Ford V10 gradual reduction in fuel economy
I have a 26' Class C on a 2000 Ford E450 chassis with V10 engine now with 115,000 mile on it. I used to average 8.5 mpg pulling a 3400 lb toad but over time the economy has deteriated to the 7.5 to 8....
Forum Discussion
whemme,
Ok, I'll probably take some flak for this, but over the years, have you been using less "real gas" (no alcohol) and more of the E10? On all of our vehicles, the miles per gallon drops just about 10% on the E10 gas we get all over the east coast.
When we first got our motorhome, our gas stations had real gas and that's what I uased. When the E10 was mandated and I had to use that, I noticed our mpg dropped from the ranges of 8-9 mpg with real gas (depending upon whether we were towing or not) down to 7-8 mpg when we used the ethanol stuff.
I wasn't sure what had happened, but about 5 years ago when we were travelling south, I apparently filled up at a station which had real gas. Once back on the road, I immediately noticed on my dash computer the average mpg numbers began climbing to almost a full 1 mpg more! Terrain had been the same, so it wasn't a "you're going downhill" reason. The next fill up was with E10 and down came the numbers.
You've got A LOT more miles on your rig than ours (about 40,000), so it is certainly possible you're having issues due to aging components.
Just a thought.
Good Luck,
~Rick
Ok, I'll probably take some flak for this, but over the years, have you been using less "real gas" (no alcohol) and more of the E10? On all of our vehicles, the miles per gallon drops just about 10% on the E10 gas we get all over the east coast.
When we first got our motorhome, our gas stations had real gas and that's what I uased. When the E10 was mandated and I had to use that, I noticed our mpg dropped from the ranges of 8-9 mpg with real gas (depending upon whether we were towing or not) down to 7-8 mpg when we used the ethanol stuff.
I wasn't sure what had happened, but about 5 years ago when we were travelling south, I apparently filled up at a station which had real gas. Once back on the road, I immediately noticed on my dash computer the average mpg numbers began climbing to almost a full 1 mpg more! Terrain had been the same, so it wasn't a "you're going downhill" reason. The next fill up was with E10 and down came the numbers.
You've got A LOT more miles on your rig than ours (about 40,000), so it is certainly possible you're having issues due to aging components.
Just a thought.
Good Luck,
~Rick
