Learn Me F150 Ecoboost

In reply to yupididit :

Wow. That's too bad. The tow/haul shifting is one of my favorite things about my EB.

(I've never found another vehicle I liked that in)

I was an early adopter on the 3.5EB, having ordered a 2011 F-150 back in 2010. I had that truck for 5 years until it was replaced with the 2015 Expedition we have now (technically my wife's car). Somewhere in there I had a 2014 Taurus SHO. I freaking love this engine. Torquey and smooth, tons of potential (I had a tune on the SHO for a while) and dead-nuts reliable for me so far. The F-150 did a decent amount of towing, the Expedition has done a lot. Compared to the 5.4-powered trucks and 4.6-powered Explorer I towed with before, the Ecoboost is a revelation. No issues with power whatsoever. It feels like a much bigger engine than it actually is.

The downside is that, as soon as you get into the boost, the mileage goes to E36 M3. Towing our 30' travel trailer, we get between 8-9 MPG with the Expedition. And even around town, you're probably going to get mid-teens at best. I understand that the newer trucks with the 10-speed auto do quite a bit better, though.

2017+ F150 is the gen2 3.5 with the 10spd. 2015 3.5 had some updates to help with reliability. The 2014 and earlier were the original engines that are considered "not as reliable" but they seem pretty darn reliable.

The engines are easy to work on and access isn't too bad as long as you're not short lol. They do tend to go through plugs and recommended to change them every 60k or earlier depending on usage. Gas mileage, keep your foot out of it and you might get 17 city lol.

In reply to yupididit :

Short can be "fixed" by removing the front tires. 

yupididit said:

In reply to SV reX :

I've heard the 10spd is a little more undecided with what gear it wants to be in while towing.

Yeah but that's how it manages fuel economy. It really wants to run at like 1700rpm for efficiency but then basically any amount of a hill requires a downshift to maintain speed. But if you're tired of it hunting around you can lock it out of the last couple of gears and it'll shift a lot less but also use a ton more fuel.

The ten speed does seem to be a bit hit or miss and there's a lot of conflicting information out there. But it seems like if you get a good one it's good forever, so shopping used is probably an advantage in that department. They seem to take a long time to break in, my friend bought one and we were concerned about the transmission initially as it would occasionally shift hard and send like it was keeping the converter locked way to long on decel, but after a few months or so it settled in and has been fine since.

What does your future rv upgrade look like in your imagination? If it's anything under like 8k lb / 26' the f150 will do just fine. Much more than that and I'd agree to start looking at bigger stuff.

In reply to dps214 :

I am probably looking at less than 28' and 8K lbs but that's one of those things where if you can haul more you will... I'd really like to buy a big dually because I have always wanted one but I can't ask the wife to daily that so the F150 seems like a good compromise. We really don't do a lot of miles, the CRV has seen 10,500 in 18 months and my suburban has done less than 5k in almost 2 years. Not commuting to work really cuts down on mileage.

The 10spd is awesome, I did have to have the computer reset at 11000 since it couldn't figure out how I wanted to drive it. Always seemed to be slipping from gear to gear trying to decide where it was. The reset didn't really work since it never went back to crisp shifts so I drive it in sport or tow/haul all the time now. It's waaay faster than a vehicle of this size has a right to be and tows about anything with no hassle. 
 

It's about as perfect a daily/tow pig as I can imagine.

SV reX said:

In reply to yupididit :

Short can be "fixed" by removing the front tires. 

or perhaps standing on a milk crate?

chandler said:

The 10spd is awesome, I did have to have the computer reset at 11000 since it couldn't figure out how I wanted to drive it. Always seemed to be slipping from gear to gear trying to decide where it was. The reset didn't really work since it never went back to crisp shifts so I drive it in sport or tow/haul all the time now. It's waaay faster than a vehicle of this size has a right to be and tows about anything with no hassle. 
 

It's about as perfect a daily/tow pig as I can imagine.

Hey !!!! where are you going with all that 'STUFF' !?!?!?!!!!

I've got a 2018 F150 with the 3.5L Ecoboost and 10 speed transmission. Its my first truck so I don't have anything to compare it to but I really like, despite some reliability issues.

The good: It's quicker than something this big has any right to be, it rides nice and has handled all of the "truck stuff" I've needed to do with zero complaints (many yards of dirt and stone while landscaping, towing an enclosed trailer for a friend, picking up a bunch of plywood, etc). 

The bad: A modern engine should not have timing chain tensioners fail at 70k miles, but mine did. Fortunately I caught it before disaster struck (I assume this is an interference engine). I also had the battery monitoring system fail at 50k miles so the auto start/stop quit working and the infotainment system would randomly turn off while driving because it thought the truck was off and radio would discharge the battery.

As has been mentioned, the 10 speed transmission is slow to react unless you put it in sport mode. If I'm cruising an floor it, if I don't hold the gas down for more than a couple seconds it will slam into gear fairly violently when it shifts up. Dealer has looked at and tried updating calibration but it persists. A friend with this transmission with the 5L has the same complaint. I really wish there was a button on the steering wheeI that I could hold down that would just keep the transmission from shifting and use the buckets of torque available instead of downshifting for a couple of seconds.

Despite the issues I've had, I would still recommend it even though I'm probably going to trade it in on a Ranger when the new one is introduced next year just because the F150 is way bigger than I like.

Ten is at least twice as many gears as required for a pickup truck.

As a small detour, it takes a while to get used to new stuff.  My 2000 Silverado has a throttle cable and a manual trans.  Driving a 15 Silverado, I found it frustrating when I wanted to do something quickly, it would first confirm that my foot was still pushing harder, then it would fire up the cold cylinders, then drop two or three gears, then do what I had wanted a while ago.  It's a bit like driving an older turbocharged car, but without the fun at the end.

I bought a used '16 XLT super cab with the 2.7 and six speed trans to replace an '02 F150 with the 5.4 mod motor a couple of years ago.  I tow a steel open trailer with my car and stuff, probably weighs a little over 5K pounds.  You don't even know the trailer is back there.  It tows so much better than the '02 it isn't even a contest.  I did put a bigger tire on it, and it probably should have airbags on the back.  I always use a weight distribution hitch just to keep the truck level so the headlights aren't blinding everyone when I'm running at night.  The six speed trans in tow mode is excellent, very smart, very useful, especially on decel on hills and such.  I have had no problems with the truck at 65K miles and like that it has a 6.5' bed with the super cab as opposed to the crew cab with the shorter bed.  I think this was the last year for the six speed, and I think they started the PI/DI setup in either '17 or '18.  The PI was added to keep the intake valves clean since with only DI the back of the valve was not getting the benefit of being hit with detergents and cleaners in the fuel and would coke up from oil coming in from the PCV system.  I also have an enclosed Haulmark 24' trailer (steel) but I have not towed it with the truck.  It would be interesting to give it a try, its a lot heavier and has a lot more frontal area, but I think I would want the 3.5 if I were to tow the bigger trailer with any regularity, especially if the tow was in a mountainous area.

In reply to stukndapast :

FWIW, the PFI was not added because of deposits.  It was added for power potential and emissions.  That goes for the 3.5, too.  And the 5.0.  And pretty much the entire Ford engine line.

It seems that the 3.5L can either run like a champ or turn into a nightmare.  My 2013 3.5L has 153K miles on it and runs like new!  I bought it used with over 120K miles simply because it ran so well when I test drove it.  I did have two issues with it.  It needed a brake job when I bought it but I knew that at the time and the sale price reflected that.  Later the line to the trans cooler sprung a leak while I was on the highway and I lost most of the trans fluid with me stuck on the side of the road. I later replaced the trans with a low mile used one and the truck again runs super. It was simply my bad luck that the line failed.  If I had pulled over as soon as the trans acted up I would have not needed to replace the trans. The converter was the main problem but to replace that you had to pull the trans so why not replace it at the same time. 

In reply to Schmidlap :

The upshift or downshift is hard? My friend's initially did a thing where if you were cruising at highway speed and planted the throttle it would downshift so hard that it would trigger the traction control. But recently we tried to recreate it a few different times and couldn't, so it seems like it just needed some time for the transmission and/or computer to break in.

Streetwiseguy said:

Ten is at least twice as many gears as required for a pickup truck.

You're just saying that because you haven't experienced cruising at 80mph at a whisper quiet 1500rpm. IIRC the first six gears of the ten speed are the same as the six speed, the extra four are all major overdrives which is how you get a full size gas truck that does 20+ mpg highway and can out accelerate several sports cars. Also it has a neat system where you can lock it out of higher gears as you please. So you can turn it into a six or five (or even fewer, if you're really crazy) speed if you really want to.

In reply to SV reX :

Just looping back to this thread.

The issues I described are in normal driving, not towing. In Tow mode and Sport mode it is definitely better, although I don't care for the amount of engine braking in those modes if I'm not towing, so I only use Sport if I'm driving in the mountains.

The issue is that the truck is always sub 2000 rpm, and the combo of being out of boost and slow to downshift make the truck feel sluggish in normal traffic where you may need to quickly inject a little speed. Once it builds boost and gets in a lower gear, it moves out nicely.

dps214 said:

In reply to Schmidlap :

The upshift or downshift is hard? My friend's initially did a thing where if you were cruising at highway speed and planted the throttle it would downshift so hard that it would trigger the traction control. But recently we tried to recreate it a few different times and couldn't, so it seems like it just needed some time for the transmission and/or computer to break in.

Streetwiseguy said:

Ten is at least twice as many gears as required for a pickup truck.

You're just saying that because you haven't experienced cruising at 80mph at a whisper quiet 1500rpm. IIRC the first six gears of the ten speed are the same as the six speed, the extra four are all major overdrives which is how you get a full size gas truck that does 20+ mpg highway and can out accelerate several sports cars. Also it has a neat system where you can lock it out of higher gears as you please. So you can turn it into a six or five (or even fewer, if you're really crazy) speed if you really want to.

You need four gears between 60 and 80 mph?  BullE36 M3.  I stand by my statement.

I'm guessing you are not an engineer. 

You do if you want to maximize fuel economy across the entire cruising speed range. There's a reason cvts are becoming more common, even in smaller cars.

I just want to take a second to thank you all for the info. I appreciate all the input and comments. I think I am going to try to drive a couple of them (I noticed my neighbor has what looks like a 2013) and see how they feel. Then wifey and I can make a decision on if / when ti make a move. 
 

Thanks again. 

I recently took delivery of my 2021 Powerboost (3.5 Ecoboost with the hybrid motor), which replaced my 2018 3.5 EB truck because they made me a deal I couldn't refuse.  I haven't done any real towing with the 2021 yet, but the 2018 was the most comfortable and easiest towing truck I've ever had.  I had 32k miles on it in that two years, with quite a few trips up and down the coast and out to Lincoln.  Never noticed an issue with it hunting gears.  MPG wise, around town it was great (and the 2021 is even better), but don't expect to see incredible numbers when towing.  For me, this was no big deal - I daily more than I tow.

In reply to Gimp (Forum Supporter) :

Damn, that's a pretty truck!

In reply to Gimp (Forum Supporter) :

That's nice! What trim?

In reply to Gimp (Forum Supporter) :

When I see that, I really hope that the concept spreads down products.  I'd love to have a hybrid Escape that I can tow with.  Or even a Maverick pickup.  We don't really have the space (or want) to have our only vehicle be an F150.

Pretty sweet, and thanks for trying to help with the profit sharing check.

alfadriver said:

In reply to Gimp (Forum Supporter) :

When I see that, I really hope that the concept spreads down products.  I'd love to have a hybrid Escape that I can tow with.  Or even a Maverick pickup.  We don't really have the space (or want) to have our only vehicle be an F150.

Pretty sweet, and thanks for trying to help with the profit sharing check.

I was hoping for a hybrid option in the 2022 Expedition refresh, but alas, it wasn't to be. Just as well, we don't need a new loan.