Ouch! Friend's Ford F-150 lifetime fuel consumption: 14.7 MPG US = 16 L/100 km

[MetroMPG]

I'm helping my friend sell his 2010 F-150. It just turned 150,000 km (93k miles), and I just noticed this afternoon it's got a resettable fuel economy display in the cluster.

And guess what! It hasn't been reset since day one!

It showed ...

16 L / 100 km = 14.7 MPG US

Holy cow, that's horrendous! Or is it? (Well, it's about 4 times more fuel use than I generally aim for in my fleet, so it certainly looks horrendous to me.)

But what does the EPA say?

This 4.6L 4x4 truck was rated for 16 MPG combined. I'm not sure which automatic transmission it has - apparently you could get it with a 4- or 6-speed. They both had the same combined rating, despite the 6-speed getting 20 on the highway vs. 18 for the 4-speed.

So I guess he didn't do too badly after all.

Although he's burned through 24,000 L / 6340 gallons of gasoline.

At a buck a litre average up here, that works out to $24,000 spent on fuel.

Yikes. That's more than I've spent to buy my last 15 cars, combined.

Anybody wanna buy a truck?

[oil pan 4]

I don't care for pickups.
People are so convinced they need one.

[MetroMPG]

Agreed - most of the pickups around here are just big, fancy, thirsty commuter cars.



But this friend may be one of the rare people who actually uses his truck as a truck.

He's a carpenter/contractor. Regularly pulls a landscape trailer. Plus he tows a sailboat all over the place in the summer. Work & play.

[oil pan 4]

A beater car may not be for them then.

I use my leaf as a pickup. Tonight I hauled home about 300 pounds of scrap lumber with it.

[Frank Lee]

If he's carrying and towing so much, that makes his fe performance more respectable.

[ThermionicScott]

Yeah, 15 MPG is actually kind of impressive if he wasn't consciously trying to drive efficiently. Think of all the hours he's spent idling! (Pickup drivers seem to love to listen to their trucks idle, especially if it's a diesel.)

Also, $24,000 is more than I've spent on all my cars combined, too, but that was only four of them.

[slowmover]

Originally Posted by Frank Lee

If he's carrying and towing so much, that makes his fe performance more respectable.

Yes.

A pickup is a vehicle designed to do work. And if that man had business miles that were tax deductible, then his operating/ownership costs are different from Joe Commuter.

A truck is something where the miles are planned.

In reverse of the majority here who believe they need never change their use of a vehicle, just reduce the fuel burn. AND in a vehicle which can’t carry their family plus luggage. Or that won’t survive crashes where a better choice would have. There are minimums MUCH more important than the last tenth. Hard to imagine a less-responsible approach, but misunderstanding “virtue” is common today. Cut off ones nose to spite his face. Roams freely around here.

The first line of some of these stories SHOULD be: “I’ve reduced my annual miles by X-percent and still achieve the same ends as before”. But it isn’t. (Not much need to read the rest).

Entirely possible that pickup MADE money for the owner. Covered it’s costs, and generated a surplus.

Half-tons aren’t really freight-haulers. But judging by that contractor cap and small cab configuration, he could been a distributor. The short truck is easy to park & maneuver, but the windowless cap makes it more difficult in traffic (needed to keep UV and prying eyes to a minimum; as with vehicle color). A manufacturer rep. Where calling on customers to deliver valuable items is a win-win.

Or, you tell me that man’s a partner in an engineering firm specializing in work for major area manufacturers, that pic is a dead-on fit.

The truck is now old. Kept well-past a depreciating asset schedule. May have paid for itself twice over. Age now brings up reliability issues not worth risking.

Or maybe he just liked it. Joe Commuter after all. Nothing wrong with 15-mpg average. We’d have killed for that forty years ago with a V8 car.

.

[MetroMPG]

Originally Posted by ThermionicScott

Yeah, 15 MPG is actually kind of impressive if he wasn't consciously trying to drive efficiently.

I don't think he consciously tries to be efficient (ie. he never used his trip MPG meter). However he does kind of drive like a grandma ... maybe even to the point of going TOO slowly for ideal economy (putts around in too low a gear).

[MetroMPG]

Originally Posted by slowmover

A pickup is a vehicle designed to do work. And if that man had business miles that were tax deductible, then his operating/ownership costs are different from Joe Commuter.

Good point. And, yes, the owner is a self-employed carpenter/contractor.

He has already replaced this truck with a newer F-150 ecoboost, bought from another friend who's also a self employed builder/contractor.

[WE3ZS]

I had a '96 Chevy K1500 (4X4 half ton extended cab 6.5' bed) that I put 140K miles on from new until I retired it to my nephew in '11. I kep a fuel log notebook in my rides and that truck saw a lifetime 14 MPG average. It was my commuter vehicle for about half my time owning it and it towed our 6500lb boat during the Summers on countless trips to the bay and lakes. It too always had a cab height bed cap on it. It was also my vehicle used for all of my Fire Dept use as it had the radios, lights and siren in it. It saw lots of cold start "spirited" driving responding and more than a little bit of on scene idling at times. The best I ever calculated was 18 MPG on a 300 mile round trip with a light load and no towing, and there were a few single digit tanks.
I replaced that truck with an '05 Ford V-10 4X4 Excursion that saw about half of my commuter miles in the first two years I had it. Over that time it too averaged 14 MPG. The big wagon is now our dedicated tow rig for our 11,300+lb Travel Trailer and sees very little unloaded miles. It gets between 7 and 9.5 MPG towing the big TT (19,500+lbs combined weight), which is actually pretty darned good, all things considered.
Since 14 MPG was my standard mileage for so long it is the benchmark that I now use to calculate the fuel gallons & dollars saved on each fill and (since my ownership) lifetime on my Metros (2 '94s, 1 retired and a very clean XFi I'm driving now) and an '01 Suzuki Vitara 2.0 4X4. Both Metro have more than paid for themselves and the Zuk is nibbling away at it's purchase price that was higher, and it see much less miles than the Geo.
14 lifetime is pretty decent for a truck that sees a good deal of work, we here tend to focus on our high(er) mileage results and forget about all those "normal" folks out there in the world getting that kind on mileage as regular part of driving.