I’ve owned my 2020 expedition now for about 6 months and have put on about 10,000 miles since taking ownership. This is my attempt at a review just in general, but highlighting the fuel mileage when traveling and when towing.

I’m truly impressed with the mileage this vehicle can get when traveling on the highway and interstate. I’ve gotten over 20 mpg on roads with 70 mph or lower speed limits. And I’ve gotten 18 mpg traveling at 80 mph. I’m truly pleased at the fuel mileage this can get. Compared to my 2006 and 2014, it is a huge improvement. I NEVER saw 17 with the 2014 and only about 5 times did I get that much with the 2006. The 2020 will get that every day of the week.

Towing …. That’s a different story. The fuel mileage while towing is absolutely dismal! I just got back from a 220 mile (each way) camping trip with my travel trailer. It’s a 7,000 lbs brick, and this is the 3rd expedition I’ve towed it with, so I felt I knew about what to expect. To my surprise, on the way out with a 15-20 mph side wind that turned into a tail wind for the last 50 miles, my fuel mileage was a hand calculated 8.8 mpg.

The return trip started off with a 10 mph headwind that went away half way though the trip. At one point my read out said 5.8 mpg. When I got back it had averaged a hand calculated 6.8 mpg. The readout was about 0.5 mpg higher, so when it was reading less than 6, it was well into the low 5’s.

This was traveling at 65 mph both directions. Interstate on the way out and 2-lane on the way back.

realistically, this has about a 175 mile range with a 30 gallon tank at that kind of mileage. That’s pretty dismal.

power for days, but I think our old v10 would do better. By comparison, I never got lower than 8.5 with the other two expeditions. Usually it was more than 9 unless there was a headwind, then it would drop into the 8’s. But never lower than that. Same 3.73 gears in all three expeditions, but different transmissions in all of them.

Ford did not do us any favors on towing mileage or range with the ecoboost. It pulls great, rides nice, and handles my 1200 lbs tongue weight very well, but man does it suck the fuel!

No rant. Just observations. If I need more range I can slow down. But 65 mph is usually where I tow at.

 

I've owned four Expeditions: 1997, 2000, 2008, and 2019. The first three (normally aspirated) Expeditions got worse mileage overall but the difference between towing and non-towing was not drastic (2 - 3 mpg difference) but my eco-boost has a difference of about 5 mpg or more. All I can do is try to keep it out of boost as much as possible.

 

So a few things affected your towing, and some of it depends on the gearing you've got. Wife's new one (we haven't towed with it yet but have experience with towing with turbo'd gassers) lays down around 20 on rural highways, about 18 on the expressway. With the 3.73's I'm expecting 10 mpg or less if she's pulling something heavy or with a lot of frontal area. If she didn't have the Max Trailering Package and had 3.55's I would expect 8 or less towing.

That's the nature of gassers though - their towing mileage has never been good. My parents had a 1990 GMC Suburban that would get 17 mpg on the expressway, but only about 10 towing their 35' travel trailer. It had 3.73's. His truck, a 1994 GMC 1-ton CC dually with a 454 and a 5-speed got 11 no matter what it was doing. My 'Wagon would get about 15 empty, about 10 towing. My wife's '19 F150 2.7 Ecoboost got around 20-22 highway, but about 10 towing something with weight or a big front.

Non-boosted the spread is a bit less, boosted trucks when towing will see a really big spread on mileage. And it's all because they need that boost to build enough power to maintain speeds. My suggestion is to keep it under 65 when towing if at all possible, but that's really all you're going to be able to do to boost your mileage.

 

We have a '21 XLT with the FX4 and max towing packages. 3.73 gearing and get 21 to 22 mpg depending on road conditions and speed limits. Usually get around 17 to 18 mpg around our little country town. Towing our '22 25 RDS Cougar travel trailer I get from 9 to 10 mpg depending on winds and road conditions. Very pleased so far with this vehicles performance in the 3 yrs since we bought it.

 

Curious how you are getting 9-10 mpg. I’m lucky to get that with a lot less trailer than the travel trailer.

Even our 3500 lbs boy scout trailer pulls me down that far, and it is barely taller than the expedition

 

I usually drive in the 60 to 62 mph range and even less in lower posted areas. Flat highways in SE Louisiana but real bumpy so you need to take it slow!! Run in tow haul mode which goes into AWD and for some reason I get a little better mpg's. Our camper is close to 1100 lbs hitch weight and with independent rear suspension the trailer will start swaying on windy days. Put a few thousand miles towing with the Expedition and went ahead and bought a '17 F250 diesel so that problem is solved. I think a gross camper weight of up to 7K pounds and a 900 lb hitch weight would be ideal.

 

^^ Yeah if you aren't putting it in tow/haul you're going to see worse mileage when towing. Good to know about it switching it to AWD though, I didn't know it did that.

Running slower with a trailer gets you better mileage, period. It's got to do with drag caused by the increased frontal area, which increases as an exponent of speed - it's not linear. I forget the numbers but that drag force increases RAPIDLY the faster you go.

 

I'll use my Expedition as a back up to this '17 F250 diesel that I bought a few months ago for towing the camper. Bought it from my daughter and son in law that bought it new so it's been in the family. Get's 10.5 to 11 mpg towing the camper @65 mph tops and depending on weather and road conditions. 103K miles on the clock. Son in law bought a new F150 hybrid since all they tow is a boat or utility trailer. The F250 gets around 18 mpg around town and 22 mpg on the highway which is about the same as the Expedition.