Dealer had a up date on my 5.4 was getting over 15 mpg now only getting
about 13mpg. Called the dealer he said that do to winter time that will be the
best I will get. Is this true ? Never heard of such

 

Most gas companies have a 'winter' blend and you will notice a decrease in milage due to the blend and the colder weather. I dropped about 1 to 1.5 mpg on the last two tanks. Not a big deal because I don't expect to be getting great milage out of a truck.

 

I keep accurate MPG for my truck and yes in the winter you will see a decrease of 1-2 mpg. This is true if you do a lot of short trips with the truck in the warming stage as oposed to warmed up. If you do a lot of long trips where there are only a few warming up cycles per tank then you should not see a hugh change in mileage. As for the winter blend thing it is a myth, I have a 600 mile trip that I take in February and July. The mileage for each is about the same and depends more on how big of a load and how fast I drive.

 

thanks for the info.

 

Hi, Ctfordguy. Myth? I owned and operated a station for 5 years. Oxygenated gas was used in the wintertime. It's worse now.
There are 14 different blends used in California, based on
1. Daytime average temps.
2. Local pollution according to state agency.
3. Altitude.
4. Local laws.

It is unlawful to;
1. Buy gas from another district. This is for operators, not the public.
2. Order the wrong blend for your area, season.

In the US we have 21 'designer' gasolines, no consideration is made for the end user, it's all for P.C. reasons.
Do some research.
Chris.

 

I have a question maybe someone can answer on this. Has anyone ever given a vehicle with regular 49 (or so) state unleaded gas a smog test, then refilled it
with our super low polluting California gas and given it another smog test?
Obviously it would be far less polluting with our oxygenated fuel, but I can't
seem to see this has ever been proven. Or is this just more feel good
legislated technology that does nothing but take our money?

 

You sir, do not understand goverment.LOL

Polution is not important. Power is important. Power is gained through seeming to do something, not actually doing something.
I know you are trying to apply logic to the question. That does not work with law. Sorry.

We were shocked when we added California emissions devices, and raised emissions. I did smogs back in the 72-6 days. Never again. This was during the 'retro-fit' days when all vehicles had to have their vaccum advance disconnected, etc.
In those days, emissions were measured at idle, no load. Most of the devices increased emissions at anything above an idle. So what? The lawmakers had 'DONE SOMETHING' and that was what mattered.
Look at the added polution from the early cat converters. Look at the emissions added by burnt valves when California switched to no lead in motors that had cast iron valve seats.
Look at the spate of blown headgaskets when they went to Oxygenated fuels. The leaky seals, gaskets, ruined carbs, fuel pumps etc.
It certainly hasn't gotten any better.

Now on the good side, motors are vastly cleaner today. Cars cost 1200 (Honda 600) 1800 (VW bug) 4000 (Corvette) in 1971. Nowdays they cost ten to twelve times as much, even though they are much cheaper to build. Robots, overseas labor, printed circuts, etc.

Oh and the air in LA is much cleaner. MUCH. But that times exactly with removing all industry from the valley...
San Bernadino had terrible air quality, as did the high desert. Then one day they closed Fontana Steel. Gee, air became better over night. Must be car emissions...

Oh well, Now that we've paid for all this tech, I personally am glad everything is cleaner. But we paid a lot.
Chris

 

I DO understand government. I've worked for them for 36 years. My point is there is a
lot of garbage being foisted on us with no one questioning it.
I remember when (1968) I couldn't spend a day in L.A. without my eyes burning from
smog. Yes there have been huge gains in pollution control in vehicles and they're the
cleanest ever but the FACTS are, not everything foisted on us results in less emissions.
Even though none of this garbage is ever verified, California is seen as a leader so no
matter how idiotic the proposal,the rest of the country wants to follow. Just like the
MTBE or methanol they want to add to the gas. Virtually NO ONE ever questions this
crap. Meanwhile the net result of adding MTBE to the gasoline has polluted all kinds of
ground water. So in that case it not only seemed like we did something, we did by
creating more(and worse) pollution.

 

I didnt say the winter blend thing is a myth, just that the different blends have little to no affect on gas mileage. My research is my own real world data that I obtained driving my truck on basically the same route in both July and February.

 

04 lariat screw 4x4 5.4 3.73 ls, my dealer told me the same thing. i went from getting 15 mpg in town to barely getting 12 mpg now. but when driving hywy it still shows i'm getting 19.5 which is still about the same. i haven't taken a trip to calculate the mpg for hywy driving yet now that it is cold. used to say 540 to empty now that it is cold it says 380 to empty. very big difference. should not be that bad but the truck runs real good.had it reflashed and that didn't help. hope they come out with a new program.

 

Hi, Rodneysch, didn’t mean it as harsh as it sounds. Couldn’t agree with you more on your latest post.

Hi, ctfordguy. Looks like I misread your post to mean winter blend didn’t happen.

But I still disagree with you on the mileage thing. For years I have watched every car we owned, including fleet vehicles for our business drop 2.0 miles per gallon on the calendar. These miles were logged and reviewed once a week, as a matter of economics. If mileage varied on one of our delivery vehicles, you fix the problem, be it mechanical, or human.

I wonder what the procedure is in CT? Out here on the left coast the gas is set for the average daily temp. Doesn’t work out well on the hi desert. It was 75 degrees yesterday, and 25 degrees last night. 50 degree difference is nothing. In the summer your induction temps, measured 8-15 inches over the hot pavement, are as high as 178 degrees. The same night it might drop to 45 degrees. No blend covers that spectrum, so somebody’s mileage suffers at least twice a year.
Merry Christmas
Chris.