Caribou Gear

Ford Eco Boost Engines

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gregt9146

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I'm looking at maybe buying a Ford F150 and it has the 3.5L Eco Boost motor. What can anybody tell me about this motor? as I know nothing about them good, or bad.
 
I have a 2013 with it. Love it. No issues pulling and the turbos aren't even loud enough to hear. MPG is nice, HWY I can get 25, pulling my 22' camper I get 15 doing 70mph. It has the higher resale value vs the V8 by a wide margin. A lot of Ford engineers are saying it will be the foundation of future builds. I am looking at a new truck (no particular reason other than to give a sales guy false hope) and all I'm considering are V6 Ecoboosts.
 
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My neighbor just bot a new F150. He got the V8. I asked him why no eco boost. said the sales man told him the the gas mileage drops off substantially when he tows. Sound like you get the same mileage towing as a lot of guys get just driving.
 
I had not heard about a drop off. Those are my real world experience numbers. Then again, I don't really have a truck for the gas mileage. My truck goes wherever I point it and tows everything I have hooked up to.
 
Tradewind, that was just a sale's pitch, needed to move the V8's I assume.....

Greg, I will be getting my wife an eco boost within a couple of years, they are well worth it, imo.
Matt
 
My friend who owns a automotive repair shop got one in with under 35,000 miles that needed both turbos replaced. The owner lucked out and Ford replaced them. The estimate to replace was astronomical, I don't remember just how much, but it made my jaw drop at the time.
 
I have a V8 and my father has the eco boost. We both use ours a lot each fall all over the place. A couple reasons why I chose the V8 were 1.) I don't pull anything heavy. 2.) on average the V8 is about 3-4k less when purchasing. 4.) When a turbo goes out, be prepared to pay some large bills to have it fixed. 4.) I just didn't feel the "need" to have the eco boost. I absolutely love my truck and have zero issues with how it performs for what I do. I average about 15-20k miles a year.

Having said that, the eco boost definitely tows better. I have a 16ft enclosed trailer packed with gear and a side by side and my V8 pulls it no problem, but the eco pulls it even better. My father pulls his 30 ft 5th wheel with it all summer long with no problem as well. IMO if you are pulling over 7k lbs quite often and long distances I would go with an eco boost. They both are great engines and great trucks it just depends on what you truly need. Our gas mileage is pretty much the same but like it was mentioned above, gas mileage isn't that important to me.
 
shootbrownelk said:
My friend who owns a automotive repair shop got one in with under 35,000 miles that needed both turbos replaced. The owner lucked out and Ford replaced them. The estimate to replace was astronomical, I don't remember just how much, but it made my jaw drop at the time.
Click to expand...

That's bad luck on the turbo as most guys never have problems with them. I guess there will always be some bad apples though. I wonder if that would've been covered under the 60,000 Powertrain Warranty if he would've had a few more miles on it?
 
With what Tradewind has said my buddies Uncle just bought a new Ecoboost and the mileage was terrible he said. I am not a ford guy nor have I personally driven the new ones to give you my own experience this is just what they were saying when talking about his new truck.
 
I know people that love them and hate them. One buddy had to put a new turbo in at 100k.

I have the 2013 F-150 5.0L V8 and have been told several times by several Ford Mechanics, when I take it in for oil change or when I got the tranny and transfer case fluid changed; 'you got the good engine'

I am at 76k with no issues, but I would hope you would get there with either engine with no issues.
 
A buddy had a F-150 Lariat with the Eco Boost in it. We used it for 3 of us going to Newfoundland for a moose hunt in 2015. It had a bunch of gear, plus an old upright freezer laid flat for bring home the moose meat. I was disappointed in the MPG. While the truck was awesome in every other respect, we averaged 14.5 on the way up and 13.5 on the way home with a cooler strapped on the roof of the truck cap. My old 2006 F-150 with the Triton 5.4 and 130K miles could have done that.

That being said, if I was buying a new truck I would get the Eco Boost.
 
Ford also puts out an F150 with a naturally aspirated 3.5. Good mpg, no turbos, and still better performance than most v8s were putting out 20 years ago.
 
With my 5.0 i get 15.5-16mpg @ 80

I drove Missoula to Billings in that freezing rain storm in early Jan., rarely getting above 60 and i got 20.5mpg
 
My F-150 5.4 V8 gets about 16-20mpg av.I have gotten 22mpg on road trip empty and 16mpg hauling a trailer of beams up the grade from Reserve.
Neighbor has ecoboost & likes it. He hauls trailers of gravel & gets about 14mpg then.18mpg average he says.
Another local swears by his Raptor.
Both have $ to burn if you ask me.
 
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I had the Eco Boost and Multiple times the Turbo's shut off on me and I had almost no power. Happened once to me while towing and passing someone. Talk about scary. My dad had the eco boost and recently upgraded to a new F150 with the V8. He gets the same gas mileage, and doesn't have to worry about his Turbo's going out on him.
 
Something to remember when talking about gas mileage is the gear ratios. If someone has 3.73s in a ecoboost he wont be able to compare gas mileage with a 5.0 at 3.31 or 3.15 gears. Same thing goes with towing. I have a 2014 EcoBoost with 3.31 gears and I can easily get 25 @ 55 mph. I put airbags in the back end and now I can pull almost anything a 3/4 ton can pull, however, if that was something I did a lot of I would get 3/4 ton.
 
I love my 2014 fx4 with ecoboost. After owning a 2004 f150 with that junk 5.4 in it, I swore I'd never buy another ford. Then i was in the market for a truck, Drove all of them. I bought the ford.

The ecoboost pulls anything i've hooked to it with ease. Mpg's are not what they list on the sticker though. I lost 1-2mpg when i added 10ply bfg tires as well.

Great trucks though.
 
We had one at the place I used to work. Surprising power. Decent gas mileage and as it was a mine truck it got beat to hell and needed minimum repairs. That being said I would never purchase one. I have a hard time paying $50k+ for a gas engine pickup when I can get a 3/4 ton or even 1 ton diesel for the same price. I get 22.4 mpg in my cummins diesel empty or 17ish pulling a loaded four horse trailer. Yes I have done work to it to get it that way but with the potential to easily get well over 350k miles on the engine I cant argue the $10k I put in the truck to make it damn near bulletproof. And I run 12's in the quarter. ;)
 
My father bought a new one a few years ago. Test drove a handleful of ecoboosts and every one had a noticeable buffeting sound at 70+mph...enough to drive you crazy. Tried a v8 and couldnt hear a thing. Went with the v8
 
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