Ford Flex: Gas Mileage and Packing
Leg 1 of our vacation trip is over, and here’s the damage:
- 812 miles of driving
- 13 hours (split over two days) in the car with the wife and three kids
- An average of 21.6 mpg
- Roughly 39 gallons of gas consumed
- Average cost: $3.96 a gallon
- Total fuel cost: $153.87
- Highest gas price seen on this leg: $4.22 a gallon in Honeoye, N.Y. (south of Rochester)
- Lowest gas price: $3.61 a gallon in Perrysburg, Ohio
Those fuel figures aren’t too bad for an SUV of this size. It looks like it’s a fairly heavy car, and all those bells and whistles probably drag down the mpg. Those figures (I got about 16 mpg in heavy city traffic on the afternoon before the trip and hit 21.6 on the open highway) are very comparable to what I get in my family’s minivan, a 2004 Kia Sedona.
Editor’s Note: The test vehicle is an all-wheel drive SEL model rated at 16/22 mpg city/highway. Considering the Suburban Dad was traveling with driver, four passengers and considerable luggage, while using air conditioning, 21.6 mpg is a very good result. The Dodge Journey with AWD is also rated at 16/22 mpg while the Mazda CX-9 AWD is rated at 15/21 mpg. For the record an AWD Flex weighs 4640 lbs. vs. the CX-9 AWD’s 4528 lbs.
As for packing the Flex, the split third row allows you to create a flat surface by flipping over one or both halves of the bench. We needed one of the third-row seats for one of our children, so we loaded suitcases and other bags next to it.
There was also enough space behind the upright third-row seat for two suitcases and some smaller bags. Even as big as the Flex is, it was still a snug fit, and I think my kids regretted filling up their personal bags with as much stuff as they did. The two kids sitting in the second row (they rotated at different stops) were always pretty comfortable; the kid stuck in the way back usually had plenty to say about his or her situation, and none of it good.
Our next car is the Dodge Journey, which is like the Flex in that it’s an all-new three-row model, but it’s also considerably smaller in size, so packing it for our trip down to Gettysburg, Pa., should be a challenge. Check back and see how it goes. Plus, if you’ve got suggestions on how to double up on space in packing suitcases, we’re all ears.
