Tune for Fuel Economy

[ISUACE]

Is there a tune for fuel economy?

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[2020FRL]

I purchased the Ranger for two reasons ... fuel economy and towing my trike ... I'm averaging 22.1 mpg for the 14 fill ups I've done (probably 40% highway, 60% around town). I'll admit, I'm not a lead foot and haven't towed yet. I know I'll take a hit while towing. Just curious, what kind of mpg's are you looking for? At probably $800 for a tune (guess) you can buy lots of gas for that. roughly 250 gallons depending on your cost per gallon.

Lets say a tune gets you 4 mpg more miles per gallon (that's a huge increase 20% on 20 mpg) .

Based on 15K miles per year:

15K/20mpg = 750 gallons/year
15K/24mpg = 625 gallons/year

750-625 = 125 gallons saved/year

125 x $2.50/gallon = $312.50

$800 for tune / $312.50 = 2.56 years to break even. Most people today don't keep vehicles more than 3 years.

Not even gonna plug in any potential issues from the tune or potential for violating the warranty.

Disclaimer: Hypothetical numbers were used, your numbers may vary. IE: If you're driving 30K/year, you will break even quicker. If you're paying $5/gallon, you will break even quicker. If the tune gains you 10% instead of 20%, it will take you longer to break even.

I'm a math guy ... also a little anal about tracking my vehicles ... LOL ... "wrote" my own app in Filemaker to track my vehicles, past, present and future. Just modified it to adjust for the slight speedo error after putting slightly taller tires on the ranger. The file that works with FileMaker Go on my phone is just a tad under 3 gig of used storage space (a lot of that is pictures and receipts).

Of course, being in Covid protocols and retired, gives me WAY TOO MUCH TIME on my hands ... LOL

Here's a screen shot of the Ranger Summary Screen:

Cost, CPD, CPM, etc are based on every nickel spent on the vehicle since purchase, Payment, insurance, fuel, accessaries (a biggie), repairs, etc.

It even tracks when service is due. You may notice "Plates" are due. I need to go back to my dealer and get another temp. My DMV is slow on a good day, add Covid and the 60 day temp doesn't come close, guessing I won't see plates until June?, Bought the truck in early January.

Wow ... I got off on a tangent ... but it shows ya the level of Analness I suffer from on my vehicles.

 

[Rp930]

My Ford Performance tune increased mileage a little over 1 mpg. Have to use premium though.

 

[jzinckgra]

I think your 1st mistake is buying a tune for better fuel economy. While the tune may help a bit, don't you want to get it for the increased HP and torque and if so, you'll probably "get on it" more with the pedal, negating much of the fuel savings. I'm pretty anal about things you mentioned, but the fun factor the tune will bring will quickly offset my concern over lost mpg. I'm looking to get the livernois tune.

 

[wanted33]

Cody, just be more mindful when pulling away from a dead stop. That's where a turbo will hurt your mpg's the most. My Ranger averages very close to Alans, but I can make that drop if I start playing at stop lights. As the old saying goes, "You can have good mpgs, or you can have boost. You can't have both".

 

[Frenchy]

As to no suprise everyone here wants better fuel economy on thier vehicles(prius included lol). The first thing you can do is use premium fuel. Belive it or not it will increase the overall performance including MPG on your truck. I remember seeing roughly 2 MPG gain at best with just that. After that I installed the Livernois tow tune and that helped about another 1-2 MPG. Now depending on the conditions my MPG can be near 30 MPG or as low as 16 MPG. A pain for sure but the truth. One other thing you can do if you feel like it get a 4ft pipe, disconnect the muffler and knock out the 1 inch restrictor. O recently did that and it has helped some(key word here).

Hope this helps

 

[OFC Ranger]

My 93 performance tune from 5 star actually increased my MPG by average 2+ and I have probably the least aerodynamic permanent configuration Ranger on the road in the entire country outside of people towing trailers.

Almost every tuner on the market is going to address "gear hunting" and gear skipping. I'm still not completely even sure how a package that increases power by quite a lot has somehow magically produced better MPG than the factory programming.

I ran 93 prior to my tune and would average 14.9 around town and I rarely hot-dog it. After my tune I'm averaging 16.9

Highway I was gettng around 16.x now I can get 18.x

 

[Frenchy]

My 93 performance tune from 5 star actually increased my MPG by almost 2+ and I have probably the least aerodynamic permanent configuration Ranger on the road in the entire country outside of people towing trailers.

Almost every tuner on the market is going to address "gear hunting" and gear skipping. I'm still not completely even sure how a package that increases power by quite a lot has somehow magically produced better MPG than the factory programming.

I ran 93 prior to my tune and would average 14.9 around town and I rarely hot-dog it. After my tune I'm averaging 16.9

Highway I was gettng around 16.x now I can get 18.x

I can answer that question for you. Most tunes clean up the fuel mapping wich helps the overall efficiency and that is how the Fuel mileage can go up

 

[OFC Ranger]

I can answer that question for you. Most tunes clean up the fuel mapping wich helps the overall efficiency and that is how the Fuel mileage can go up

I get that, what Im still confused about is if it cleans it up so well, how do a bunch of engineers at Ford not go the same path?

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