Fuel Efficiency With Roof Rack

Then there are the odd shaped items that can be hard to fit into any cars or suv we re talking sports equipment like bikes or skis or perhaps tools like ladders.

Fuel efficiency with roof rack.

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. 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. 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. A close second was the kayak with 28 percent or a.

The gear with the most impact were the dual mountain bikes strapped to the roof which impacted the fuel economy by 31 percent or 9 mpg. Some original equipment roof rack designs are. To find out how bike racks affect a car s fuel economy consumer reports tested a roof rack and a trailer hitch rack loaded with two adult sized bicycles on a 2019 nissan altima and a 2019 toyota. That second run returned a fuel consumption of 7 06l 100km that s 0 6 litres more than our control run.

Aerodynamics is the study of force and how an object moves through the air. Next we equipped a set of roof racks and a bike carrier attachment to the roof of the forester brimmed the tank once more and set off completing the exact same run a second time. The more aerodynamic a car is the better the gas mileage it will have. If you follow our coverage on fuel efficiency you know that real world mileage numbers don t always measure up to the official epa ratings.

Mileage went from 41 mpg at 65 mph to 40 mpg. This includes a roof rack bike rack luggage rack pair of bikes or anything else you may strap to your vehicle. They also created an energy inventory model that included rack usage rates vehicle stock vehicle miles traveled through 2040 and vehicle level roof rack fuel consumption penalties. Their study was published recently in the journal energy policy in a paper titled fuel consumption impacts of auto roof racks.