I have owned my Ford F-150 FX4 SuperCrew for just under a year now and have never gotten anywhere close to 20mpg, so when "wjuster82" suggested that his truck that was nearly a twin of mine was doing it naturally I called shenanigans. And now I am here to openly apologize and reveal my findings.
Since I took ownership of this truck in September of last year I have averaged 14.8mpg, overall. Normal commuting tanks are between 15-16mpg, the best I had ever gotten was 17.7mpg, twice. So naturally when I heard that this very same truck could get 20+ I was very skeptical. After some talking in the forums wjsuter82 explained his method of attaining this unreal mileage. He said his trick is to set the cruise at 5mph below the speed limit. So naturally I had to try this.
This past Saturday I made the trek from our World Headquarters in Los Angeles CA down the I-5 to Chula Vista CA to cover the Championship Off-Road Racing race (CORR), a distance of 115.3 miles, one way. I filled up the truck, hopped on the freeway, set the cruise at 60mph, shut off the A/C and was off. When I reached my destination I filled the truck up with 5.6 gallons of gas, meaning I had achieved 20.6mpg. I was floored. But to make things more interesting on the way back I drove at 70-80mph, no cruise, with the flow of traffic, A/C blasting and for the 129.3 miles return drive I netted 18.0mpg, the second best tank ever. That one was just baffling.
So was it worth it. Not at all. By my calculations I saved a whole $3.45 by driving this way. It paid for my monster when I got there. But, by driving this way I wanted to pull my hair out, literally. I was almost run over by semi-trucks, merged into by yuppies in Prius', and ran off the road by angry *** in hummers. So not worth it.
There it is, my open apology and admittance of wrong. wjsuter82, you were right, I just hope you don't get killed by a semi driving that slow.
To see the back story, read it here in our FW Forums. CLICK HERE
(as proof I took photos of it at 1mile, 50miles, and 110miles to prove I had the cruise set at 60, but since I was wrong I really don't need to prove anything anymore...lol)