Last week I took a day trip. I left with roughly half a tank of gas towing an 8' utility trailer that was empty. The first leg of the trip was roughly 130 miles and I cruised in 'tow mode' at Interstate speed (70-73 MPH). I loaded my trailer which was 100 4'x8' campaign banners. These are the plastic type campaign banners that don't weigh much at all. Still there was some additional weight in the trailer. I went to lunch and headed to the gas station. The computer said I was 47 miles to empty. Gas was $3.42 a gallon. It clicked off at $100 with a little shy of 29 gallons of regular unleaded with up to 10% Ethanol. Back on the road I went. The return trip was roughly the same with a minor detour to pick up something for my bride and son along the way. When I got back to drop the trailer, I had a little more than half a tank according to the gauge.

So I have three questions:
1) How much is the capacity on a 2009 F-150 Crew Cab, 4x3?
2) What kind of fuel mileage are those with a similar set-up getting?
3) Forgetting the trailer, with highway and city driving, what sort of fuel mileage are you seeing??

Forget the trailer as I know running in tow mode will decrease the fuel mileage significantly. I've had people tell me upwards of 17-19 on the highway, but I don't see it yet. The truck has 29K on it and I'm not really heavy footed.

Any input would be appreciated.

 

I get around 12-13 stop and go, and 17-18 highway. Summer time I get 13-14 stop and go. These 5.4's just aren't as good on fuel. My truck is a SCrew 4x4 with a 6.5' bed and is heavy, so it won't do as well as lets say a 4x2 SCaB truck would.

 

same here: 12mpg stop and go in winter, 13mpg in the summer, around 18 highway trip. 5.5' bed Screw 4x4, 3:55LS.

I asked a guy at work with a new 5.0v8 Screw 4x4 with 6.5' bed, and he's getting 13mpg stop and go in winter, 14 to 15 in the summer, and nearly 20mpg summer highway. Not sure what rear end he has.

 

I would love to find some of the magical fuel that a lot of online guys run. I have never seen better than 14.5 mpg under any circumstances in the 23k miles I have put on my truck. I'm right at 13.5 more times than not. I do get slightly better mileage after going to 33" tires over the stock 31" though. Obviously, I do have 3.73's.

Brandon

 

Boat Puller (Ford F-150) | Fuelly

 

This is damned respectable mileage in my opinion. All things considered, the old 351 struggled to meet that and had significantly less power.

 

i can get close to 18 on the highway. and about 12 around town. but i also have 35 inch tires. When the truck was stock I was getting 19-21 on the highway and 17-18 in town.

 

My Screw 5.5' bed, 2wd, 3.73 max tow gets 17.5 avg on the highway @ 75mph. Sowmwhere around 15-16 in town, but I drive like a geezer.
9-11mpg towing a 6500lb boat/trlr with lots of aero drag. (2009 5.4L)

 

I think it's about right. I get about the same as my last truck, which was shorter and lighter.

 

I'll have to put the pencil to it next time I fill up. I drove a company car for so many years and really didn't care what kind of mileage I got as they paid for the gas too. Now that the gas is coming out of my hip pocket, I'm looking for ways to increase fuel mileage and do keep an eye out for the cheapest gas. There was a thread not too long ago about fuel that didn't have any ethanol. They reported a slight increase in mileage using that as opposed to gas with ethanol. The only place around here to get that is around the lake. I know ethanol gas plays hell on my outboard, thus I only fill it at the marina. It costs a little more but it's still cheaper than a new power head for my outboard.

But from what I've read above, mine seems to be in the range of every other 5.4. The next test is this weekend when I tow my camper up for a Boy Scout overnighter. Since I'm the cook, I get a pass and get to carry my camper which gets used as a Troop Leader Den. The boys get to pitch a tent and sleep on the ground.

 

You can see below what I'm running. City/Highway 16MPG Towing 10K trailer 9-10MPG. The best I ever got was 18MPG on the New Jersey Turnpike at posted speed. I now have 70K+ miles on the truck. Chris