Any 7.3 gasser owners?
- Thread starter Skinhyfish
- Start date
IdaSHO
IDACAMPER
Single biggest gripe I have about our Superduty. Though throttle response doesn't seem affected on our 2012
I use it for holding/delaying shifts pulling hills, and better downshifts on downgrades.
rruff
Explorer
I think I hate traction control more... don't know who the genius was who determined that it was a good idea to make your car/truck refuse to turn its wheels when it gets slippery... and disabling that is a process.
It would be fine if we could turn these things on or off and it would stay that way, but no...
Trail Talk
Well-known member
Certainly makes the point that departure angles aren’t just for showThats an awfully nice logging road, in use or not!
Thats a proper dirt road used for local commutes around here!
Skinhyfish
Observer
With your 4.30 gears and 37in tires.. what’s your RPMs at 70mph?
cjoneill
New member
‘23 F350 CC SB 7.3 gasser with 4.30 and Tremor package. Towing out 11.5k 5th wheel all through MO, WY, OR, ID, NV and CA.
Generally tows great in all conditions, a little slower up grades than my last rig (‘15 f350 6.7 diesel), but only maybe 5-8 mph slower near top of the grade.
The biggest difference, and a huge one, is the lack of the exhaust brake. Going down grades more than 8% means I have to go really slow. 2nd gear slow, and that means running the rpm’s to 4K then braking to get speed down.
In short, I’ve never felt concerned. If I were towing for a living, or towing anything heavier, I’d go diesel.
Otherwise, so far so good at 22k miles.
Generally tows great in all conditions, a little slower up grades than my last rig (‘15 f350 6.7 diesel), but only maybe 5-8 mph slower near top of the grade.
The biggest difference, and a huge one, is the lack of the exhaust brake. Going down grades more than 8% means I have to go really slow. 2nd gear slow, and that means running the rpm’s to 4K then braking to get speed down.
In short, I’ve never felt concerned. If I were towing for a living, or towing anything heavier, I’d go diesel.
Otherwise, so far so good at 22k miles.
rruff
Explorer
Easy enough to do, and not hurting anything... but the sound and feel of a big engine revving is not very relaxing.
deserteagle56
Adventurer
This is me. I can feel my blood pressure jump up by 10 points as soon as the tranny shifts down and revs jump up to 4-5000 rpm!
IdaSHO
IDACAMPER
Yep. They might not sound like it, but they are designed for broad RPM ranges, including those higher RPMS.
When our 6.2 kicks down all the way to 2nd gear for a 7-8% grade doing 60-65mph, and stars singing at 4500+ RPM the wife refers to it as "race car noises"
At first I would back out of it a bit. But anymore I just keep in it.
The 6.2 doesnt seem to care. Even if it sounds like its running hard enough to ventilate the case.
When our 6.2 kicks down all the way to 2nd gear for a 7-8% grade doing 60-65mph, and stars singing at 4500+ RPM the wife refers to it as "race car noises"
At first I would back out of it a bit. But anymore I just keep in it.
The 6.2 doesnt seem to care. Even if it sounds like its running hard enough to ventilate the case.
rruff
Explorer
This is exactly it! It sounds and feels "uncomfortable" but you aren't hurting anything. And power (not torque) is what gets you over the pass.
My ex's new husband oddly has the same truck I do (with a XP V2 camper), and has mentioned that it doesn't have enough power to keep up with traffic on the big grade on 70 in CO... but I find that hard to believe.
86scotty
Cynic
I have this same feeling every time I'm out in Colorado or similar places with high elevation, population and multi lane roads/freeways. My V10 has gobs of power in almost all situations but I always feel like I'm the slow guy in places like the "big grade on 70 in CO".
Perhaps I'm rationalizing my own inadequacies but I feel it has to do with a few things. People driving small, new cars that are so much quicker than the average car used to be, so many people driving big torquey diesel trucks, so much more of the population driving turbocharged vehicles which aren't affected by elevation like I am and more than anything, people just driving fast.
Sorry to ramble on but I've been thinking about this a lot lately since I just came home from a trip. Every now and then I get passed by a big Class C rental motorhome with the same exact drivetrain I have. Much more wind resistance and weight than me and still passing me. Then I realize that my biggest problem is just not being willing to turn the radio up louder and push the pedal to the floor. I do believe that my specific engine would get about 1 mpg less if I drove it like I stole it, yet I still baby it.
Late to the thread, but adding my two cents.
I have driven the 2023 6.7 HO and a 2023 7.3 and both drive great. I then ordered a '24 7.3 with 3.73 and have driven it for just over 6,000 miles; mostly loaded with a camper and often towing a 3,000lb fishing boat or 3,000lb 16' enclosed trailer.
Poaching my own thought process from one of my posts in another forum...
-----------------------------------
My use case is a fairly light (1,300lb) slide-in, pop-up pickup camper. Have had this style of camper (two different brands) for 6 years. Campers have been on a 10 year old, overloaded 1/2 ton (2013 Tundra with 4.6L V8) with LT tires and airbags. I've been plenty happy with roughly 325hp and 325torque and 6 speed transmission. Loaded with camper, supplies and two people, I've been as high as 2,400lbs of payload! And that is not including MTBs/dirtbikes on a receiver rack or tongue weight from enclosed trailer with powersports toys (3,000lb) or boat/trailer (3,000lb). Yeah, handling was adequate, but never ideal.
I needed more payload capacity, handling and braking ability than my 1/2 ton. I don't need more hp/torque than that little V8 engine gave. Always say that "I want a light heavy-duty not a heavy half-ton" because I want the axles, frame, brakes, suspension of an HD/SD but don't need the engine/transmission because I don't tow heavy. My boat and my enclosed trailer are only 3,000 lbs each. I'm moving to a more capable pickup because our next slide-in pop-up camper is slightly heavier. I'll likely be around 2,600lb camper/gear/people. Then around 200 - 400lb of tongue weight depending on which trailer or hitch carrier I have on. I drive reserved when appropriate with the load. I time lights. I engine brake on hills. My previous pickup's original brake pads were still good when I sold it with 160,000 miles. Tundra had 110,000 and still plenty of brake pad left. I definitely don't drive slow, but I do drive smooth, time stoplights, use engine braking on mountain pass descents and that is reflected in brake pad life.
Camper stays on 7 months of the year then is off and stored the other 5 months. If I have to commute to work, it's only a 6 mile drive. Live in MT so winter is fairly cold. We disperse camp and so are always driving forest service roads in the mountains. Not uncommon to be in 4lo for 3 to 5 hours at a time. We drive everything from easy dirt roads to narrow, rocky mountain trails, to UT trails (did White Rim Road, again spring of '23, in two days with the current pickup and camper). Meaning, rough enough roads and trails that we air down then air up with ARB compressor. Extra curb weight of a diesel is a con for trail driving, too.
Diesels run best when worked hard. I don't tow heavy. I don't floor it off every light. I don't drive quick...though I do drive fast often enough (80mph speed limits here and traffic often moves faster than that) but sustained high speed doesn't work an engine very much. We also drive at idle speed for hours on end when on the trails. I wouldn't work a diesel hard enough for passive regens so there would be a lot of active regens. Running a modern diesel too easy and/or for short trips and/or at low rpm for hours and hours on end causes too many issues with emission equipment. The engine doesn't care, but all the emissions equipment does. It seems like those that tow heavy or work their diesels have the least amount of issues and those that baby or don't work their diesels have more than their share of issues. For my use, I'd be the latter.
My wife and I are often 50 to 100 miles away from the nearest town and so, even with satellite communication, I value reliability over a lot of other criteria because I want to be self sufficient and because getting towed out of, or someone to us with needed parts to fix, that far back would not be fast, easy or cheap. I'm all for adventure, but I'm not a glutton and to me, the most important part of preparedness is not having an issue in the first place. Even if the odds of reliability are only slightly better with gas, that weighs in my decision (and, as I rack up miles on this rig, I think the 7.3L will have better overall reliability then the 6.7 diesel).
Like others, I did the fuel cost analysis just so I knew and the break even point (based on zero mechanical issues/fixes and only on initial cost, estimated mpg difference and difference in fuel costs) was 150k to 200k miles. For our overlanding use case, there is a clear benefit, however, in that diesel rig would have an overall longer range. I could remedy that with a very expensive oversized aftermarket gas tank, but the reality of these last 6 years of overlanding, the number of times that we really needed extra fuel, it's easy enough to bring along extra gas in rotopax containers. My Superduty has a gas tank that is 10gallons more than my Tundra and they get the exact same gas mileage with the camper on. So I've effectively increased my range by another 100miles switching from the Tundra to the Superduty 7.3L.
Money didn't play into my decision because I buy whatever works best for my use case. If it was a diesel, I would have ordered a diesel. I'm usually pretty good about evaluating what I need (or even the intangible "what I want") for my specific use rather than falling into the trap of being influences by what everything thinks is cool. I can think something is super cool and appreciate it, but know there's no benefit or it doesn't work best for what I need. There are times that I consciously choose what I want over what I need, but but in this case, both the need and want were the 7.3L.
I keep my rigs for around 10 years and this one I plan to keep longer.
I think a lot of the difference/driving preferences just come down to "feel" and what a person prefers. Or what they were used to with previous pickup. Unless you are towing a load near max towing, both will pull about the same. A naturally aspirated gas engine just has to rev to make hp where a turbo diesel does not. Some interpret a gas engine sitting in the higher rpm range as "working too hard", busy, hectic, not-relaxing, etc. which just comes down to how each individual interprets that. A revving engine has never bothered me (maybe that is coming from motorcycle and dirtbike engines where 9,000rpm is just getting into the power band and 12,000 to 14,000 is letting it sing. A pickup sitting 1/2 to 3/4 of the way up to redline for a run up a mountain pass doesn't bother the engine so why should it bother me? And it doesn't bother me if I'm towing on the flats and the engine rpm isn't sitting at 1,200 to 1,900. I'm fine with an engine running at 2,500, 2,900 or whatever rpm it wants to run at. That being said, I've been really impressed at what a low rpm the 7.3L pulls. And the shifting on my '24 has been spot on. Well, perfect in high range. Low range shifting sucks but that is for another post. Happily, with the 10 speed and 3.73 rear, first is still quite low and so I don't find myself needing to be on 4lo very often with the Superduty on trails.
So in summary, I ordered gas over a diesel because:
(not in order of importance):
- I need payload capacity and hardly any towing capacity.
- I would not work a diesel hard enough to avoid common under-worked engine emission equipment issues. Plus hours of idle-speed trail driving.
- 7.3 weighs less than 6.7 which I like for handling/braking and trail driving plus the increase in payload.
- Our typical winter morning is 0F to -20F. Usually see a week or more of -30F to -40F. Even in winter we drive to remote trailheads and pickup sits in the cold all day. Gas is less finicky in the cold.
- When I need to commute, my one way drives are only 6 miles. Engine barely warms up. Not great for diesels.
- I don't care about hp/torque. Even with my 1/2 ton rig, I only go wide open throttle a few times a month (and those are more likely to be for fun rather than a traffic related need). Plus, even the 7.3 is a huge jump in hp/torque of current engine.
- I do my own maintenance and gas is slightly less time and cost to maintain.
- Reliability is high on my priority list because we frequently drive to remote locations
Bottom line is I love both these engine. And several engines from other manufacturers. Pros and cons to each of them. Best advice is evaluate what will work the best for your needs/use case. But then, also evaluate what you want. That might be different. Then make a decision and go with it. You are only dating the truck; not marrying it. If you change your mind later, sell it and get something different. Ha.
I have driven the 2023 6.7 HO and a 2023 7.3 and both drive great. I then ordered a '24 7.3 with 3.73 and have driven it for just over 6,000 miles; mostly loaded with a camper and often towing a 3,000lb fishing boat or 3,000lb 16' enclosed trailer.
Poaching my own thought process from one of my posts in another forum...
-----------------------------------
My use case is a fairly light (1,300lb) slide-in, pop-up pickup camper. Have had this style of camper (two different brands) for 6 years. Campers have been on a 10 year old, overloaded 1/2 ton (2013 Tundra with 4.6L V8) with LT tires and airbags. I've been plenty happy with roughly 325hp and 325torque and 6 speed transmission. Loaded with camper, supplies and two people, I've been as high as 2,400lbs of payload! And that is not including MTBs/dirtbikes on a receiver rack or tongue weight from enclosed trailer with powersports toys (3,000lb) or boat/trailer (3,000lb). Yeah, handling was adequate, but never ideal.
I needed more payload capacity, handling and braking ability than my 1/2 ton. I don't need more hp/torque than that little V8 engine gave. Always say that "I want a light heavy-duty not a heavy half-ton" because I want the axles, frame, brakes, suspension of an HD/SD but don't need the engine/transmission because I don't tow heavy. My boat and my enclosed trailer are only 3,000 lbs each. I'm moving to a more capable pickup because our next slide-in pop-up camper is slightly heavier. I'll likely be around 2,600lb camper/gear/people. Then around 200 - 400lb of tongue weight depending on which trailer or hitch carrier I have on. I drive reserved when appropriate with the load. I time lights. I engine brake on hills. My previous pickup's original brake pads were still good when I sold it with 160,000 miles. Tundra had 110,000 and still plenty of brake pad left. I definitely don't drive slow, but I do drive smooth, time stoplights, use engine braking on mountain pass descents and that is reflected in brake pad life.
Camper stays on 7 months of the year then is off and stored the other 5 months. If I have to commute to work, it's only a 6 mile drive. Live in MT so winter is fairly cold. We disperse camp and so are always driving forest service roads in the mountains. Not uncommon to be in 4lo for 3 to 5 hours at a time. We drive everything from easy dirt roads to narrow, rocky mountain trails, to UT trails (did White Rim Road, again spring of '23, in two days with the current pickup and camper). Meaning, rough enough roads and trails that we air down then air up with ARB compressor. Extra curb weight of a diesel is a con for trail driving, too.
Diesels run best when worked hard. I don't tow heavy. I don't floor it off every light. I don't drive quick...though I do drive fast often enough (80mph speed limits here and traffic often moves faster than that) but sustained high speed doesn't work an engine very much. We also drive at idle speed for hours on end when on the trails. I wouldn't work a diesel hard enough for passive regens so there would be a lot of active regens. Running a modern diesel too easy and/or for short trips and/or at low rpm for hours and hours on end causes too many issues with emission equipment. The engine doesn't care, but all the emissions equipment does. It seems like those that tow heavy or work their diesels have the least amount of issues and those that baby or don't work their diesels have more than their share of issues. For my use, I'd be the latter.
My wife and I are often 50 to 100 miles away from the nearest town and so, even with satellite communication, I value reliability over a lot of other criteria because I want to be self sufficient and because getting towed out of, or someone to us with needed parts to fix, that far back would not be fast, easy or cheap. I'm all for adventure, but I'm not a glutton and to me, the most important part of preparedness is not having an issue in the first place. Even if the odds of reliability are only slightly better with gas, that weighs in my decision (and, as I rack up miles on this rig, I think the 7.3L will have better overall reliability then the 6.7 diesel).
Like others, I did the fuel cost analysis just so I knew and the break even point (based on zero mechanical issues/fixes and only on initial cost, estimated mpg difference and difference in fuel costs) was 150k to 200k miles. For our overlanding use case, there is a clear benefit, however, in that diesel rig would have an overall longer range. I could remedy that with a very expensive oversized aftermarket gas tank, but the reality of these last 6 years of overlanding, the number of times that we really needed extra fuel, it's easy enough to bring along extra gas in rotopax containers. My Superduty has a gas tank that is 10gallons more than my Tundra and they get the exact same gas mileage with the camper on. So I've effectively increased my range by another 100miles switching from the Tundra to the Superduty 7.3L.
Money didn't play into my decision because I buy whatever works best for my use case. If it was a diesel, I would have ordered a diesel. I'm usually pretty good about evaluating what I need (or even the intangible "what I want") for my specific use rather than falling into the trap of being influences by what everything thinks is cool. I can think something is super cool and appreciate it, but know there's no benefit or it doesn't work best for what I need. There are times that I consciously choose what I want over what I need, but but in this case, both the need and want were the 7.3L.
I keep my rigs for around 10 years and this one I plan to keep longer.
I think a lot of the difference/driving preferences just come down to "feel" and what a person prefers. Or what they were used to with previous pickup. Unless you are towing a load near max towing, both will pull about the same. A naturally aspirated gas engine just has to rev to make hp where a turbo diesel does not. Some interpret a gas engine sitting in the higher rpm range as "working too hard", busy, hectic, not-relaxing, etc. which just comes down to how each individual interprets that. A revving engine has never bothered me (maybe that is coming from motorcycle and dirtbike engines where 9,000rpm is just getting into the power band and 12,000 to 14,000 is letting it sing. A pickup sitting 1/2 to 3/4 of the way up to redline for a run up a mountain pass doesn't bother the engine so why should it bother me? And it doesn't bother me if I'm towing on the flats and the engine rpm isn't sitting at 1,200 to 1,900. I'm fine with an engine running at 2,500, 2,900 or whatever rpm it wants to run at. That being said, I've been really impressed at what a low rpm the 7.3L pulls. And the shifting on my '24 has been spot on. Well, perfect in high range. Low range shifting sucks but that is for another post. Happily, with the 10 speed and 3.73 rear, first is still quite low and so I don't find myself needing to be on 4lo very often with the Superduty on trails.
So in summary, I ordered gas over a diesel because:
(not in order of importance):
- I need payload capacity and hardly any towing capacity.
- I would not work a diesel hard enough to avoid common under-worked engine emission equipment issues. Plus hours of idle-speed trail driving.
- 7.3 weighs less than 6.7 which I like for handling/braking and trail driving plus the increase in payload.
- Our typical winter morning is 0F to -20F. Usually see a week or more of -30F to -40F. Even in winter we drive to remote trailheads and pickup sits in the cold all day. Gas is less finicky in the cold.
- When I need to commute, my one way drives are only 6 miles. Engine barely warms up. Not great for diesels.
- I don't care about hp/torque. Even with my 1/2 ton rig, I only go wide open throttle a few times a month (and those are more likely to be for fun rather than a traffic related need). Plus, even the 7.3 is a huge jump in hp/torque of current engine.
- I do my own maintenance and gas is slightly less time and cost to maintain.
- Reliability is high on my priority list because we frequently drive to remote locations
Bottom line is I love both these engine. And several engines from other manufacturers. Pros and cons to each of them. Best advice is evaluate what will work the best for your needs/use case. But then, also evaluate what you want. That might be different. Then make a decision and go with it. You are only dating the truck; not marrying it. If you change your mind later, sell it and get something different. Ha.
Another poach of my own post with some gas mileage info:
------------------------------------------
Did our yearly April UT trip but first time with this rig.
Pickup info: 2024 Ford F250 Supercab with 7.3L gas and 3.73 rear diff. Max payload on my truck is 3,195 and GVWR is 10,400.
With Supertramp, my wife and I in the cab, all gear (food, water, clothes, chairs, tools, recovery gear, air compressor, etc.), the CAT Scale said we had 2,315lb of payload and 9,520lb gross weight (4,540F / 4,980R). That is 880 below max. So nice to be that far BELOW max with a heavy duty pickup rather than that far OVER max like on a Fullsize pickup.
Pickup has around 4,000 miles on it so engine may continue to loosen up a bit and slightly improve with more miles.
Odometer reading was 1,413. Tires are changed from stock 275/65R20 to 285/75R18 so 2.1% larger diameter. Corrected mileage is 1,443 miles. This was 540 miles of highway and interstate. 50 miles of that was slower canyon roads, but mostly 75mph and 80+mph as we ran the speed limit + the entire trip. Had strong headwinds for several hours, too. Then four days of gravel roads or slow, rough trails with a few minor sections of highway to connect trails. Then the same 540 miles home of high speed highway and interstate.
108.43 gallons of fuel used per the pump readout. Pickup gauge calculated 11.3mpg. Hand calculated is 13.03mpg based on uncorrected odometer reading of 1,413 miles and calculates to 13.31mpg using 2.1% corrected mile number of 1,443.
Very happy with 13.3mpg. My Tundra with 4.6L V8 with OEV CAMP-X and similar weight, would get the same mileage or 1mpg less gas mileage than the Superduty in same conditions (high speed highway, gravel roads, trail driving, etc.). In the six speed Tundra, I would mostly lock out 5th and 6th and run about 3,000 - 3,200rpm in 4th. The 7.3L, 10 speed w/3.73 rear diff lopes along in 10th gear except when it gets hilly where it would shift as low as 8th (still an overdrive) or sometimes 7th. When it downshifts, it holds the gear rather than trying to prematurely upshift again like the Tundra. So less manual locking out taller gears with the F250 when driving hilly interstates and highways. I didn't record cruising rpm at different speeds, but seems it mostly hung around 1,100 - 1,200 rpm. On gravel roads going 40mph to 60mph, would easily pull 8th, 9th or even 10th gear, though I often locked out 10th and sometimes 9th depending on how long the straightaways were . On the slower sections (30mph - 40mph) or with lots of curves and turns, I'd lock out all three overdrives and limit the transmission to 1:1 (7th gear) to reduce shifting., but was amazed how the grunt of the 7.3 would allow upshifts and holding a gear at such low speeds. Much different personality, as expected, than the 4.6L V8 that liked to rev to make power/torque.
For the trail driving, 4hi was appropriate most of the time. 1st is really quite low and I only shifted the transfer case to 4lo a few times for particular hills or obstacles and also for a few other sections just to play with it. Stock FX4 had plenty of clearance even in some ledges and interesting terrain. Nothing crazy on this trip, though, and limited to trails rated 4/10. I used to run 4lo a lot more in the Tundra and liked manually shifting while in 4lo in that truck. 4lo shifting in the F250 isn't as pleasant in my opinion. The truck holds each gear too long (high rpms) and even manually shifting, it won't let you shift to a higher gear unless the revs are pretty high. I foresee using 4hi way more in the F250 than in the Tundra because of the shift pattern and because 1st and 2nd seem to be quite low even when transfer case is in high range.
Having 34 gallon fuel tank rather than 24 gallon tank has been huge improvement. I haven't yet recalibrated my head around that extra range when planning remote trail routes and so we ended up making one out-of-the-way drive for fuel when, in hindsight, it wasn't really needed. Having 30 useable gallons vs 20 useable is a huge improvement particularly since we've proven the 7.3L will get the same mpg, or better, than the 4.6L when the camper and truck are stocked for a week trip.
I mentioned it before, but also so nice to be able to drive decisively when loaded rather than very conservatively. Fullsize pickups required absolutely slowing down to the suggested curve speeds on highways where the Superduty easily handles the curves 10 - 15mph over suggested which is usually at the main posted speed limit.
Previous rig, the day-to-day handling was sound enough if driven conservatively, but I was always concerned about emergency maneuvers. I typically drove 100% of the time where with the Superduty, my wife easily and enjoyably took the wheel, for a couple hours on the drive down and back, on interstate sections with 80mph speed limit. Great!
More data: With camper on and towing 3,000lb fishing boat on our 150 miles loop to and from a local reservoir, I'm getting about 10.3 to 10.6mpg depending on how fast I drive (70mph to 75mph) and that days wind direction. That is the same mpg to a tiny bit better than the mpg of my previous 2013 Tundra with 4.6L V8, different camper but same weight, and same 3,000lb fishing boat. Very happy that the 7.3L lopes along while getting the same as the 4.6L V8 running about 3,000rpm in 4th gear (1:1) and 5th/6th locked out. Superduty runs mostly in 10th but will downshift to 7th (1:1) or 8th on the steeper interstate hills.
Really hard to ready exact rpm on the gauge, but the following is fairly accurate. This is 7.3L with 3.73 gearing and 285/75R18 tires.
65mph: 1,500rpm
70mph: 1,650rpm
75mph: 1,800rpm
80mph: 1,900rpm
------------------------------------------
Did our yearly April UT trip but first time with this rig.
Pickup info: 2024 Ford F250 Supercab with 7.3L gas and 3.73 rear diff. Max payload on my truck is 3,195 and GVWR is 10,400.
With Supertramp, my wife and I in the cab, all gear (food, water, clothes, chairs, tools, recovery gear, air compressor, etc.), the CAT Scale said we had 2,315lb of payload and 9,520lb gross weight (4,540F / 4,980R). That is 880 below max. So nice to be that far BELOW max with a heavy duty pickup rather than that far OVER max like on a Fullsize pickup.
Pickup has around 4,000 miles on it so engine may continue to loosen up a bit and slightly improve with more miles.
Odometer reading was 1,413. Tires are changed from stock 275/65R20 to 285/75R18 so 2.1% larger diameter. Corrected mileage is 1,443 miles. This was 540 miles of highway and interstate. 50 miles of that was slower canyon roads, but mostly 75mph and 80+mph as we ran the speed limit + the entire trip. Had strong headwinds for several hours, too. Then four days of gravel roads or slow, rough trails with a few minor sections of highway to connect trails. Then the same 540 miles home of high speed highway and interstate.
108.43 gallons of fuel used per the pump readout. Pickup gauge calculated 11.3mpg. Hand calculated is 13.03mpg based on uncorrected odometer reading of 1,413 miles and calculates to 13.31mpg using 2.1% corrected mile number of 1,443.
Very happy with 13.3mpg. My Tundra with 4.6L V8 with OEV CAMP-X and similar weight, would get the same mileage or 1mpg less gas mileage than the Superduty in same conditions (high speed highway, gravel roads, trail driving, etc.). In the six speed Tundra, I would mostly lock out 5th and 6th and run about 3,000 - 3,200rpm in 4th. The 7.3L, 10 speed w/3.73 rear diff lopes along in 10th gear except when it gets hilly where it would shift as low as 8th (still an overdrive) or sometimes 7th. When it downshifts, it holds the gear rather than trying to prematurely upshift again like the Tundra. So less manual locking out taller gears with the F250 when driving hilly interstates and highways. I didn't record cruising rpm at different speeds, but seems it mostly hung around 1,100 - 1,200 rpm. On gravel roads going 40mph to 60mph, would easily pull 8th, 9th or even 10th gear, though I often locked out 10th and sometimes 9th depending on how long the straightaways were . On the slower sections (30mph - 40mph) or with lots of curves and turns, I'd lock out all three overdrives and limit the transmission to 1:1 (7th gear) to reduce shifting., but was amazed how the grunt of the 7.3 would allow upshifts and holding a gear at such low speeds. Much different personality, as expected, than the 4.6L V8 that liked to rev to make power/torque.
For the trail driving, 4hi was appropriate most of the time. 1st is really quite low and I only shifted the transfer case to 4lo a few times for particular hills or obstacles and also for a few other sections just to play with it. Stock FX4 had plenty of clearance even in some ledges and interesting terrain. Nothing crazy on this trip, though, and limited to trails rated 4/10. I used to run 4lo a lot more in the Tundra and liked manually shifting while in 4lo in that truck. 4lo shifting in the F250 isn't as pleasant in my opinion. The truck holds each gear too long (high rpms) and even manually shifting, it won't let you shift to a higher gear unless the revs are pretty high. I foresee using 4hi way more in the F250 than in the Tundra because of the shift pattern and because 1st and 2nd seem to be quite low even when transfer case is in high range.
Having 34 gallon fuel tank rather than 24 gallon tank has been huge improvement. I haven't yet recalibrated my head around that extra range when planning remote trail routes and so we ended up making one out-of-the-way drive for fuel when, in hindsight, it wasn't really needed. Having 30 useable gallons vs 20 useable is a huge improvement particularly since we've proven the 7.3L will get the same mpg, or better, than the 4.6L when the camper and truck are stocked for a week trip.
I mentioned it before, but also so nice to be able to drive decisively when loaded rather than very conservatively. Fullsize pickups required absolutely slowing down to the suggested curve speeds on highways where the Superduty easily handles the curves 10 - 15mph over suggested which is usually at the main posted speed limit.
Previous rig, the day-to-day handling was sound enough if driven conservatively, but I was always concerned about emergency maneuvers. I typically drove 100% of the time where with the Superduty, my wife easily and enjoyably took the wheel, for a couple hours on the drive down and back, on interstate sections with 80mph speed limit. Great!
More data: With camper on and towing 3,000lb fishing boat on our 150 miles loop to and from a local reservoir, I'm getting about 10.3 to 10.6mpg depending on how fast I drive (70mph to 75mph) and that days wind direction. That is the same mpg to a tiny bit better than the mpg of my previous 2013 Tundra with 4.6L V8, different camper but same weight, and same 3,000lb fishing boat. Very happy that the 7.3L lopes along while getting the same as the 4.6L V8 running about 3,000rpm in 4th gear (1:1) and 5th/6th locked out. Superduty runs mostly in 10th but will downshift to 7th (1:1) or 8th on the steeper interstate hills.
Really hard to ready exact rpm on the gauge, but the following is fairly accurate. This is 7.3L with 3.73 gearing and 285/75R18 tires.
65mph: 1,500rpm
70mph: 1,650rpm
75mph: 1,800rpm
80mph: 1,900rpm
Ninelitetrip
Well-known member
Ford to spend $3 billion to expand large truck production to a plant previously set for EVs
- Ford Motor will expand production of its large Super Duty trucks to a Canadian plant that was previously set to be converted into an all-electric vehicle hub.
- The new plans include investing about $3 billion to expand Super Duty production, including $2.3 billion at Ford’s Oakville Assembly Complex in Ontario, Canada, Ford said Thursday.
- Ford said the Canadian plant, which is expected to come online in 2026, will add annual capacity of roughly 100,000 units of the highly profitable pickups.