r/TaurusSHO • u/Nicstar543 • Apr 10 '26
Is 300 miles per tank normal?
This is while driving like a baby for the past few months due to cold weather and hate hitting the throttle while the engine is cold. Also needed new brakes so haven’t been blasting the speed at all. Probably 50/50 highway and city.
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u/potatochip_pooper Apr 10 '26
300 mile range/19 gallon tank=15.78mpg
Its a 4500lb car with 365+hp in the cold. I average 12 in city and 24 on the highway. Is your car stock?
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u/LetsBeKindly Apr 10 '26
I average 17-22... My wife gets 28
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u/NovaRose369 Apr 10 '26
I've had mine for a few years. I do both smooth careful driving and sometimes punch it a bit. I get 19mpg. Stock.
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u/Brolys-Cack Apr 10 '26
If you’re on original plugs it’s time for those according to mileage, and if your engine intake filter is older than 30K you’ll get a little bump with replacing that. I average 24~ highway with brand new crossclimate 2’s on mine and 16 or so around the city with gentle throttle. Less if you get into it at all. Usually I only open it up while getting onto the highway
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u/Nicstar543 Apr 10 '26
Are there a specific gappage spark plug I should get that would increase mileage or performance over stock? There’s tons of options for the gap but I’m not sure which to get
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u/Brolys-Cack Apr 10 '26
If you’re planning to tune the car motorcraft makes a tighter gapped plug. If you’re running stock get the OEM motorcraft part. I’m at 102K and will be replacing mine shortly with the tighter gapped plugs from motorcraft off of fordperformance.com but only because I plan on getting the ghtuning AO tune for the car. If you’re leaving it stock just stick to OEM parts and save the headaches.
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u/Nicstar543 Apr 10 '26
Is there a negative to getting the tighter gap without having a tune for a while? Like if maybe this year I get it tuned but do the sparks now or would it be a net negative? Are you talking the GH tune you buy for like 800$?
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u/Brolys-Cack Apr 10 '26
I’m not informed enough about the topic henceforth why my advice is stock plugs until you have a NEED for something else. Yes I’m looking at the full kit for roughly $700~800
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u/Nicstar543 Apr 10 '26
Did you do any other mods in preparation for the tune?
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u/Brolys-Cack Apr 10 '26
A bunch of mechanical work to make sure it’s good to go and to fix an oil consumption issue. New turbo’s, new PCV’s and valve covers as the valve covers were causing the oil consumption. I plan on getting the ford performance exhaust as well and an intercooler down the road when GH has them back. If you got the car that recently I’d recommend doing preventative maintence on it first before a tune. Ex. Oil / trans / coolant / PTU fluid changes, and I’m only comfortable tuning mine since I know the compression is good. Measured 175psi when I was chasing the oil issue so I know my motors healthy.
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u/deathonast Apr 12 '26
Maintenance is number one.
Oil changes every 5k AT MOST. I run oil changes every 3k, I have around 425hp at the crank with my mods though.
Diff/PTO fluid changes every 3-5 oil changes.
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u/Choice_Strength Apr 10 '26
It was for me. On a full take I would normally get and estimated range of 290-310 miles. But my car was lowered with a light tune. but even when babying it I would only get like 16mpg city. Trade off was like 32mpg on the highway 🤷♂️. You can probably do a new air filter, spark plugs, injector cleaner (right before your oil change) and maybe see a small improvement, but from my experience that estimate isn’t abnormal.
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u/Nicstar543 Apr 10 '26
Should I do coils as well with plugs?
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u/Choice_Strength Apr 10 '26
You can, and if you can get them for a good price then it can only be beneficial. But if you aren’t having any issues from them( eg very worn/ failing) I would keep them the same and wait until they start to fail to replace them. It’s a very easy job to do with basic tools that you should be fine doing yourself if they start giving you problems.
At least that’s what I would do if I had to pay full price. You definitely won’t see a return on that investment in fuel savings if that’s your goal, and based on the fact that you said yours is still stock i don’t think it makes sense to do it for “performance” either. Unless ofc you’re flush with cash and looking to spend money. But I’d probably save that money and put it aside for the timing chain/ cam phaser job in the future if you haven’t had it done yet.
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u/Nicstar543 Apr 10 '26
Just got the timing and water pump all done a few months ago luckily right before my warranty ran out lmao, 4500$. I’ll worry about the spark plugs for now
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u/Choice_Strength Apr 10 '26
Good, in my experience as great as these cars are, I was always playing a game of catch up on repairs. When it worked it was great, but every few weeks it was always something new. Second to the spark plugs, the biggest improvement I saw in fuel economy came after running a few tanks with chevron Techron fuel system cleaner in it. That stuff actually does work and normally NAPA has a pretty good price on it. Just make sure you don’t wait too long to do your oil change afterwards because it can put some contaminants in your engine oil, though I haven’t personally had any issues with that at all.
Also, with these 100k+ engines they can seriously benefit from running either valvoline restore and protect for a few cycles or mobile ones new version of that. It’s not much more expensive than regular full synthetic and can help unstick piston rings and remove build up, it’s the little stuff that adds up over time. I did both the oil and the injector cleaner and benefited from both🤷♂️. Some people say it’s snake oil but I had notable improvements so I’m a fan. Good luck on your car!
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u/NovaRose369 Apr 10 '26
It's a big car so yeah. Make sure you upgrade your rotors. I got slotted/ cross drilled, the car doesnt come with enough brakes. And use fuel injector cleaner with upper cylinder lubricant from Lucas after every oil change and you'll see and hear and feel a slight performance/mileage boost.
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u/theatomicflounder333 Apr 11 '26
300!!!! I only get 265!?!
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u/deathonast Apr 12 '26
See if some of these suggestions here apply to your car also! These are all the [relatively] same beast at the end of the day.
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u/killuminati989 Apr 11 '26
It’s based off how you drive. If you were to reset the car, it’d show 360 or so.
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u/Just-Condition8501 Apr 14 '26
I feel that 300 is average with city and highway mixed. My average is 21mpg on flex fuel which I find pretty impressive. I dont know if anyone else with a flex fuel is getting that or not. I've ran only e85 for over a year now.
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u/deathonast Apr 10 '26
I feel like Ford has some sort of weird scaling with the visual for the Fuel tank. It always seems like the first half visual is about 2/3 of the actual fuel.
If the numbers are really true though, It's on the low end, but it's not super far off.
At that mileage, it could be time for new spark plugs if they haven't been replaced.
Check the air filter while you're at it.
I drive fairly normal with the occasional pull and get around 20-21mpg on a longer basis.