Louvered Tailgates
I was talking to a fellow with a truck like mine, pulling a 5th wheel larger than mine, saying that he gained 1 1/2 MPG by replacing the tailgate with a louvered one.
Does anyone confirm that ?
Does anyone confirm that ?
Forum Discussion
26 Replies
- There are just some people that you can't even trust in the outhouse with a muzzle on !:R
- He was justifying the price of the new tailgate to himself?
- Strictly wishful thinking.
- Yeah, sorry, no such luck. I got one in January for ease of hooking up and it didn't change my mpgs one iota. I do love it though for other reasons.
- I watched a little film on this (not a home made YouTube thing) and their conclusion was either leaving the tailgate completely down, or off, or using one of those net tail gates made no measurable differences. The louvered ones look nice though, so go buy one.
I thought leaving the tail gate down or off would make a difference, but after measuring my miles/fuel usage on the same 700 mile trip four times, I didn't find a difference in mileage.
Let's say he was getting 12mpg towing the 5th whler that's larger than yours. If the louvered tailgate improved his mileage by 1.5 miles per gallon, that would be a 12.5% improvement. If he was only getting 10mpg, that would be a 15% improvement. At 8mpg a 1.5mpg improvement would be 18.75% I think I'd take the 1.5mpg improvement with a grain or two of salt......
Bill - I guessing he sold louvered tailgates, huh? (Sorry, couldn't resist. But I find that hard to believe)
