Popular and sold out for the model year, the 2023 Ford Maverick pickup trucks are arriving now at dealerships with a nasty little surprise, lower mpg ratings than the 2022 models according to newly posted fuel efficiency ratings at the EPA website.
Launched with reasonably impressive fuel-economy ratings in late 2021, especially for the Maverick Hybrid models the trucks have been earning headlines for both for their affordability but also the long wait associated with ordering them or conversely the high mark ups dealers are charging for walk-up customers.
While the order blanks for the 2023 model year opened and sold out in less than a week last fall, customers are just now receiving the first of the 2023 Maverick pickups this month and finding out that the mpg ratings on some models are quite a bit less than they were last year.
Add this to the fact that the EPA didn’t even publish their official ratings until this week, months after the truck went on sale to customers nation wide.
In 2022 for instance, the highly sought after Maverick hybrid was rated at 42 mpg city, 33 mpg highway and 37 mpg combined. When the 2023 ratings were published this week, it lost 2 mpg revised down to 40 mpg city instead, yet kept its 33 highway and 37 mpg ratings – small amount.
It’s the 2.0-liter turbocharged EcoBoost models that are seeing the largest mpg hits. A FWD EcoBoost Maverick in 2022 was rated at 23 mpg city, 30 highway and 26 mpg combined. For 2023 the city and highway remain the same, but combined average drops to 25 mpg.
A 2022 Maverick AWD was rated at 22, mpg city, 29 mpg highway and 25 mpg combined. For 2023 it now sees a lower 28 mpg highway rating and a corresponding 24 mpg combined rating, lower than last year.
It’s the hot new Maverick Tremor off-road edition that really surprised a lot of people who ordered them and were expecting mpg ratings similar to that of the other AWD models. Here the 2023 Tremor sees significantly lower mpg as a result of its 1-inch increase in ride height and advanced AWD system.
On the Maverick Tremor, city mileage drops two mpg to 20, highway mileage a whopping 4 mpg drop to 24 and the combined rating is 21 mpg. That’s three less mpg than a standard Maverick AWD at 24.
It’s worth noting these ratings were never disclosed to buyers back in the fall of 2022 when the trucks were were opened for ordering and subsequently sold out. Only now that customers are getting their build notifications and deliveries are they finding out this unpleasant little surprise.
Ford did not answer our request for explanation for these drops in EPA mpg ratings for the 2023 Ford Maverick over 2022 models but the explanation could be a number of things.
The first could be the result of a change in EPA rules on how estimated mileage is determined. Second, Ford could have been checked by the EPA and had to revise down their numbers. Often times vehicles are never actually tested by the EPA, but numbers provided to them by the manufacturers in an honor system.
The change could also be the result of software tuning changes from one model year to the next, though no changes in horsepower or torque have been reported. It’s worth noting that the 2022-2023 Ford Escape which has shared powertrain and architecture with the Maverick also saw similar downward revised EPA estimates.
In any case, Ford has not provided customers with anything on their retail website in the way of updated mpg ratings so that potential buyers could know of the changes. They would have to go to the EPA’s fueleconomy.gov website to find out on their own – now that they are finally published.
