Truck gas mileage

[DTro]

In case you missed it, MythBusters revisited their findings on truck gas mileage and did a few more tests.

Listed from best to worst:

Mesh tailgate (with OEM tailgate removed)

Tonneau cover and Tailgate up.....same results

No tailgate

Tailgate down

They used a truck with flowmeter and tested at two different speeds.

[huntingislife]

Yeah I watched that. I was surprised that the mesh tailgate was 5% better than the rest. I still won't put one of them ugly things on though

[LMITOUT]

There was a study done on this quite a while back and it found better results with the tailgate up rather than down. This was with no cover on the box. What this study determined was that a pocket of stagnant air formed inside the box and the air moving over and around the cab ran right over the top of this air and then the tailgate, so the tailgate in the upright position had no affect on the drag and mpg. I belive it was a college that did this experiment in a wind tunnel.

[IFallsRon]

My old pal, Yukon.

Each truck may be different but I got an increase in mpg when I added a glass topper on an eight-foot box behind an extended cab.

[MBurke]

I watched the first one they did. Interesting...I have always wondered about pulling a boat with the tarp cover on... does it help or hurt gas millage ??