuel (well it could but doubt it). Maybe I will drive th truck at 50mph and sit at 1100rpm and go only downhill so I get 30mpg. I could always lower the truck, rip the mirrors off, put on low profile tires that are as big as the 18 inch rims. Thanks for the help
 
#34 ·
My F-350 is a '13 model Dually & I get about 17 mpg solo & 10-11 mpg towing my 16,400 pound 5th wheel. It seems like the owners of the 2015 models are saying here that they are getting slightly lower mpg probably due to the larger turbocharger & possibly programming.
Good luck with this & please let us know something if you get any answers.
 
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