Better late than never! It’s been a busy summer, and the F-150 continues to shine, both literally and figuratively. Commuting dominated the quarter, with some hauling and a couple of road trips mixed in for good measure. Read on for the usual stats and summary.
Stats:
Time Period: 3/21/2015 – 6/20/2016
Miles Driven: 1,455 / 4,162 (this update / total) (2,354 in previous update)
Average MPG: 16.5 mpg (reported by on-board computer)
Avg MPG for Year: 15.3 (hand-calculated)
Costs:
Maintenance Costs: $0
Repairs: $0.00
Total Cost (non-fuel): $0.00
Services Performed:
- 3/22/2016 – TSB 15-0154 was applied (Front Driver & Passenger Seat Coolers ineffective); Front Fender badges falling off – replaced.
Summary:
Early in the quarter, we had some warm days, and I noticed that the seat backs on the front seats just weren’t cooling. The seat bottoms will ice your behind, but not so much for the seat backs. This has been a common complaint on the F-150 internet forums. Ford issued TSB 15-0154 to address this issue, and it works – sort of. Sometimes the seat backs cool, sometimes they don’t. The seat heating and cooling in Ford’s F-150 is done by having a Thermo-Electric Device (TED) in each seat back and seat bottom. When current flows through in one direction, the seat heats up, and when going the other direction, the seat is cooled. The problem is heat soak – the warm exhaust air from the TED has nowhere to go, so it stays in the seat, reducing the effectiveness of the cooling action. The seat bottom doesn’t have this problem since the underside of the seats are open, but the seat back is closed. Ford’s solution involves adding a sock to the intake side of the TED, which keeps the seat back from getting too warm, but unless your A/C is blasting, don’t expect much cooling. There is an aftermarket solution, but I haven’t purchased it yet.
Other than that, the F-150 is working well. Gas mileage is up a bit, and a lengthy road trip of 600 miles proved the worth of the extended range gas tank. It was nice to pass by all the gas pumps and not have to stop!
The Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) is a boon in traffic and on the highway. I sometimes have to get on the Capitol Beltway (495 to us locals) here in the Washington, D.C. area, and ACC makes it easy to traverse. The automatic braking and acceleration takes off some of the stress of the “rat race.” There are four settings for ACC, which equate to 1, 1.4, 1.8 and 2.2 seconds of following distance to the vehicle in front of the F-150, and the most comfortable for me is setting three, or 1.8 seconds. The closer settings hit the brakes harder than I like, and setting four allows too much space, which other people immediately fill, which slows the truck further.
In parking lots, the Active Park Assist feature has come in quite handy, squeezing the truck into some pretty small spots, but it does have one drawback I’ve noticed: it sometimes likes to hop the curb – oops! I’ve stopped it before hitting the curb, at which point I’m already in the spot, and the front and rear cameras help to finish the maneuver.
With it being summer time, the amount of seat time I am getting on my motorcycle is reducing the miles put on the F-150, but it’ll soon be winter again, and time to cozy up to the heated seat and steering wheel again.
Dated Notes:
- none
General Observations:
- none
by John Suit