The other day I was driving home to CA from AZ, about a 280 mile drive, and decided I would try out the economy tune on my Cortex programmer. I drove there using the performance tune and averaged 16.5 mpg, so I figured I should be able to better that by at least 1mpg with the economy tune right? WRONG. I drove home and averaged about 15mpg in the economy mode, and the truck was a DOG. I don't think I will ever try the economy tune again, and just keep using the towing and performance tunes. I would rather program it back to stock than use the economy tune. Anyone experience anything similar with the economy tune on their Superchips programmer?

 

I don't think you'll be able to change the cruising mileage much no matter what they promise. It simply takes X amount of power to keep the truck moving on the highway and that stays constant no matter what program you're running. Economy tune may help if you're in town by slowing acceleration and thus gas used but for steady state speed there's not much for it to change.

 

I agree with John..

If you want better mileage, and are willing to pay for it... buy a prius.. lol

 

I have a super chips on my F150 and have experianced the same thing you did with the economy tune. That was the worst drive I have ever taken in that truck.

 

Oh believe me I will be the first one to say that if anyone was worried about mileage, they shouldn't have bought a full sized truck. However, that wasn't really the point of this thread. I just thought that with the economy tune, I should have been able to better the mileage that I got while in the Performance tune.

The amount of power that it takes to keep the truck in motion is a good argument, it's obvious why the truck got worse mileage because it felt like I lost about 100 hp, if there was any kind of hill or headwind, forget it. It felt like I had a 3.7L V6 under the hood. Just wanted to share my experience with others.

 

I have never tried the Economy Tune, but I can say that I've tested out the 87 Octane Tune, although I used 89 octane fuel with it, I just can't bring myself to use 87 octane fuel even with a tune that specifically makes it safe to use in a Hemi. I found that I not only get better gas mileage with the Performance Tune, but it's significant enough that even when factoring in the price difference between the two grades, it's still less expensive to run the Performance Tune...

 

I agree 100%. I thought the same, that I should see some kind of improvement in fuel milage but the economy tune killed my truck. It just made it into a big turd that wouldnt get out of its own way. I run performance and towing tunes and always see better results than that economy crap.

 

The terrain has a ton to do with it plus the head wind all the way home. I took a trip from so cal to Louisiana and got better gas mileage going there vs coming back. And I had same dead dog like feel. Not saying it isn't all or none of your programmers fault but I don't have one and still saw a difference

 

Hammer, or anyone else who uses a superchips, Is there a learning period for the truck to learn each tune? It seems like even after reprogramming the performance tune, the truck is not as peppy as it was prior to me loading the economy tune. Maybe it takes a couple of days of driving and starting and stopping?

 

I don't know it for a fact, but I'd say so. Anytime you reset the PCM it takes time to re-learn driving habits, etc. to settle in. So I wouldn't be at all surprised if there would be a "learning curve" after making a change...