New Member, EB bad gas mpg
Senior Member
Joined: Jul 2012
Posts: 834
Likes: 130
From: Western Oklahoma
Senior Member
Joined: Dec 2009
Posts: 814
Likes: 149
Originally Posted by Gingerman
Heavy foot = low milage. Put up the fuel efficiency gauge, and see the affect of your technique. My mpg had improved with some behavior modification.
Also, I put a tonneau cover on, and it had a shockingly good impact on mpg. Highway driving, I I'm getting an average of 27mpg. Your results may vary, but the covert is paying for itself pretty quick. Bigger impact on highway than surface roads, but the overall average is up by about 10%, which is as advertised.
Also, I put a tonneau cover on, and it had a shockingly good impact on mpg. Highway driving, I I'm getting an average of 27mpg. Your results may vary, but the covert is paying for itself pretty quick. Bigger impact on highway than surface roads, but the overall average is up by about 10%, which is as advertised.
Senior Member
Joined: Dec 2009
Posts: 814
Likes: 149
Originally Posted by Gingerman
Heavy foot = low milage. Put up the fuel efficiency gauge, and see the affect of your technique. My mpg had improved with some behavior modification.
Also, I put a tonneau cover on, and it had a shockingly good impact on mpg. Highway driving, I I'm getting an average of 27mpg. Your results may vary, but the covert is paying for itself pretty quick. Bigger impact on highway than surface roads, but the overall average is up by about 10%, which is as advertised.
Also, I put a tonneau cover on, and it had a shockingly good impact on mpg. Highway driving, I I'm getting an average of 27mpg. Your results may vary, but the covert is paying for itself pretty quick. Bigger impact on highway than surface roads, but the overall average is up by about 10%, which is as advertised.
Senior Member
Joined: Nov 2011
Posts: 224
Likes: 26
From: Georgia
Originally Posted by brucesears
He lives in Maryland, when I was there this summer the speed limit everwhere I went was 55. Mine would probably get that mpg if I only drove 55-glad I don't have to.
Senior Member
Joined: Jun 2011
Posts: 5,800
Likes: 277
From: Madoc, Ontario
Originally Posted by dodgehemi0
I call BS.
Drops off fast when you start passing people though ;-)
Member
Joined: May 2011
Posts: 329
Likes: 7
Mythbusters study MPG savings of various bed modifications
the Mythbusters examine the following modifications to a truck's bed to see how it affects the truck's MPG:
Tailgate up (control test)
Tailgate down
Hard top tonneau
Mesh tailgate
No tailgate
Here are the results:
WORST: Tailgate down
BEST: Mesh Tailgate (a little more than 5% savings)
All of the rest were relatively the same, and having installed a tonneau recently I can confirm the lack of an MPG boost.
MORAL: If you're buying a tonneau for the sole reason of improving your MPG you're wasting your money. It seems like there's a lot of MPG improvement myths when it comes to vehicles, but this one is especially bad because tonneau-cover MPG improvements seems so intrinsically plausible. The bed just seems like a massive wind catcher!
This also shows that you shouldn't trust any manufacturer's claim on MPG improvement. With the internet, it's trivially easy to verify their claims so spend 15 minutes before spending a few hundred dollars on snake oil. Perfect example for me is the Throttle Body spacer. They supposedly improve MPG, but a quick search on the web told me (for the types of engines in a Dakota) that this really is a big scam.
Oh, and always be skeptical of perfectly nice round numbers! Many tonneaus claim a nice, neat, and perfect 10% improvement. Yeah, right!
the Mythbusters examine the following modifications to a truck's bed to see how it affects the truck's MPG:
Tailgate up (control test)
Tailgate down
Hard top tonneau
Mesh tailgate
No tailgate
Here are the results:
WORST: Tailgate down
BEST: Mesh Tailgate (a little more than 5% savings)
All of the rest were relatively the same, and having installed a tonneau recently I can confirm the lack of an MPG boost.
MORAL: If you're buying a tonneau for the sole reason of improving your MPG you're wasting your money. It seems like there's a lot of MPG improvement myths when it comes to vehicles, but this one is especially bad because tonneau-cover MPG improvements seems so intrinsically plausible. The bed just seems like a massive wind catcher!
This also shows that you shouldn't trust any manufacturer's claim on MPG improvement. With the internet, it's trivially easy to verify their claims so spend 15 minutes before spending a few hundred dollars on snake oil. Perfect example for me is the Throttle Body spacer. They supposedly improve MPG, but a quick search on the web told me (for the types of engines in a Dakota) that this really is a big scam.
Oh, and always be skeptical of perfectly nice round numbers! Many tonneaus claim a nice, neat, and perfect 10% improvement. Yeah, right!
Senior Member
Joined: May 2011
Posts: 342
Likes: 24
Heavy foot = low milage. Put up the fuel efficiency gauge, and see the affect of your technique. My mpg had improved with some behavior modification.
Also, I put a tonneau cover on, and it had a shockingly good impact on mpg. Highway driving, I I'm getting an average of 27mpg. Your results may vary, but the covert is paying for itself pretty quick. Bigger impact on highway than surface roads, but the overall average is up by about 10%, which is as advertised.
Also, I put a tonneau cover on, and it had a shockingly good impact on mpg. Highway driving, I I'm getting an average of 27mpg. Your results may vary, but the covert is paying for itself pretty quick. Bigger impact on highway than surface roads, but the overall average is up by about 10%, which is as advertised.
