Got my Mountaineer: nice ride, but how do I pay for gas?

My '96 EB with the 4 liter V6 gets around 14 in the city, and close to 20 on the highway. I generally obey speed limits around town, and on the highway I usually set the cruise for 3 or 4 miles over the limit. My wife and friends tell me I drive like an old lady (exaggeration!), but I believe that my driving habits get as much mileage out of the truck as possible.

Your mileage doesn't sound too bad to me. It's certainly better than the

1990 F-250 with the 460 V8 that I almost bought last year, until I read on that newsgroup that I could expect 6 to 8 mpg. Yikes!!

Good luck! Kevin

First of all before you get too concerned, if you really want to know the mileage you should be calculating it manually!

My eighties vintage fuel injected 4600 pound 302 Bronco got 12 MPG everywhere...

Rule of thumb with any SUV or pick up... don't check the fuel mileage if your last vehicle was a car..... you stand more chance of being disappointed than pleasantly surprised. I haven't seen a "mileage minder" that was as accurate as it could be.

Congrats on the purchase..... hope it delivers many dependable miles for you.

My 98 Mountaineer V6 gets 14-15 mpg in local driving, 19 mpg on trips (65-70 mph average speed). I have a fairly light foot and this is about what I expected to get when I bought it.

Ken

my 2000 limited (Explorer), which I believe is the same as the "premier" will get about 15-17 around town. but my wife calls me 'lightfoot'.

on the road i can get 20-22 mpg.

2000 explorer limited V8 5.0-most all power 2wd 01 2wd Mountaineer, and actually got a much better price. Then I gave it a good looking over and wow! Turns out the first price they gave me a few weeks ago was pretty reasonable after all...this thing is nice. I called previous owner, everything checked out ok there, so later that day I went back and brought it home.

Methinks I made a good decision. With the 302, it downright boogies for that heavy a vehicle. It has something called the "Premier" option package, whatever that is. Anyone know?

Only drawback so far is the mileage. Holy crap...the computer says I'm getting about 13 mpg around town. Ouch. I mean, I've read that the v8 explorers and mountaineers got bad mileage, but I was thinking more like 16 around town. Can anyone comment as to what they're getting? (and yeah, I know, lay off the gas pedal, get better mileage)

At least I'm not the only one!

It's certainly better than the

My '78 F350 Crew Cab gets around 8 and it doesn't seem to matter if it's fully loaded going uphill, or empty on the highway. You'd think that will all this new computer technology and fuel injection and lighter frames and all that they could get 11 or 12 mpg out of 'em.

Wabbit..

I'm wondering. Did the dealer give you any hassle about providing you with the former owner's name? Did he notify the former owner you might call or did you call cold. What was the former owner's reaction?

FYI: The former owner's name is a matter of public record...

You need to get a lighter foot. My 00 Eddie Bauer with the same engine would get me 16-17 around town and I could squeeze 22 on the highway.

If I drove heavy footed, yea, I'd only get 13-15 too.

Hello 351 Is that your real name :O)

Actually there is a debate about whether the name of the former vehicle owner is a public record. As a journalist, I know it can now be very tough or impossible to get DMV records. I actually interviewed lots of attoneys and officials about this recently and got conflicting answers. Privacy laws vs. freedom of information laws.

DMV records are much more restricted these days, beginning with California (years ago an actress or model was tracked down through DMV records and killed or hurt, I think it was. My memory is going). The law has since spread to the federal level via the Drivers Privacy Protection Act.

To wit:

Some dealers take the position that they legally cannot show you the records without getting permission of the owner. There is some conflicting legal opinions on this because the federal law also requires showing the buyer the odometer statement which can appear on the title or a separate document. Some state laws require that you be shown the ownership documents at the time of purchase, though it is not clear to me exactly when that is. Obviously as a buyer of a used car, you would like to be sure the dealer has settled any former lien and has the title in hand. But that sometimes is not the case. Sometimes liens aren't settled until after the trade-in is resold (very scary), sometimes not even then (imagine the repo man taking away you new used car even though you're up to date on your payments!). So asking to see the title is important for that reason alone.

I would think that whoever gave those figures was working it *very* hard. Our 91 F-250HD-SC/460/4.10 gave us 11-12 on the highway, 10-11 city, loaded or empty.

It was actually written in the owner's manual and I looked him up in the phone book. He was a pretty nice guy, older, said he and his wife had grown kids and traded in for a car.

but fun, ain't it? After a few yrs of driving the 4.6 stang, I forgot what torque was... Hey, I've got it!!! Motor swap!

Is that my real name? Obviously your sarcasm overwhelms your better judgment or you're just too damn stupid to be debating anything...

Not according to the California department of motor vehicles. Names are still a mater of public record...

Your DMV information

California Vehicle Code 1808 and the Public Records Act (Government Code Section 6253 et seq.) provide that information collected by the Department is generally considered public information and is subject to inspection by the public. Exceptions to this public disclosure obligation include: Personal Information and Confidential Information.

Confidential Information

Confidential information includes, but may not be limited to, an individual's home address (California Vehicle Code Section 1808.21), home telephone number (Government Code Section 6254.3), physical/mental information (California Vehicle Code Section 1808.5), social security number (California Vehicle Code Section 1653.5), and photograph (California Vehicle Code Sections 12800.5 and 13005.5).

Those figures sound pretty realistic to me...

Well my 88 F250 SC 4X4 460 5spd 4.10 gears got 10-12MPG empty most of the time for years, then inexplicably started getting around 8MPG empty, checked changed tweaked everything, no improvement.

While towing about 9000 pounds of 5th wheel RV, this trucks mileage was depending on a lot of things, between 10MPG all the way down to 6MPG.

Hey Wabbit.

In the owner's manual? Very resourceful. Glad to see he was willing to talk to you. Congrats on your new ride.

Yep, I was living in CA then. The actress was on a sitcom called "My Sister Sam". Some nut job had a crush on her, and waited for her to leave the studio. He got her tag number, went to DMV, and obtained her home address for $5. Went to her house, knocked on the door, and shot her dead when she answered it. After that, the DMV changed its policy. If you want to run a plate now, you fill out the form, pay the fee, and DMV contacts the other party by mail. If they give DMV permission, then you get the info. If not, you don't.

I bought my Ex when I lived in Kansas. KS is a "title state", which means that you get a title certificate even if you finance the vehicle. When I bought the rig, I was handed the existing title with the former owner's name and address on it. I had to have that in order to register the truck in my name.

Another curious thing: In Kansas, a given vanity plate can be issued in all

105 counties. Not only that, but a car and a truck can have the same vanity plate in the same county. Weird, huh?

Regarding the F250, when I told the owner what I had read on the newsgroup about the fuel "economy", he said that was why he was selling it! It was a heck of a nice truck, though.

I wasn't being sarcastic, just joking... hence the smiley? Never mind

I'm not here to debate. I'm just trying to provide accurate information. Locating the owner of a car through DMV records is very difficult these days because of the federal statute and many state statutes. Companies such as CarFax obtain the information under contract with the agreement that they will not disseminate the names and other personal info. Some states had an exemption for news organizations that signed contracts agreeing to use the info only for legitimate news gathering purposes, but even that's gone now (As a journalist, I used to be able to get DMV info on anyone in minutes. ) I've interviewed lots of people on this, including the Justice Department, consumer attorneys, the American Association of Motor Vehicles Administrators and several state DMV officials. Take a moment to read the federal law. It is pretty severe.

Some DMVs may entertain a request for the info from regular folks. But they'll want you to give them a good reason, and they will contact the vehicle owner and seek permission. (You may not even get that far.) Because of the time it takes, this route is pretty much impractical for someone looking at a particular used vehicle. Complicating the issue further, the vehicle could have come from anywhere in the country. So buyers really are stuck on getting the dealer's cooperation or, as Wabbit did, finding the name in the glove compartment or trunk. Of course, if the vehicle is a former lease, it may very well have been titled in the name of the lease company, which means one is totally out of luck unless the dealer knows the lessee. I'm not a fan of buying former lease vehicles.

I've had dealers tell me that their attorneys advised them not to release any former owner info for fear of violating the federal statute. Dealers also can be reluctant to release it because they don't want the prospective buyer asking the previous owner how much the dealer paid on the trade-in. But when I write stories on buying a used car, I advise consumers to try anyway. If a dealer does not cooperate, you don't have to buy.

Oh I forgot. Here is a document I downloaded from NY DMV during my research that explains a lot of this. I see it is still there.

By the way. SOME attorneys agreed with my argument that a dealer can disseminate the info because he is:

1) now the owner of the car and can consent 2) he is not releasing info obtained from the DMV but from the owner or auction etc.

But that's the kind of stuff attorneys and courts argue about.