I've tried all three tunes (Aggressive Street Economy, General Economy, Stock Plus) that Matt sent me and all have resulted in lower mpg than the stock tune. After reading all of the glowing reviews about these tunes, I decided to purchase an XCal 3 with the hope that it would eventually pay for itself with an increase in mileage. I've actually seen 1.5-2.0 mpg lower across the board with these tunes.

Anyone else experiencing the same thing? A few months ago, people were reporting 3-4 mpg increases with these same tunes. How is that even possible?

Honestly, I'm thinking about returning to the stock tune and just selling the XCal 3 with the tunes if this is as good as it gets.

 

I did not get mine for a mpg increase. I got it for power and perf. It does this very well.

 

Well to be honest how do you drive your truck? If you drive it like a scolded monkey it's not going to do all that well for you economy wise. If your really wanting to see mileage increases on these tunes you have to make an effort to do so. I myself got it more with the ability to program my truck how I would like it to perform under various circumstances, something you can't get with factory tuning. I have seen at one time a full mpg improvement, although I have been having to much fun with my latest improvements and have lost that since, however, I have not lost mileage compared to before I just seem to be at my average mileage wise, which I'm happy with since I'm enjoying better performance out of it. Bottom line is you have to make a very concerted effort in order to gain mileage rather your "chipped" or not.

 

FordSVT if you decide to sell your XCal 3 let me know! I may be interested

 

There are a few things to consider here; and tex25025 hit it on the head with his queries about driving style. I haven't ran anything but the ASE and Ultracomp files (ASE is my daily driver). I can shift my in town economy by 3-4 mpg just with how I drive.... Highway has been a whole different story (granted I don't get spectacular mileage if I set the cruise at 105 mph) but if I drive like a human 70-75 I pretty consistently get 18.5 mpg on summer fuel which is about 2 mpg better than stock. On winter fuel I consistently get 16 -16.5 mpg on the highway. I don't know how many miles you drive but I would say to really test these tunes you should probably put at least 3000 miles on each before you write your opinion in stone, and bear in mind most of the folks who've seen the big gains seem to spend a lot of time on the highway. Just the physics of all the stopping and starting in town make it nearly impossible to make a tune that's going to make huge mileage improvements under those conditions.

I noticed you're in NY I don't know about your area but I know we just switched into winter fuel here, if you've also switched over that could negatively affect you're mileage calculations as well.

Just in case, don't believe the lie-o-meter; do all your calculations long hand to ensure accuracy.

 

I can't sit here and tell you I haven't had a few trucks that just refused to respond as far as fuel economy is concerned- yours would make a grand total of 4 I have encountered as such.

The biggest majority of users will see an increase. Shoot us an email; I will take a second look over the tunes, make sure everything is correct and make some changes to the files. There is a good possibility of milking it for more.

 

Matt, guess I'm one of the lucky 4... now if only that would work for a 300 million Powerball drawing!!! lol

Guys, I can tell you that my truck has not responded as I had hoped it would but that I have been talking to Matt and we are still working on it. I tend to drive it fairly easy, I usually don't go over 2000 RPM unless I'm going up a hill and the truck won't shift sooner. I seem to get in the 16's no matter what, perhaps a little better with the stock tune which is what I have back in it now. I drive the same way all the time and always get pretty consistent mileage. I've run each tune at least a tank full, 400 miles or more before filling up. I fill to the top of the neck and hand calculate every tank so I have a good idea what I get every time and how any changes in my driving style effect mileage. I have a hard time believing it would take seven or eight tanks to see how your truck resopnds to a particular tune, unless your driving style has a lot of variation from tank to tank.

When it comes to finding the extra miles that a tune can squeeze out of a tank, patience and a good positive outlook help, along with not riding Matt and the folks at Spartan like rented mules if they don't get back to you within the hour. We all have busy lives and schedules. Sure it would have been nice to load that first tune and see my mileage jump to 20+MPG, but it didn't happen that way. Matt is working on it with me and I have faith that we will find what we are looking to find for economy. Even though I've had to wait for tunes at times I'm still glad I went with Spartan for my XCal2 and tunes.

 

Matt,

I've emailed you a few times in the past and I believe my emails are finding their way into your spam folder (as gmail accounts sometimes do). I've also PM'd you recently and haven't heard back.

Can you check your PMs or send me one with a time when I can call you?

Also, my driving style is very conservative (I have the Cobra for fun) so I was surprised when my economy went down with these tunes.

Thanks,
Mike

 

I got it for power, but even with an ultra comp tune as a daily driver my mpg stays at 16 just like I got with it being stock. Of course, I like to get places, I go about 75-80 on a highway and I live on back roads so I'm always in and out of the throttle.

 

Mine's also probably one of the ones that hasn't responded to a huge degree in terms of mileage. I'm getting around 15 or so, mixed. True "highway" numbers are a little hard to come by since real "highway" driving takes 3 hours to get to... (that's setting the cruise at 70 and going for 2-3+ hours at a time.)

But then again, it's also still got that "new truck smell", and only 11K on the clock.

Fuel economy WAS a concern when I bought it, but not the ONLY concern, and the amount of power I have under-foot with the ASE tune is simply astonishing.

And really, getting double-digit economy numbers when a significant percentage of my driving is in-city, stoplight-to-stoplight, is fairly respectable. Especially for an 8000-lb 4x4.

-blaine

 

Join the club! I sent an e-mail three weeks ago and got a message stating that I would get a faster response by sending an e-mail to a service address. I did two weeks ago without a reply. So, after a two week wait, I sent a PM on this site yesterday. Hopefully, I'll hear something soon, from anyone at Spartan...I'll add, this is very unusual given my prior experience with Spartan. I know from the messages here, Matt has been busy. But, it seems that the customer service e-mail system is not working out too well.

 

Sorry to hear about you guys getting less than desired results in mileage as these 6.o's really do seem to vary greatly in how they respond to tunes.

Also, as far as recent emails and PM's to Matt, Evan or Josh are concerned, I just saw them all at the ford-trucks.com Southern Smoke Show in Winston Salem NC and they've been on the road a few days before this weekend. Call and bug the poop out of Matt (or his voicemail!) and he'll get back w/ you.

 

No doubt, this was just a huge difference from the last time I contacted Matt. I'm sure it is just a matter of having a new system and being busy. But three weeks when my last response was less than 30 minutes caused some concern--has to be the new message center.

 

yeah I have been wating a couple of weeks too, gets frustating But I understand. It is not like our trucks are out of service and need an answer that minute, but I like files before I forget what I requested.. I seemed to be doing well w/ the newer general economy file at first, but as soon as it started betting cold it dropped right down quickly may be winter mix and colder temps are partially to blame although my 7.3L was almost unaffected by temps as long as you plugged her in and did not idle too much, I'll wait it will be worth it..

 

Guys,

as 20046.0PSDX said, we have been occupied over the weekend co-sponsoring an event in Winston-Salem, NC. Myself, Evan, and Josh were all there...Josh and Evan are still on the return trip to Peoria IL, and won't arrive until late tonight.

I have 2 engines, one truck (LvTitan's), 20046.0PSDX's transmission and EGR cooler, "Maxium4x4" 's transmission and several turbochargers to get finished and sent out. It will take me late into the week if not into next weekend to get back to everyone, but rest assured all messages I have will be responded to as quickly as I can. My inbox and voicemail look as bad as the shop at the moment.. So please be patient as I clean them up


As far as the fuel economy is concerned, we have determined the cause of erratic mileage with the economy tunes on the newer flashes. Sadly, the presence of functioning EGR is actually drastically affecting economy (on the positive side, ironically) and it looks as though it will be necessary to keep EGR functions stock in order to see real positive mileage gains. Thats certainly not the answer I wanted to see (or anyone else) but has proven true thus far.