Hello fellas…I have a friend who is looking to purchase a 2018 Ford F-150 with the 2.7 ecoboost. He doesn’t know much about these engines so he asked me. I am not really familiar with them but I’ve heard good stuff about them. I read that they tweaked the engine for the 2018 model and matched it with the 10 speed auto transmission. I suggested to him I would turn to you guys and see what you’ve heard about the engine? Thanks for yall’s help. The reason why he is looking into the 2.7 is because of the horsepower/torque as well as the gas mileage that is apparently 20 combined. Is that even possible?
The vehicle comes with a warranty . As for fuel mileage the drivers the determining fact. Short trips , stop and go traffic will result in low mpg . Highway at a decent speed results in the best mpg. Your friend needs to search for actual road tests . I also suggest the less you have to do with his decision the better your friendship will be.
I agree with Volvo’s points, especially the last one, however I seem to recall reading that these engines are direct injection and problems with carbon buildup on the intake valves of direct injection engines have become well known. Personally, I’d avoid them if possible.
But as Volvo said, perhaps your best advice to your friend would be to suggest he get as many periodical magazines as possible and read what these are saying. Let the magazines influence his decision rather than doing so yourself.
the 2.7 is a much better engine for this truck than the displacement would have you believe, Consumer Reports liked the power and mileage (17mpg combined) but they did rate the 3.5 higher due to it’s 3,000lb tow rating advantage. The 2.7 did very well with a sub 7,000lb load but the person buying the truck should take a test drive and see if it’s enough.
A word on turbo engines and fuel mileage. Using a turbo give you the horsepower of a larger engine. The smaller engine give you better fuel mileage with light throttle openings. However road tests of the 3.5 Ecoboost show that it puts out more horsepower than the V8 but gets a little WORSE mpg than the V8 because drivers use that horsepower to accelerate.
You can have your cake or eat it but you can’t do both at the same time, so the only time the turbo will get better fuel economy is if you drive it like it doesn’t have the turbo.
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Other Ford Ecoboost engines have trouble making their EPA ratings, but I don’t know about the 2.7.
i assume it will be extended cab/4wd? so $35k or more? how long does he plan on keeping it? 3-4 yrs or 10yrs?
How will the truck be used? Consumer Reports seems to use the same standards to compare pickup trucks with passenger vehicles. To me, a 2…7 liter engine with a turbocharger and a 10 speed automatic transmission seems pretty complicated.
Admittedly, my experience with pickup trucks is limited to a 1950 Chevrolet 3800 one ton pickup. It had a 235 6 cylinder engine and a 4 speed manual transmission. I rarely used the.lowest.gear. I always started in second. I used the low gear to stretch fence and to creep through a bumpy field with 50 bales of hay in the bed.
IMHO, the pickup truck should be matched to the tasks it is expected to do. A Ford F 150 with a turbo 2.7 engine and a 10 speed automatic transmission wouldn’t.have met my needs back in the.day. However, my old 1950 Chevrolet one ton would.not keep up on the interstate.
It seems to me the 2.7 EcoBoost with a 10 speed is well suited to commuting or running errands.
Chances are that 2.7L Ecoboost with the 10 speed automatic will easily outgrunt the old Chevy. The 10 speed has a 4.69 : 1 1st gear, with a 3.73 rear end you get about 17.5 gear reduction which is about half of what the Chevy’s was. But put the F-150 in 4-lo which yields a further 2.64 :1 reduction and you’re there. The F-150 also has about twice the torque anyway 
My wife and I were car shopping recently, and had the chance to drive a 2018 2.7 EcoBoost. Granted, it was in a Lincoln SUV and not a pickup, but I was impressed. Lots of torque and smooth quiet power delivery. I loved it and would have bought it without a second thought.
I’m a professional mechanic at an independent shop, and I have always been a fan of big, slow-turning conventional engines. I remember when the Ecoboost first came out, I thought to myself “all that power and torque from such a little engine, I wonder how long before they start blowing up?” I haven’t seen one yet. A friend bought a 2012(?) F150 3.5 EcoBoost and has only good things to say about it.
I would guess that an unloaded 2WD F150 would easily achieve 20mpg.
The Lincoln 2.7 required premium fuel, not sure about the Ford, but now we’re talking pennies…
@FoDaddy I am sure pickup trucks have improved greatly since 1950 when my one ton was made. The torque maximum was reached about 1200 rpm. The gearing was very low. As I said in an earlier post, I always started in second gear. My guess is that the top speed in 4th gear which was direct drive was probably about 60 mph. I never knew for certain because the speedometer didn’t work-- you don’t get much in a 22 year old truck that cost me $115. However, I did stretch fence with the truck by putting the truck in first gear. I had the fence so tight you could play tunes on the fence wire. I would almost be afraid to try this with an automatic transmission and a turbocharged engine for fear of damaging the automatic transmission. My old truck is probably more comparable to the present F-350.
If I were to purchase a new F-150 today, I would probably go for the normally aspirated V-8 over the turbocharged V-6, but I may be stuck on old technology. In fact, I thought the inline 300 cubic inch 6 cylinder was a great Ford truck engine.
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Why would anyone need an F 150 for commuting and running errands? You need a pickup for hauling loads or towing.
Your old truck had approximately 180 lb-ft of torque.
The base engine (gasoline) in the F350 has 430 lb-ft of torque, the diesel, 925 lb-ft.
Payload; 3930 lbs and up depending on configuration.
Towing; 13,000 to 21,000 lbs.
Today’s half ton trucks out perform those old trucks.
I drive a car daily and a truck when I need it, I have room for ten vehicles on my property. Most properties in this city are small and don’t have space for more than two vehicles so some people drive a truck for all occasions.
Conventional? If I recall correctly, this is a direct injection system. Not what I’d categorize as conventional.
Everyone is impressed by the power. I would not willingly sacrifice long term reliability for extra (unnecessary) power. I guess that’s what makes us all different. 
@Nevada_545. It’s been 40 years since I moved into town and out of the country and haven’t had the need for a truck. Therefore, I haven’t kept up with developments in pickups. My old one ton 1950 Chevrolet had a 216 cubic inch engine (not a 235 as I stated in an earlier post). It had a long piston stroke and had splash lubricated bearings. It was about the same as the engines in Chevrolet cars of that time period, but may have had a different camshaft allowing the torque to come in at a lower rpm. The truck was geared quite low and had good pulling power, but probably wouldn’t go.more than 60 mph on the highway. This really low gearing took maximum advantage of the small engine.
I bought the truck for $115 in 1972 from an acquaintance who bought the truck at a farm sale a year earlier. The truck had a hitch on the back and little tool boxes on each side of the bed. I happened to tip up the seat cushion one day and found blue prints of the water main layout for the south side of my town. I think the truck began its life working for the waterworks and then went to work on a farm.
It was a real work truck. Had I had more money in those days, I would have looked for a good used 3/4 ton. The old Chevy truck was a little clumsy to drive to the university where I taught on the occasions where I didn’t ride with my wife.
I do remember that back in the 1950s, the Ford 6 cylinder engine was better suited to work trucks than the Ford flathead V-8. The torque came on full at a.lower rpm. In fact, up to about 50 mph, the Ford flathead 6 used in cars through 1951 could outrun the flathead V-8 up to about 50 mph. Back in those days, trucks were work vehicles rather than all purpose vehicles. Trucks had a single bench seat. The 4 door crew cab was only used commercially. Now they are everywhere.
The 1950 Chevrolet one ton had a.gross vehicle weight of 8800 pounds. I don’t know how this compares with the gvw of trucks today. I did weigh out of a.gravel pit with a load.of sand at 9500.lbs. I suppose a dual rear wheel one ton today may have a gvw of over 10,000. I would guess that a F-150 would be around 7000 gvw.
Perhaps I should have said “naturally aspirated” because that’s what I meant. I’ve always thought that there’s no replacement for displacement, but the EcoBoost may make me grudgingly accept that turbochargers are an acceptable method of increasing economy and power.
Some of that power isn’t unnecessary. My friend the carpenter and cabinetmaker regularly used his 80’s era F250 with a 460 and Holley 4-barrel for work, but the 8mpg was killing him. A modern day F150 has the payload he needs, and with the 3.5 Ecoboost it has the power too.
Direct injection is conventional, or soon will be. Fuel injection wasn’t really conventional in the early 80’s but it was soon after.
Life consists of all of those things. We are what I would consider a typical suburban family in an ordinary neighborhood. We have a pickup, a sedan, an SUV, and a crossover. In a typical week, I’ll drive the sedan to work because it’s economical, my wife will drive the crossover because the narrow spaces in the parking garage make an SUV difficult, we’ll drive half a baseball team with gear to a tournament in the SUV, and I’ll haul a load of yard waste to the dump and pick up some landscaping bark on the way back. Or something like that.
Now if you’re not able to keep a fleet of cars around like that, I would think the pickup would be one of the last 2 to go. I can get groceries in a Silverado but I can’t get a Christmas tree or pick up new patio furniture in a Taurus.
As far as 20 MPG, possibly. My F150 4x4 6 speed auto with the 5.0 gets 17.