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EcoBoost vs 3.5L V6


oskar27

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Planning to order early next year a 2013 EcoBoost Ltd but reading this wonderful forum I see that the mileage varies a lot; in addition, although Ford states that regular fuel can operate the EcoBoost, premium fuel is recommended.

 

In the last 10 years I drive a VW Passat GLS with 1.8L gas turbo and VW also states the same fuels as Ford. I have noticed the 1.8 engine does not run as good when I fill up with regular fuel neither I get as good mileage and so I have always used premium fuel.

 

So I'm now thinking to go with the 3.5L V6 which has a published mileage close to EcoBoost but since the 3.5L run on regular gas which cost about 15% less than the premium, cost wise I will be ahead with the 3.5L engine

 

My concerns with any engine is reliability and economy, no interest on power

 

What is your experience with the 3.5L engine? Is she a good engine?

 

 

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I have a 2013 SEL with the 3.5, so far i have 5000 miles on it with no issues. I have pulled my 6x12 Cargo trailer locally a few times and the Edge has no problem with the 2000lb weight. Power is nice, accelration is good. Take off the traction control, and it will spin the tires quite nicely, At full throttle the tires break loose at about 4500 rpms till it shifts into second. LOVING IT SO FAR. Yesterday we got 7" of snow, gonna take it out for a ride today and see how it handles.

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Hey bce, thanks for the info.

 

Look at the "Buying, Leasing & Ordering" section of this forum, My thread "Issues Before Purchasing Edge", post #11 by Haz, he provided a link for the 2013 Edge Source book. In there on page 37 it states EcoBoost can operate on 87 octane regular fuel but premium fuel is recommended.

 

I would love to get the EcoBoost engine because on my test drive I found her a beautiful engine but if I have to use premium fuel it defeats the purpose of economy since premium fuel is always more expensive than regular fuel. Also as I said, my experience with my present Passat 1.8L turbo is that regular fuel provides a noticable lower engine performance and therefore I always use premium fuel.

 

In addition, I will suspect if you always use regular fuel on a turbo engine you may also experience more maintenance cost

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I've had about 13 months and 22,000 miles of experience with an Eco Boost Edge to date. During cooler weather I've found that there is no discernible performance difference between regular or premium fuels so I stuck with regular and everything was just fine. However, once the weather got a lot warmer I found that premium offered better performance with improved acceleration. Steady state driving shows no difference. Premium also seemed to give me better fuel economy in the summer. At nearly $4 per gallon premium was about 5% more expensive than regular, but the fuel efficiency improvement was a bit better than 5%. I switched to premium in mid-June and back to regular by mid-September and I live in Michigan so that might give you an idea of the temperature range.

 

I initially planned on purchasing the 3.5 engine as I figured the extra $1,000 charge for the Eco Boost would take about 4 years of 20,000 miles per year to recoup the extra cost. (I did my math using the combined fuel economy figure for both vehicles) However, after I test drove both vehicles I was extremely impressed with the low end pick-up of the Eco Boost engine. It was clearly better than the 3.5. I also thought the transmission shift points were a lot smoother. So, I bought the Eco Boost more for the performance, figuring that I would eventually break even on the extra cost. So far I'm very happy with my choice.

 

Also, there is no reason to think that regular fuel will cause you to experience increased maintenance costs. Millions of miles were probably put on that engine during dyno and road testing, on regular fuel. It was tuned for regular. The Eco Boost has been out on the F-150 truck for some time now and I don't think anyone is complaining of increased maintenance costs from using regular. It's not the same engine, but it's the same technology.

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