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Dear Motor Medics, We purchased a two-year-old Ford truck that has the flex fuel option. I’ve never owned a flex fuel vehicle so I read the owner’s manual and at your suggestion went to fueleconomy.gov to get an idea of what kind of mileage it should get. They claim about five mpg more than what we are getting.

The truck is a lease vehicle and has about 70,000 miles which seems high for two years, but they say it was taken care of.

What can we do to improve the fuel economy? 10mpg on the highway for most of the time using e85 seems very low.

Your answers are always appreciated.

Thank you, Darren in Lemmon, SD Dear Darren, Driving the truck primarily on the highway and assuming it’s in perfect tune, you are not carrying extra weight, and you are using e85 ethanol fuel, it should be about right.

With 70,000 miles on the truck, even though they claim it has been well taken care of, it likely has not had much work done in the way of tuning. It’s two years old, it just doesn’t happen much. Without a fuel system cleaning you can lose a couple mpg and using e85 will take much more. Being flex fuel you can use a blend. If available, try 30% and check the mileage. That percentage has resulted in an increase for many of our customers with flex fuel vehicles over e85 or nothing Take care, The Motor Medics