MPG with E85 vs. gasoline?

[E.B. Cornburner]

Has there ever been a 4.0 flex fuel ranger? How to identify it?

Never a 4.0 FFV Ranger, but in '99 and 2000 they made 3.0 Ranger FFVs. Visit www.e85fuel.com for a complete list of E85 compatible vehicles.

 

[mikeh44]

where i work they have some 05 rangers that are ffv and they run e85

 

[E.B. Cornburner]

Hmmm. New one on me. It'd make perfect sense, since all the components are there already in the Explorer.

But, according to this site, which I've determined to be the most accurate on the web, there's no mention of it.
http://www.e85fuel.com/information/ford.php

I'd verify the 8th VIN character to know for sure. If it's definitely a FFV (8th VIN "K"), I'll drop the NEVC an email to include it in the list.
Unless they were some one-off "fleet only" vehicles that never really hit the consumer market. That's possible, but unlikely.

Lemme know...I'm really curious now.

 

[dkchrist]

thanks for the info EB

 

[slowmod'01]

Never a 4.0 FFV Ranger, but in '99 and 2000 they made 3.0 Ranger FFVs. Visit www.e85fuel.com for a complete list of E85 compatible vehicles.

Didn't the little green leaf looking symbol next to the v6 on the tailgate symbolize FFV or did that just mean it was a 3.0?

I have a 95 Explorer Eddie Bauer And I get about 21 city and 29 highway. no lie. I love my explorer lol gas here in houston is about $2.75 right now

Yeah, my '96 wouldn't do that if i turned the ignition off and pushed it off a cliff. 12/17 was the norm.

 

[seadawg]

21/29 hog wash

 

[slowmod'01]

21/29 hog wash

I wouldn't comletely wash the idea, there is a "quest for 30mpg" thread on here where someone has dedicated their life to gas mileage, but i think that is a sohc. the '95 should be an extremely under powered ohv like my '96, and i just don't see that happening. Everyone has different methods of computing gas mileage, and some are waaaaayyyy off! Who knows, i've seen stranger things..

 

[seadawg]

Please excuse my pessimism. Hog Wash may have been to strong.

 

[briwayjones]

Didn't the little green leaf looking symbol next to the v6 on the tailgate symbolize FFV or did that just mean it was a 3.0?

The green leaf means FFV.

 

[E.B. Cornburner]

Well, it looks like the gas burners don't get all that much better than the corn feeders! I talked to a guy with an '02 last night that bought it brand new, and he said that he rarely gets better than 17 MPG on the highway, and usually about 15 MPG in town.

If I drive it nice around town, I can get about 13.5-14.0 and this last weekend's road trip yeilded me 17.1 MPG on all highway driving. This all on E85! So much for the naysayers' rhetoric about how it takes half again as much ethanol to go a given distance as gasoline!

My dad's FFV Dodge Ram doesn't get as good of MPG as my Explorer (goes without saying), but his mileage isn't too far off what it's rated at for gasoline either.

 

[dmagerl]

I put a couple of tanks of E85 through my 04. I saw about a 20% reduction in mileage, from 18 to 14 mpg. I wouldnt mind that so much except that the stations around here sell E85 for a flat 30 cents less than regular. At the current price for regular gas at $3.25 a gallon, thats only an 9% reduction in price for a 20% reduction in mileage. That doesnt appear to be too economical to me.

-dickm

 

[E.B. Cornburner]

I agree if E85 is only 30 cents a gallon cheaper, it's not economical to use. There are stations here that are exactly that way. Kwik Trip sells their E85 for 30 cents a gallon less than their regular gasoline. Which means one thing...They're making more money off the E85 than they are off the gasoline, since E85 is exempt from road tax, which here equates to 54 cents per gallon.

The Renew E85 stations I fill up at are roughly a buck a gallon less than gasoline. The ethanol is produced locally, and I'm sure they're still making money on it. The stations are unique too...They have both gasoline (E10) and E85. There's two tanks in the ground. One with straight gasoline, and the other with straight ethanol, and the blend is done right at the dispenser. You can here the solenoids cycling when you're filling up. They cycle much faster with gas than with E85. This may be another reason why it's cheaper...The Kwik Trip stations have to transport the E85 pre-blended at their main facility to the stations.
I like it when a new Renew E85 station opens up somewhere. The day of that station's grand opening, all the Renew stations sell E85 for 85 cents a gallon! Next time, I'll be there with about 10 fuel cans along with an empty tank!