clean out the inside of your throttle body. Chances are it hasn't been done to that truck and it's 10 years old so the TB is probably dirty as hell. Mine was 10 years old when I cleaned it for the first time and that alone helped my mileage. If it were me I'd do that, seafoam, new plugs, and new fuel filter all at the same time. (make sure you do the seafoam treatment BEFORE changing plugs)

oh and get an Xcal tuner and get a mileage tune. Xcal is a MUCH MUCH MUCH better investment than any mileage-promising intake kit.

 

Yeah it just sucks because even at 65 most cars are blowing by me and I have to stay in the right lane. It sucks when you have that occasional big rig or charter bus thats doing like 80 and you have to let them pass you

 

I know It kills me to go slow but it kills my wallet to keep up with them

 

Well i was getting 14 city with my 02 manual, i changed my fuel filter, and my pcv valve (which was absolutely caked at 116k miles). my next tank of gas my mileage jumped to 16 city.

I would def check the pcv as i think that was the main culprit for my mileage.

 

where is the PCV valve?

 

its on the driver side valve cover on the back of the motor between firewall and motor. on the sohc the best way to get it out was to take off the coil pack, but i noticed that u COULD do it without it, what i did was bend the L shaped rubber hose untill the other end of it was loose, then i just bent the coolant lines around the actual valve to get it off, took all of 15 min to do.

i think there is a how to somewhere on here too...

 

no what i meant was his 4.0 is a pushrod and mine is a SOHC.

 

If its a back and forth to work week for me I can get about 20 mpg's with my 2.3. My 96 Grand Marquis did that at 16 mpg but I hated tossing stuff in the trunk and dragging my rear end home from Menard's. Our 06 Vue with the 250 hp V-6 gets about the same and the as my Grand Marquis. The best I did on the high way was 30 mpg with the 2.3. Almost went 400 miles on a tank.

 

Should have bought the 4 cylinder >.> Actually......no.



Seriously though. I <3 my 2.5L. I get better gas mileage on my 2.5L manual than my moms 2.0L Suzuki auto. I push 30mpg in town when I drive well. She gets like 25mpg tops. I pedal to the carpet though usually so I get like 20-25mpg. Not that it does much pedalling to the carpet though. 119hp haha.

 

HAHA When I got my truck I couldn't pass emissions check. I went home and looked around under the hood. My PVC valve was disconnected LOL. I was like, wow.


Just look for the orange sized flying saucer with a L shaped wiring poking out of it.

 

thats not the PCV valve your are describing, that sounds more like the EGR valve. the SOHC PCV looks like this:


and is located on the rear face of the driver side valve cover with acoolant heater hose around it.

 

I said the same thing when I bought my truck. I was pissed. I changed the plugs, put on a cai, flowmaster, changed the fuel filter, cleaned the MAF, and noticed no gain in mpg. I get about 14-15 always. Sucks man just gotta get used to it.

 

synthetic all your fluids and do a tune up is the best you can hope for, dont spend too much money on aftermarket mods hoping they'll be the key to better mpg. if u still want an intake though get a ebay intake and buy a filter for it, metal tube is metal tube no matter how much they charge you for it

 

throwing the bs flag here i have yet to top 25 and thats taking it easy, with the "pedal to the carpet" its 21 - 22 highway.

 

Buy a scangauge that will show you when your truck really sucks down the gas. I use to be a leadfoot and was getting around 12mpg, got a scangauge and now getting around 15-16.

 

yeah you are right. EGR valve

 

The scangauge definitely helped me also. On a recent roadtrip, I got damn near 17 (so happy I almost soiled myself).

 

Is that that funny guage that Uhauls have equiped? It show like when you floor it you end up in the red and when you go easy you stay in the green?

 

ScanGaugeII - Trip Computers + Digital Gauges + Scan Tool

 

Oh ok. That looks like a good investment. Is it worth it?

 

ABSOLUTELY. I've had mine since they came out with the 2nd edition of them. Absolutely love it....still using it everyday to this day. Even got a few locals to buy 'em. I too gained about 3-4 mpg by just learning about fuel consumption with it. Plus, i love neat little gadgets!

So a search for Scangauge here on R-F. There's a bunch of threads answering questions on it and comments on how people like 'em.

 

Word, Thanks man! Do you happen to have a picture of where you put it in the truck?

 

A K&N Intake helped both (sound and mpg) in my 2007 xlt 4.0L 4x4. I'm not sure why everyone here says not to buy K&N Intakes. The engineernig and logic behind them is sound. I found one online for $200 and my math shows it will pay for its self in 9 months now that I have seen an improvement of 2 mpg. Thats a pretty good mix of 40% highway to 60% city. I was getting 19 on that same mix a week ago (before my new intake). I say buy it.

EDIT: Sorry about the out-dated post. Didn't realize this had 3 pages to it...

 

This is why I love my 3.0 People on here rip on them, but my auto 3.0 gets 17 in the city (Im real rough on acceleration) and at least 20 on the highway.

Not the quickest truck around, but I don't need to go fast, and rarely do I tow anything.

 

I have a 2.3 4 banger and I only get about 17-18 mpg in the city. On the freeways though, I've gotten around 30 mpg.

I thought I'd get better than that but that's it. I was used to drivng my Ford Tempo around that really just sipped the gas.