Quote:
Originally Posted by JamieGeek
F350+5th wheel was 15,000lbs more or less.
Axis was 11,500 lbs when I weighed it about a month after purchase (full people+full fresh+full propane).
I never got that high of a mpg on any of my V-10 powered pickups. My best tank was 13 mpg. Note that my F-350 was a 3-valve V10 (Ford never put the 3-valve V-10 in any of the vans).
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Thanks Jamie, it's kind of what I expected. If anything both of your rigs are lighter than I expected. Your Axis is actually closer to a 9,350-pound GVWR Travato Class B in weight than it is to many large Class As that also use 6.8-liter engines.
To my previous question/point that Axis could/should do better in fuel economy, if compared by weight alone (and I know it's more involved than that) your 15,000-pound trailer combo getting 8 MPG would suggest around 10.5 for the Axis, not 8.5 MPG.
Another way to look at it is that 9,000-pound Travato vans are not only powered by much smaller 3.6-liter V6 engines, but are geared taller than Axis on top of that. That helps a lot towards achieving reported 17 MPG. By comparison Axis engines are oversized in displacement.
I took another look at Ford F53 chassis specs, and the ones rated at 16,000- and 18,000-pound GVWR have 4.30 final gearing, but because of taller tires it's the equivalent of 3.8 if using Axis-size tires. And the much lighter Axis runs 4.10 gearing. To me that shows that Axis-size motorhomes are not optimized to improve fuel economy. They could be a "little" closer to Class Bs. I'm not suggesting MPGs close to 17, but certainly better than 8 to 10.
Anyway, it's my way of saying manufacturers don't really care about fuel economy very much. Since it's not highly regulated they take the path of least resistance. And that's unfortunate because an Axis splits the difference between larger Class As and smaller Class Bs, yet fuel consumption is a lot closer to that of larger motorhomes.
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