ford-boy Posted December 14, 2007 Share Posted December 14, 2007 My wife and I took a trip from Long Island to Ft. Pierce FL and I was a little dissappointed with about 24 mpg average for the trip, both directions. I have made the same trip in a '91 Tbird and a '01 Taurus, base engine. The Tbird was simply spectacular at 28 - 30 w/ac on and never dropping below 80 mph. The Tauraus was OK at 26 mpg, but I thought the Freestyle would have been better than 23-24. I am wondering if the Tbird was aero slick and the boxy Freestyle body creates a significant drag. I kept very good data and had alot of it. In all cases, the data was for the entire highway portion of the trip and did not include any in town driving. In all cases, we took 2 days to complete the trip and stopped overnite in Fayetteville NC. Anyone have similar results?? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tim kakouris Posted December 14, 2007 Share Posted December 14, 2007 (edited) i recently did a long trip and got 25mpg with the car full of luggage and kids. i think a big thing to think about it literally the size of the vehicle. it's got approximately the interior volume of most big suv's, a little less than a minivan. your figure is pretty good for a vehicle like that. epa estimates become more inaccurate, i think, the bigger the car gets. of course, milage could always be better, but i was very surprised after my first fill-up. i've never gotten less than 19.5/all city, and never better than the 25/90% highway averages. and although the car is mostly pretty slow, i was very excited about the 60 to 80 passing acceleration. i had lots of rural two lane and had a lot of fun blasting past the slow moving 18 wheelers! Edited December 14, 2007 by tim kakouris Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ford-boy Posted December 14, 2007 Author Share Posted December 14, 2007 I haven't gotten below 21 mpg ever in all types of driving. Like you, I was very surprised by the passing accereation, even with 4 adults. It really felt strong. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
6-cylinder Posted December 14, 2007 Share Posted December 14, 2007 My wife averages about 23.6 or so on the in-car calculation. I've done 25 mpg on an interstate road trip. We're pleased with the mileage based on the size of the vehicle. I think the weight of the car has alot to do with mileage. On a one-hour rural road trip, I got about 1.5 mpg better going 70 than I did going 55. At 55, the CVT would rev the engine on hills. At 70, it doesn't. Keeping your momentum up really seems to help mileage. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J-150 Posted December 14, 2007 Share Posted December 14, 2007 look at the size and weight of the Freestyle compared to the other cars. I don't think you could haul nearly as much with the TBird or Taurus as you can the Freebie. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tim kakouris Posted December 14, 2007 Share Posted December 14, 2007 all in all, it's exactly the same experience that i've had with all of my ford's....better in reality than they are on paper, and the longer i have them, the more i like them. even the looks of this boring thing have grown on me! pity, because you know that doesn't help sell them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark B. Morrow Posted December 15, 2007 Share Posted December 15, 2007 Both the T-Bird and the '91 Taurus are substantially sleeker than the Freestyle. In addition. the higher ground clearance makes for more drag. All in all, that is significantly better than my V-6 Explorer. That is one reason I will be looking at a Taurus X next year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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