Fuel range concerns with 2 door Sasquatch

[Rick Astley]

Is that overloaded? I thought the Ranger had a 7500 tow rating?

The trailer is overloaded, not the truck or tongue weight. 3,500 lbs max with a single axle trailer and no trailer brakes.

There are quite a few dynamics, ratings and requirements when it comes to trailers. All laws are probably written in blood. When we make the big camping truck we'll rent an F-350 super duty dually for the haul. But then we also have over a ton of weight in kegs of beer in the bed which is incredibly dynamic in motion.

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[AzScorpion]

We averaged 30.02 mpg in our '19 Ranger Lariat over ~2,500 miles to/from Glacier National Park, including about a dozen trips on Going To The Sun road (which is very slow and at elevation) with ~800 lbs in the bed and the bed cover closed.

I expect Bronco to be 1.5 mpg short of that due to it's lovely breadbox shape and protruding wheels compared to Ranger.

Full disclosure: Ranger MPG drops to about 10 when towing any reasonably sized trailer. We have a single axle that comes in at about 4,000 (overloaded, yes I know) plus a touch under 1K lbs in the bed and have been getting 12 mpg even up mountain passes.

Thats good mileage with elevation changes. We just got back from UT and Las Vegas and the round trip average was 23.7 and around 1350 miles but lot of elevation changes. Leaving here is 1000' then to Flagstaff which is at 7000' on up to UT. Hit Bryce Canyon and a few others along with some off roading in there so 23.7 wasn't all that bad considering.

Yup towing will kill the mpg fast but it does tow like a beast for a 2.3. Adding a tune will help too, the tow tune from Livernois is really nice. The added torque will help the mpg pulling a trailer especially through the mountains.

 

[GaryB2220]

Hahahaha. Fuel cans bud. You can strap em on top of load them in the back. Unless you are way out there in the remote wilderness, you'll never be further than 250 miles from a gas station. If you are putting on 50+ miles everyday, expect to fill up more than once a week

 

[Doc Rocket]

The 2020 Ford Ranger gets 20 - 24mpg per fuel economy dot gov (official EPA rating). It has a curb weight of 3,922 lbs. - 4441 lbs. and has a GVWR of 6050 lbs.

The 2021 Explorer has a much closer curb weight to the Bronco, at 4,345 lbs. With the same engine, in AWD (closest to 4WD), it gets 20 - 27 mpg.

The 2021 Ford Bronco 2D curb weight is 4319 - 4977 lbs with the same 2.3L (GVWR isn't listed). So, the Bronco is roughly ten percent heavier than the Ranger, and shaped differently.

Makes me think the Bronco will be closer to 18 - 25mpg with the 2.3L and less with the 2.7L

Interestingly enough, the Ranger has a max tow rating of 7,500 lbs, the Explorer 5,300 and the Bronco is 3,500.

Another interesting thing that I found, which I didn't realize EPA reported was E85 numbers. Fuel mileage for the Explorer is 30% lower with E85. All, except premium, has ethanol where I live. Even if it's 10% ethanol that could mean 20% lower mileage (10% lower per 5% ethanol, assumed from E85 providing 30% less mileage). That would mean a vehicle's mileage in a state that has ethanol could be rated at 18 - 25 mpg and one could realistically expect 14.5 - 20 mpg. Quite a dramatic difference.

I found this on the US Energy Information site:

"The energy content of ethanol is about 33% less than pure gasoline. The impact of fuel ethanol on vehicle fuel economy varies depending on the amount of denaturant that is added to the ethanol. The energy content of denaturant is about equal to the energy content of pure gasoline. In general, vehicle fuel economy may decrease by about 3% when using E10 relative to gasoline that does not contain fuel ethanol."

I think they missed a zero after the "3", because the EPA ratings of mileage are more similar to 18mpg down to 14mpg using E85 (as a real example), which is 22%, not 3%.

Your're a bit off: E85 is 85% Ethanol, 15% gasoline, so the normal levels of ethanol in the gas (10-15%) will have more like the 3% effect. So, for straight Ethanol, you would get 75% of the mileage you would get on straight gasoline (1/1.33), and the E85 should have about 28% less energy than gasoline, or the mileage would be (1/1.28) 78% of what you would get on gasoline (14 instead of 18). Overall, Ethanol (and pretty much every other alcohol) is a lousy fuel for normal driving (the low energy content by the gallon thing), but a pretty great racing fuel (high octane to support high compression/turbocharging/supercharging, evaporates quickly off the track with no greasy residue, etc).

More on topic: planning a 2-door Sasquatch, not worried about filling up once a week (for me, driving about 20 miles most days to work and back).

 

[Bodge Garage]

Look at it this way. A 2 door Bronco with one 4 gallon can will have better range than a 4 door since a 2 door will get better mpg from not carrying around 2 extra doors worth of Bronco. I think Warn sums it up well, go prepared. There are more things to worry about if you are more than 200 miles from a fueling station.

 

[timhood]

15 mpg!?! That would be horrible. It has to be better than that. These ecoboost engines are supposed to be efficient.

Ford's engines tend to be tuned more for "boost" than "eco". I've found that the city driving figures are hard to match but the highway driving figures are good when you can keep steady speeds. Maybe the Bronco's "eco" mode will include turbo deactivation (yeah, right) or something similar for when we don't need to red-light drag race.

 

[timhood]

The impracticalities of the 2-door just stack up too high for me. The 4-door gives you an extra 4 gallons which is an underappreciated benefit.

If it's practical you're looking for, may I suggest a school bus? You could opt for the short bus or the long bus. Seats as many as you could need. Remove as many seats as you want for more cargo space. Great ground clearance. Camping and overloading ready. Comes in the same color as offered on the Bronco.

 

[AcesandEights]

@Doc Rocket thanks for the correction. That's good.

 

[Doc Rocket]

Yes, if you look at the test standard for the EPA test, they drive 10.26 miles at an average of 48.3 mph, the city loop is 11.04 miles at an average of 21.2 mph. The city has a coupe of 2 minute runs at 50-55, but mostly stop, accelerate to about 30, then stop a couple dozen times. The highway test is about 5 minutes at 50 mph, then 7 minutes at about 55 mph. If this sounds like your driving, it might give you numbers you can believe in. However, the air drag part of required power goes with the cube of the speed, so driving 70 is going to use a lot more power (gas) than going 50. the problem with the tests is that they are really based on traffic in the 70s. A few years ago, I think they finally decided to have the air running during the test. The hybrid folks griped a lot about the EPA mileage dropping by 10 or more mpg from one year to the next without any mechanical changes, but they had already been griping about how much lower the real world mileage (air on) was than the EPA estimate (air off). Keep in mind that the primary purpose of the EPA test is to levy gas guzzler taxes, not to provide an accurate estimate of real world fuel economy. However, if it is better on the EPA sticker, it is also (probably) better in the real world, just not necessarily the same numbers.

 

[jeep364]

15 mpg!?! That would be horrible. It has to be better than that. These ecoboost engines are supposed to be efficient.

It's no honda pilot...35s weight damn near 100#. That's a shitton of unsprung weight.

2.3+10 spd is certainly efficient in a normal vehicle. Not so much in this rolling brick.

 

[Techun]

what don't you understand? I'm saying the EPA ratings that the manufacturers list are NOT real world expectations - they are BEST CASE scenarios - set the cruise control at 55mph with a tailwind downhill, and you might hit the highway estimate... for city, you probably have to keep it below 2500rpm in order to hit their estimate for that..

So - if the Bronco comes out with EPA estimates of 18 city / 22 highway , I'd expect real world results to be about 14-15

You can look up exactly what the cycles are, it's public knowledge.

 

[VictoryLights]

No way! I Highly doubt a 4 mpg difference. I would expect at most 2 mpg.

22 x 20 = 440 mile range

56 mile difference isn’t negilibile.

On Jeep, there is a 1 mpg difference 2 door vs 4 door so:

23 x 20 = 460

76 mile difference is definitely not negligible

 

[VictoryLights]

It's no honda pilot...35s weight damn near 100#. That's a shitton of unsprung weight.

2.3+10 spd is certainly efficient in a normal vehicle. Not so much in this rolling brick.

I agree and I’m not expecting over 20 mpg, but 15 mpg listed by the factory would be crazy.

Raptor Super Crew with 3.5 is listed 16 mpg average. I would expect 18 mpg from 4 door Sasquatch. Anything less will be disappointing.

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