My wife and I are currently in the looking stages of purchasing our next Ford truck. Our 2004 6.0 has been a good truck, but it is time to get into something newer with lesser issues. I had been looking at 6.2's and 6.7's, but I don't know that I want to spend the money for the 6.7. We don't tow a lot, probably 8-10 times a year we pull a cattle trailer (12,000), so I don't think the 6.7 is necessary. The wife likes diesels, but doesn't understand the maintenance costs that I put into our current truck. She like the fuel mileage of our diesel, even though diesel is $.60-0.70 more than gas right now.

Basically what I am looking for is a good estimate on fuel mileage for the 6.2's from the people who actually drive them. We are looking at SRW Crew Cab 4x4's F250's. Can you guys give me a good estimate of what we would make not towing and when we are towing? I am a pretty conservative driver and don't race away from stop signs if I don't have to.

Thanks for the help in advance,

Adam

 

Quite a bit has been posted on mileage Adam. Search the 6.2 section and you'll get alot of info, including mine which I have posted previously. Here it is though; truck in my Sig driving empty gets about 13.6 combined, and 16 on the highway, but I don't drive fast. Go over 65 MPH and you're going to see a significant drop. Average 10.5 towing 7K lb travel trailer. Good luck in your search.

 

Yeah, I did some looking around after I had posted the new thread. It looks like the guys that have the 4.30's make around 11-12 mpg and the guys that have the 3.73's make 13-15 mpg with a couple 16's. My brother said that they have two 6.2's at the John Deere that he works at and said that they both make 11 mpg all the time, but I never asked if they had the 4.30 gears.

Thanks for the help,

Adam

 

I tow a 11.5 fifth wheel with my 6.2 and 4.30s. By the computer the worst i got was 8.6 and the best was 9.0. I did have a real kick butt tail wind when I hit the 9.0 though.

 

I have a '11 F250 XLT SWB, with 3.73's, 4x4. Around town I get about 11-12. On the highway I get about 14. When I pulled a 7k pound trailer from NC to CA I got a very consistent 11mpg.

 

You're in the same boat I'm in. I'm going to trade my 01 7.3 in because the poor truck is really starting to show it's age. I'm leaning about 90% towards a gasser because like you, I tow about 6 or 7 times a summer and my camper only weighs about 6K pounds. Also, most of the time I drive short trips, less than 10 miles and I think that would be bad for a newer diesel and the regen thing. Of course there's the $8000 price difference along with potentially high repair costs, fuel prices and higher ordinary maintenance costs. If I towed heavy trailers frequently I'd be all over a new diesel.

 

I get about what everyone else is. 90% of my driving is 25-35MPH so I usually sit around 12mpg. Can average 16 on a good 7 hour road trip. The other day I did the usual 30mi into town and was aiming for gas mileage rather than keeping exact speed and managed to get 18.5, but that was at the 55mph speed limit. Def less than the f150 but cant complain, didnt pay 40k+ for a way heavier truck that will tow the camper better to whine about a couple mpg lost!

 

At my dad's work they are leasing a 2011 F350 XLT 6.2L V8 DRW standard cab 11' stake bed. When loaded with about 2 tons of scrap metal they have averaged around 8mpg. They've gotten as high as 11mpg. This is hand calculated since no one there trusts the Lie-o-meter. Some complain its sluggish and other say it has the power.

Fact of the matter is don't whine about mpgs when your getting a truck. Nature of the beast. You buy a car for mpgs. You buy a truck to be king of the road.

 

Yeah, I know that the mpg's are definitely going to be lower with the truck, I just am looking to see where I am at with the gas versus the diesel. Quite honestly, if I drove it more than my wife we wouldn't be too far off of what we make now with our 6.0 PSD. When we DD the truck it usually gets 15-16 mpg (17.5 mpg on long trips). If we could see 13-14 mpg with a 6.2 then it makes perfect sense to go with the gasser. I know for a fact that we will make a descent amount of shorter trips (30 miles or less) so the gas will definitely be better for that.

Adam

 

I have over 8,000 total miles on my sig. truck now, about 3000 towing and have recorded every fillup with an app that tracks all aspects of mileage etc.

Hand calculated:

The best MPG I have ever seen after a full tank is 14.8, no towing mixed city/highway driving

The lowest is 7.1 towing into a strong headwind

The average towing for me is @ 8.5 mpg @ 65 mph

My trailer is very draggy and I would do better if i kept it under 60...then I see almost 10 mpg.

Fyi... I reset my avg. meter every fillup and its always 0.2 mpg error or less.

 

I just took delivery about three weeks ago on an F-350 with the 4.30 gears. I tried to break it in gently (put 517 miles on it empty by driving around town) before putting it to work. I bought this truck to work hard, and over the Thanksgiving week it did exactly that.

Around town for the first 517 miles empty the Lie-O-Meter reported 12.1 MPG. My hand calculations came to 11.5 MPG.

It should be noted that in comparing speed with a GPS the truck's speedometer reads fast, so the truck "thinks" it's going faster and further than it actually is.

For our annual Thanksgiving trip to Death Valley and back I logged 950.8 miles with a 3,000 pound slide-in camper in the bed and pulling about a 4,000 pound Jeep out back. I climbed several 5,000 foot mountain passes as well as a few hundred miles on relatively flat Interstate 5. That trip used 115.211 gallons of 87 octane, with a hand calculated number of 8.25 MPG while the Lie-O-Meter claimed 8.7 MPG.

It should be noted that during the trip I was at a gas station that had one of those pumps that shuts you down after it reaches $100, but the truck still wasn't full. My OCD kicked in and I ran the credit card again to top it off with what I thought would only be a couple more gallons. It was then that I found out that after the nozzle clicks off you can kind of force-feed it by putting in a couple 10ths of a gallon in at a time between clicks and get another two full gallons in. So I imagine that hosed up my mileage results as well because for the first half of the trip I assumed a full tank was when it first clicked off, every tank since then I fill it all the way with another gallon or two. It'll even out over time and my next trip will have more accurate numbers.

-Joe

 

Powelligator, what's your thoughts on how it pulled up the hills with your load?

 

I see guys posting hwy mpg, but at what speed? I am curious what a 3/4 ton 4x4 is going to get running 75-80 at hwy speed.

 

I drove 92 miles on I-75. I reset the lie-o-meter just before I turned onto the interstate from a dead stop. When I pulled off to get something to eat the meter read 14.6 having done 80mph the entire distance and elevation changed only about 350' the whole distance.

 

Thanks, that is helpful. My current daily driver is a ram 1500 and I rarely see better than 14.5 out of it. Been tossing around the idea of trading for a 3/4 ton gasser as the mileage wont be much different.