f-150 maintenance question

What engine? Manual or automatic? Two wheel or four wheel drive?

All those things make a difference. So does your potential warm up times and gas formulations vary by regions with the winter blends typically returning worse mileage.

Looking at the EPA numbers that are saying 14 in town so you may not be hat far out of line.

Steve B.

Engine is 5.4, Automatic trans, 4wd

With my old '90 full sized blazer with 4sp manual, 5.7 TBI, 3.73 axles and 4WD I got a consistent 16 mpg. If your truck was setup with a lower axle ratio for towing and your driving style is a bit heavy footed, your mpg is probably in the expected range.

Lookup the axle ratio on your truck, it can make a notable difference and it can be changed at moderate cost. Higher ratios like 4.56:1 give more pulling power at the expense of unloaded mpg, while lower ratios like 2.73:1 give better light load mpg at the expense of pulling power. If you don't tow a big camper or similar changing to the lowest ratio that was offered or even one lower can improve mpg. Changing the ratio also requires recalibrating the ECM and speedo.

Looked up gear ratio, and it is 3.55, have factory towing package but rarely tow anything. My driving style is not heavy footed at all. Use mostly for transportation and light duty stuff, probably 80% or more city driving. Since I only drive 6,000 to 8,000 miles per year would it pay to change gear ratio? What could I expect to pay to have this done?

I'd suggest changing your transmission and differential fluid now, at the

60K mark. I'd also suggest changing the brake fluid too. You don't have to do it, but I suggest looking at the severe service schedule in the back of the manual and following that schedule rather than the normal one.

It won't pay to change your gear ratio, and it will turn out to be a bad thing in the future when you find yourself needing low end torque for hauling stuff. But you can do it... it's not that hard a job and you can probably find a junkyard differential for a couple hundred. Figure three or four hours to change it at whatever your local rate is. Less time if there is less rust under there, more time if there is more rust.

--scott

Not on a 2001 Darryl. The stuck plug shenanigans didn't start until the

3 valve engines.

2001 could still be a plug spitter though...

The "plugs coming apart problem" is only associated with the new three valve modular V8s. A 2001 will not have this engine. On the other hand, it does have the engine that is likely to spit out a plug if the plug is not installed properly. For this vintage 5.4L it is very important to have the plugs installed properly (right plugs, right torque, dielectric grease inside the plug boot, etc.). When you replace the plugs, you should also replace the sparkplug "boots." The boots are short lenght of wire from the coil pack to the plug. Many coil pack failures are actually failures of this componet, which is relatively inexpensive to replace when you are doing the plugs.

Ed