Roof Rack Affect Gas Mileage

A drop of 7 percent may not sound like much but it adds up over time.

Roof rack affect gas mileage.

Minimal as related to wt but the. He found that compared to the baseline of no roof rack the empty rack reduced his mpg by 12 7 and the roof rack with a bicycle reduced it by a whooping 27 3. The empty roof rack had a nearly 2 percent impact on fuel economy which translates to a little more than three quarters of a gallon of gas. Their study was published recently in.

How does a kayak on a roof rack effect gas mileage. Using a 2013 honda accord and data provided by consumer reports an empty roof rack will increase the amount you spend on gas by 12 compared to no rack at all assuming highway speeds. Mileage went from 41 mpg at 65 mph to 40 mpg. Stock i was just wondering if anyone ever heard of a roof rack effecting gas milage.

Thule or yakima etc i was at the bike shop the other day and a customer came in and told me that a roof rack even with the fairing lowers your gas mileage up to 5 mpg. A two bike rack with wind deflector will increase your gasoline costs by 36. Now i have people come in all. Disrupting airflow over the roof and causing turbulence has more of an effect the faster you drive.

How will putting a tandem kayak on the roof rack effect gas mileage. Depending on design and whether you have a deflector on the front these have been shown to reduce gas mileage by 10 15 even without anything on them. The control test the tourx without roof rails installed revealed that adding roof rails alone decreased the car s fuel economy by about seven percent or a negative 2 mpg change. This means that adding an empty roof rack to a car that usually gets 35 mpg will drop the gas mileage to 32 5 mpg.

The roof rack mpg experiment he compared the gas mileage of his car at 54 7 mph 88 kph with 1 no roof racks 2 an empty roof rack and 3 a mountain bike on the roof rack. Adding an empty roof rack to a vehicle can drop the gas mileage by about 7 percent.