I’ve had my truck for about a month now and it seems like my truck is getting really bad fuel economy compared to a lot of other people that I’ve seen. Since I’ve had it my economy has been at 13.4 ish, granted I plowed with it a few times. The last time I filled it up, I had not plowed with or towed anything with it and I was driving it pretty easy I like to think, and I got 13.56 mpg. If anyone has any ideas I would appreciate it. It seems most people get around 19 mpg?

 

Welcome to the forum

Always good to include year of the Ranger

2010, 4.0l 4x4?
Automatic?

Yes, that MPG is very low, not sure you would get 19mpg with winter gas and snow on the roads, but in summer on a longer road trip, maybe
In winter 4.0l SOHC 16/17mpg
Winter gas knocks about 1/2 MPG off average

Look on the back edge of driver's door to see the Build label for your Ranger, take a picture of it, good info there to have
It will have stock tire size listed, that's what the speedo/odo are calibrated to
Larger diameter tires will show lower miles on odometer than actually travelled, so calculated MPG may be off

O2 sensors are the only sensors that wear out, 12 years or 100k miles, after that MPG starts to go down, slowly but down it goes
O2 sensor generate their own voltage using a chemical reaction in the presents of Oxygen(they can not see fuel)
0.1volt if high oxygen(lean)
0.9volt is low oxygen(rich)
As the older O2 starts to run out of chemicals the voltage starts to go down, computer see that as Lean so adds MORE FUEL than is required, MPG goes down

Older O2s will not set codes until they have cost you, in fuel, at least 5 times what a new set of O2s cost, so if in doubt of their age, replace them, start the 12 year clock again
You can check a few spark plug tips, see if they are a darker brown, indicating richer fuel mix

Idling of course is 0mpg, and in winter we like to warm up vehicles before driving, which is good, but still a hit on MPG

 

Thank you for your reply

Yes it is a 2010 Ranger XLT sport 4x4 automatic. I thought I had put it in there, sorry.

I will definitely test the o2 sensors and check the plugs. The tires are the same size that it says on the door so that isn’t one of my problems I don’t think. I also don’t think idling is too much of an issue, because I don’t normally let it idle for more than a few minutes but I can maybe see how it would chew through fuel faster because of the rich start ups.

Do you happen to have a suggestion for a good set of o2 sensors for this truck? I don’t think I want to buy Amazon cheapies that are going to **** the bed in a year unless I know that the Amazon cheapies have worked for other people. Also, how many pins should they have? I think I’ve seen some places where it says four and some places say 5

 

Bosch are what Ford uses and sets of 3 or 4 are not too expensive
All Rangers, 1993 and up, used the same O2 sensors, heated/narrow band, at all positions, no such thing as an upstream or downstream O2, they are the same

Part number differences are just the length of the attached cables
One might have a 6" attached cable, another 12" and another 18", ect...........
You can often buy sets with one longer length cheaper than individual O2 each with different lenth