EcoBoost

[Pike2350]

Cons:
Its LIGHT... made towing heavy things always feel flighty
3.5 Turbo is ALWAYS on boost when towing, even an OUT, resulting in single digit fuel mileage.
Soft suspension would bottom out on I70 going across Utah.

I agree with the boost but i can still manage 11 towing my Rideo in a car trailer to and from Moab. I have had 9 one trip, but overall i see 10+ tossing 7500lbs.

Mine is also heavier being the steel body. No issues for me.

My father-in-law had a '17 with the 10 speed and loves it. He pulled his JKU on the same trailer I pull my Rodeo on, down to St. George and he said it did amazing. He pulls trailers for work often(steel erection co) he also had a big 5th wheel trailer so he's had experience towing.

 

[Unimog]

Just curious of any of you read anything about longevity of these engines? Probably not enough data to be significant, but even anecdotal data would be interesting.

 

[Herzog]

Just curious of any of you read anything about longevity of these engines? Probably not enough data to be significant, but even anecdotal data would be interesting.

I'm curious as well because I'm interested in one, but a little further down the road. The data might be a bit wonky considering that people are having a hard time keeping their foot of the go fast pedal.

 

[TRD270]

When I had my '12 ecoboost screw 6.5 bed I got 12mpg towing my 4runner from Salt Lake to Moab. Saw as high as 22mpg on freeway if I drove like grandpa. 20mpg was pretty easy to maintain highway. I flog my work ecoboost and even with all the idle time its still averaging 13mpg over the last 30k or so miles was the last time I reset the computer. I've been hard on the ecoboost in the other thread its had some aggravation but I didn't have any of the same issues or have read about the same issues in the F150. Think my issues might mostly be related to being in an expedition for whatever reason.

Just another thing to add, I had 3.31's in my personal one which did fine other than around town it would bounce to much when it tried to be in 6th probably not as much of an issue with the 10 speed. My work mobile has 3.73's which I think are to low. I don't believe they have the 3.31 option anymore but I think the 3.55's would be the butter zone unless you plan to put a much larger tire on it.

 

[johngottfredson]

My 2015 3.5 EB drove like a new truck through 35k miles when I traded it in for a 3.5 EB transit. No issues ever except the back windows got stuck down. I had it at the dealer to get fixed under warranty when I decided to just trade it in that day. I have heard that the 2.7 takes a bigger hit in fuel economy if you move to larger tires. I had 34's on my 3.5 and averaged 17. Was averaging closer to 20 in stock configuration. Loved the truck, but will probably go tundra on the next. That said, if I was to do Ford I like the 2.7 better, as I rarely tow above it's rating, and it is a peppier truck to drive with better fuel economy.

 

[rholbrook]

I now have 142K on my ticker. Maintenance to date has been a front wheel bearing covered under extended warranty and a cracked exhaust manifold which was covered under the same extended warranty. The exhaust manifold happed at about 130K miles. A friend of mine has the same thing going on with his too and his has 120K miles on his. Besides tires, brakes, one set of plugs and wires and oil changes I would say that’s pretty good. I hear a lot of other cars and trucks driving around with leaking or cracked manifolds. My wife has been bugging me to get a new one but I really don’t see any reason to spend $55K plus at this point when my 2012 is doing just fine

I did just get it back a week or so ago after $4.200 in hail damage. It was all PDR repair but they counted about 1200 dings.

 

[nnnnnate]

We're in Boston for a couple more days and have an '18 Excursion XL Max with the ecoboost. The turbo is kind of fun but in the stop and go traffic we've managed to get stuck in yesterday and today I'm real tired of the engine shut off "feature."

 

[mbryson]

We're in Boston for a couple more days and have an '18 Excursion XL Max with the ecoboost. The turbo is kind of fun but in the stop and go traffic we've managed to get stuck in yesterday and today I'm real tired of the engine shut off "feature."

We QUICKLY hated that. Thus we bought the older rig (bonus that it was less expensive)

 

[Jesser04]

I drove a 2018 f-150 with auto start and stop for a week and I swear it was just a push of a button to disable it.

 

[DAA]

I've ridden a lot of miles in an '18 F-150 EB lately. Haven't asked the owner about the auto start, but apparently he has it disabled. He's also about to take it in for about the fourth warranty issue already, too. All minor stuff, nothing that would leave you on the side of the road, but he's getting tired of it. He gets a new one every other year for his business, and uses them to tow every day and says the '14 he had was his favorite and he is not in love with this '18. It seems like a pretty good truck to me, as a passenger and not the owner.

I haven't been all that impressed with the MPG he gets though. I mean, it's good, but it's nothing to shout from the rooftops the way a lot of EB owners do. On long interstate runs at 85 MPH, with a light load, we've been seeing a pretty consistent 17.5 MPG on the computer (he doesn't do hand calcs). My five year old NA V8 half ton w/3.92's and 34's consistently gets 16.5 doing the same route with the same load at the same speed, hand calc'd.

- DAA

 

[Hickey]

Like DAA, I'm not impressed with the mpg's the ecoboost is getting. Why not get the 5.0 V8 NA motor and not worry about the expense of possible turbo replacement down the road?

 

[DAA]

Doing mild offroad stuff, his '18 EB gets not all that much better MPG than my LJ on 35's does. On a Maze trip this spring, Frieeds '13 EB actually got worse MPG than my LJ did...

- DAA

 

[Caleb]

I've ridden a lot of miles in an '18 F-150 EB lately. Haven't asked the owner about the auto start, but apparently he has it disabled. He's also about to take it in for about the fourth warranty issue already, too. All minor stuff, nothing that would leave you on the side of the road, but he's getting tired of it. He gets a new one every other year for his business, and uses them to tow every day and says the '14 he had was his favorite and he is not in love with this '18. It seems like a pretty good truck to me, as a passenger and not the owner.

I haven't been all that impressed with the MPG he gets though. I mean, it's good, but it's nothing to shout from the rooftops the way a lot of EB owners do. On long interstate runs at 85 MPH, with a light load, we've been seeing a pretty consistent 17.5 MPG on the computer (he doesn't do hand calcs). My five year old NA V8 half ton w/3.92's and 34's consistently gets 16.5 doing the same route with the same load at the same speed, hand calc'd.

- DAA

This mostly sums up my experience with my '18 EB. Although my mileage is a fair bit worse than that but I do have the factory 35" tires. I've had my Raptor in to the dealer three times so far, they've been able to fix one issue, the other still exists and now I've also got two recalls that need to get fixed. One thing I will say is the dealer experience with Ford is the worst experience I've had with any manufacturer. I even tried a different dealership but the experience was still terrible.

Overall, fun truck, decent power, ok mileage, not good enough to consider getting another one in a year or two when I get something else.

EDIT: oh yeah, the autostart crap drives me nuts. You can disable it with a push of a button, but you have to push it every time you start it. You can also put it in another drive mode and most will disable it too, but again you have to switch that every time you start it.

 

[johngottfredson]

Fuel economy is not great when you add bigger tires and lift/level. But it's hard to keep the foot off the pedal when you are turbo'd up, which takes a hit as well. When I first got mine I drove it like an old lady for the first couple of weeks to see what kind of mpgs I could get. Wasn't long before I never even looked at it. So fun to drive, would have been fine with 12.

 

[frieed]

Doing mild offroad stuff, his '18 EB gets not all that much better MPG than my LJ on 35's does. On a Maze trip this spring, Frieeds '13 EB actually got worse MPG than my LJ did...

- DAA

Yeah, but I was playing with the turbos and throwing rooster tails every chance I got

 

[DAA]

How much of it was smooth enough to play though? A mile? Out of 250 miles? I know most of the time I was slowing waaaaaay down and waiting for you guys when the road was just a little bumpy .

- DAA

 

[Greg]

We're moving forward with the Ecoboost F150, since the Land Cruiser is now pending sale. We are shooting for a '15+ with under 50k miles, 3.5l, leather interior, 36 gallon tank, 5.5' bed in either White or Silver and for hopefully around $35k.

We test drove one today, it had some lame mods (push bar, light bar, fender flares, cheap mud tires, XD wheels). It was nice to get Catherine behind the wheel, she loved the interior quality, feel & of course the engine power. We reset the trip computer, which those things are usually suspect, but saw 16-18 MPG on the freeway at 80 MPH.

The Land Cruiser usually gets around 12-15 MPG and the truck is lucky to get 12 MPG unloaded. More like 9 MPG when towing. I think the Ecoboost will do better MPG's than both the Cruiser and Truck for everything we need it to do.

 

[Greg]

Well, Catherine has a new ride! 2015 F150 Lariat 3.5 EcoBoost FX4 (rear locker, hill decent assist, skid plates & offroad shocks), 36 gallon tank, 5.5' bed, 58k miles, etc.

It's not perfect, but we got a deal. Planning on spark plugs soon and some other maint. work.

 

[Pike2350]

Nice truck. Sounds like just about everything you wanted

 

[Greg]

Nice truck. Sounds like just about everything you wanted

Everything and more, really. The FX4 wasn't really on our radar, but I think it'll come in handy. I was hoping we'd find one with the LED headlights and fog lights and we did. I think it'll be a great truck for us.

I do plan to start a thread for it. It's not going to get a ton of mods, but there will be some changes.