Is 25 mpg Highway Driving Decent ? - Road Trip

[JFUSION]

We started our annual summer vacation road trip, the first leg was 1200 miles, the first 600 miles we averaged 25 mpg, the second 600 miles it dropped into the mid-24's. The first 600 miles I was hitting 70 mph, the last 600 it was mostly 80 mph. We had a fair bit of mountain/hilly terrain. We had a fully loaded truck, 4 persons, tons of luggage, and a 300 lb car engine that I was transporting to a friend of mine, obviously a/c used the entire trip 95 degree weather, periods of rain.

In past years we did the trips in a Ford Escape, it didn't seem like we used much more fuel in the Explorer. This is an awesome truck for these kinds of trips, the rear cargo swallowed my engine and all of our luggage and coolers like nothing. The suspension was perfectly flat, and it handled the corners really well. The handling capability of this truck is under-rated IMO, it works really well. The manual shifting really helped in the mountainous driving areas.
Seats proved to be very comfy, after 12 hours of driving I could easily have done another 12 if I didn't prefer to sleep lol.

At the start of the trip my rotors had a bit of wobble under braking, funny thing is that after some hard braking events on this trip the rotors must have cleaned themselves up as the wobble is gone. I guess a bit of hard braking must be good for this braking setup. I probably brake too lightly in my daily driving.

This is the first time I've tracked my mileage on a long highway trip, just curious is my numbers are okay, I typically have it reading litres/100 km's, but I set it to MPG at the start of the trip. Thanks for reading.

 

[Bill #5 Explorer]

You did very well.

 

[VinceL]

Sounds like you did great! I'd take those numbers any day. Our best tank on our road trip was 23.1 mpg. That was with some rolling hills and averaging 75mph, with a couple of traffic slowdowns here and there. We will be closely tracking mileage on the big road trip were taking later and hope to get some good numbers going up there and back.

 

[spitfisher]

That sounds good to very good, what engine and model do you have to base that on?

On a simular trip with my awd xlt with a thule box on top, and avoiding 80 mph, but certianly focused n the mid 70 mph range, I seem to average 23.6 to 23.9 range depending on how you read the dash or gallons filled.

 

[harlenm]

That sounds good to very good, what engine and model do you have to base that on?

On a simular trip with my awd xlt with a thule box on top, and avoiding 80 mph, but certianly focused n the mid 70 mph range, I seem to average 23.6 to 23.9 range depending on how you read the dash or gallons filled.

I have a limited with awd and a thule box, and I was averaging about 21 on my last road trip. I have a very heavy foot, and was up near 80 most of the drive.

 

[MikeFreas]

10 mph makes a big difference in mpg.

 

[Spengracin]

Great mileage, I have never reached 20 mpg freeway, city best 15.8. Your lucky, my F150 got better mileage.

 

[JFUSION]

Thanks for the replies, so I think I am doing pretty well then. I will try it again on the way home just to be sure I wasn't going downhill, lol.

I have a 2012 xlt fwd, v6, with the 20 inch wheels option. My truck is likely fully broken in though, I put a lot of miles on it since getting it in 2011, I know some vehicles gain fuel economy improvements once they wear in a bit. I'll post back when he head home in a week or so, another 1200 miles to home.

I should also note that my air conditioner concerns have been satisfied on this trip, the system seems to be working fine. I had some concerns prior to the trip and Ford reprogrammed the HVAC system with an upgrade and it has worked well ever since, down in the hot southeast USA has been a good test for it.

 

[Gatortailale]

Do they put ethanol in the gas North of the border? It has been posted on here that you get better milage when the gas does not contain ethanol.

Great numbers and have a good trip home.

 

[JFUSION]

Do they put ethanol in the gas North of the border? It has been posted on here that you get better milage when the gas does not contain ethanol.

Great numbers and have a good trip home.

Thanks for the well wishes, we love vacationing in the US.

Yes in our region of Ontario Canada all gas has about 10% ethanol, which does decrease fuel economy a bit. Not all areas of Canada are like that though, it is mainly mandated in our region for air quality reasons I believe. That may explain some of the results on my trip if the US gas didn't have ethanol, I never really paid attention at the stations I stopped at. I believe BP uses ethanol at most of it's locations in the southeast US ?.

I did a calculation of the weight of passengers and cargo on our trip, it is just over 1000 lbs for persons, luggage, and my transported engine. The truck ran very well with all of that weight.

 

[bamacommander]

I consistently get between 25 to 26 mpg on the highway. If I drive 65 mph or less the mpg jumps way up. I had one stretch of road where I set the cruise on 57 mph and got over 31 mpg. Around town I have been getting 21 to 22 every time. I have a 2013 V6 FWD XLT with 20 inch wheels. My neighbor has a 2013 V6 FWD with the smaller wheel package and his mpg is less then mine, he blames the wheel size. So it looks like size does matter.

 

[Spengracin]

Never seen that kind of mileage, are you resetting the mpg for each type of travel, or are those mpgs overall?

 

[waynea]

Fuelly Web Site

Some of the mileages being posted in this forum are very high from what I have seen elsewhere. You might look at the Fuelly web site and see what other owners are showing from their reported fills. I am not associated with the site (other than reporting my fill ups) but do enjoy looking at reported mileages from the Explorer as well as its competitors. From what I can see, the Explorer is doing very well in the mileage department.

 

[VinceL]

Some of the mileages being posted in this forum are very high from what I have seen elsewhere. You might look at the Fuelly web site and see what other owners are showing from their reported fills. I am not associated with the site (other than reporting my fill ups) but do enjoy looking at reported mileages from the Explorer as well as its competitors. From what I can see, the Explorer is doing very well in the mileage department.

I'm glad to see a couple of you from here have joined me on Fuelly.com. Us 2013's have got to represent!

 

[bamacommander]

I hand calculate my mileage after each fill up. I live in Florida and we do not have very many hills. Needless to say I am very pleased with the mileage. The last highway road trip I took across the state I got 26.7 mpg. I set the cruise at 67 mph for most of the trip, but I did go through Orlando and Tampa which was a little stop and go.