air tabs

I will accept the opinion of a friend who installed them on his 3 tractor/trailer combinations that he operates. His opinion was that he wasted his time and money. No measurable improvement in fuel economy and in his and his drivers opinions no measurable improvement in control.

Now that is his opinion and I am sticking to it.

tony lee wrote:

Any opinion by someone that has not used the product is worthless.

and of course it is equally true - or even more true - that OPINIONS of those who have used the product are equally worthless because of confirmation bias.

Here we have a product that is just crying out for some scientific testing to provide quantitative evidence that anyone can understand. Not hard to do and any high school science class could come up with some way of verifying the claims.

I guess you really haven't gone to their website and see that these have undergone wind tunnel tests and you have not read the scientific study done by NASA. NASA

You are right, there may be some bias but for a product that is so cheap, there is not much reason for any bias. I spent hundreds of dollars on Bilstein shocks for my coach, If you read any of my posts, you would have known that I said that I yanked them off in a few weeks and replaced them with Koni FSD shocks. I showed no bias towards Bilstein shocks, even tho they cost four times as much as the AirTabs. I also yanked out my Flexsteel Captains seats, because I felt they were garbage. To replace them, I spent close to $2000 for a different brand. Yep, I could have shown bias and raved about the Flexsteel seats and the Bilstein shocks, but I did not. The facts are that I can afford to try something, and trash it if it doesn't work. I do not hang on to something that does not suit my needs. As the persons on this forum, that I gave my "new" Bilstein shocks, or my Flexsteel seats can attest, I just gave away those failed products for free. Some people may hang on to something and rave about it because they are financially stuck with your choice, but I am not. I can afford to replace anything that doesn't suit my needs and will let others know why I got rid of a product, or why I kept a product.
I would not have put them on the second coach if they did not work on the first coach. I also am familiar with vortex generators since they were installed on two of the planes that I owned and are present on most commercial planes in service toady. Now I'm not sure that any student in a high school class has my flying experience, or racing various vehicles at high speed, but knock yourself out finding one that does. In the meantime, hang on to your pennies.

As far as why EVERYONE doesn't use them......why doesn't everyone have a DP, or a Prevost? Some people are always skeptical of something they do not understand and rather than spend a few bucks to find out, they remain ignorant and afraid to try something new. Their favorite saying is "but we have always done it that way". :B

Any opinion by someone that has not used the product is worthless.

and of course it is equally true - or even more true - that OPINIONS of those who have used the product are equally worthless because of confirmation bias.

Here we have a product that is just crying out for some scientific testing to provide quantitative evidence that anyone can understand. Not hard to do and any high school science class could come up with some way of verifying the claims.

Recently spent a couple of days in an RV park and down the road was a huge pharmaceutical distribution centre with a couple of hundred prime movers and double that number of trailers in the yard. The company has 8 other similar centres. If that company could be convinced that putting $200 worth of plastic on each of those rigs would save 2% of fuel costs, they would all have air tabs fitted in an instant.

rgatijnet1 wrote:

DanTheRVMan wrote:
Air tabs is now claiming 4% better fuel economy. If my memory serves me correctly they use to claim 2%.

I have friends I worked with in aerospace that are aerodynamic experts running fluid dynamic programs and wind tunnel tests regularly so I spoke with them.

Their opinion was there were various ways to aerodynamically gain a small 1 to 3% improvement in fuel economy so maybe airtabs did or maybe they did not. They thought this was plausible.

Dirt accumulating would be affected by airflow and could be better or worse and they had no comment on these claims.




Improved handling due to winds, passing trucks, etc. seemed like people were imagining an improvement in their opinion. Various devices that had minor improvement in fuel economy would have no perceptible improvement in handling in their opinion. They basically attributed these claims to the placebo affect it had on the driver making them believe things were better.

Any opinion by someone that has not used the product is worthless. Kinda makes you wonder why they would even give their analysis on something they have no personal knowledge of, but they always do.

WOW!! In your 4,387 post you have never commented on a post that you. "give their analysis on something they have no personal knowledge of" That pretty good.

I have not used them, But if they were so good wouldn't ALL over the road truck have them on?

DanTheRVMan wrote:
Air tabs is now claiming 4% better fuel economy. If my memory serves me correctly they use to claim 2%.

I have friends I worked with in aerospace that are aerodynamic experts running fluid dynamic programs and wind tunnel tests regularly so I spoke with them.

Their opinion was there were various ways to aerodynamically gain a small 1 to 3% improvement in fuel economy so maybe airtabs did or maybe they did not. They thought this was plausible.

Dirt accumulating would be affected by airflow and could be better or worse and they had no comment on these claims.

Improved handling due to winds, passing trucks, etc. seemed like people were imagining an improvement in their opinion. Various devices that had minor improvement in fuel economy would have no perceptible improvement in handling in their opinion. They basically attributed these claims to the placebo affect it had on the driver making them believe things were better.

Any opinion by someone that has not used the product is worthless. Kinda makes you wonder why they would even give their analysis on something they have no personal knowledge of, but they always do.

i tried them on my mega cab 1 ton. at the back of the bed on the bed cover. i have a improvement. but when installed at the back of the cab. i got a decrease in mpg… factory wind tunnel body shaping must be the difference as having a open bed or covered bed didn't make any difference using the cab tabs. but the bed covered plus tabs, worked..
did't put any on the trailers due to planned exchange of units..

I guess folks forget physics real quick.....MPG is a factor of distance traveled and if you reduce wander and steering corrections, you reduce distance traveled, so in theory, MPG has to increase.

The trucks I saw on I-80 and I-84 were trucks from large fleet and are just like trailer skirts 3 short years ago, which were slow to catch on, but today 90% of the trailers out here are running side skirts. I have no idea what the companies east of the big ditch are doing, but west of the ditch, they are starting to understand laws of physics and the price of fuel.

There will always be the naysayers, especially those that refuse to understand what a vortex generator does and why they would work on an RVer, which is fine. But to blatantly state it is Voodoo reasoning, is absurd.

Air tabs is now claiming 4% better fuel economy. If my memory serves me correctly they use to claim 2%.

I have friends I worked with in aerospace that are aerodynamic experts running fluid dynamic programs and wind tunnel tests regularly so I spoke with them.

Their opinion was there were various ways to aerodynamically gain a small 1 to 3% improvement in fuel economy so maybe airtabs did or maybe they did not. They thought this was plausible.

Dirt accumulating would be affected by airflow and could be better or worse and they had no comment on these claims.

Improved handling due to winds, passing trucks, etc. seemed like people were imagining an improvement in their opinion. Various devices that had minor improvement in fuel economy would have no perceptible improvement in handling in their opinion. They basically attributed these claims to the placebo affect it had on the driver making them believe things were better.

jvander wrote:
FedEx custom critical trucks are owner-operator rigs, or at least very small fleets of a few trucks, similar to FedEx Ground trucks. When you see airtabs on all FedEx Express (or Wal-Mart, JB Hunt, Schneider, UPS) trucks you know that they pay for themselves.

I'm not sure about your RV but there is NOTHING on my RV that pays for itself. AirTabs do give better handling which is enough of a reason for me to spend the few bucks that they cost. Some people buy expensive trac bars for their coaches to accomplish the same task.
RVing is just too expensive for some people and those that are looking for a free ride will always be disappointed. As I said, I know of nothing that pays for itself in the RV hobby.

FedEx custom critical trucks are owner-operator rigs, or at least very small fleets of a few trucks, similar to FedEx Ground trucks. When you see airtabs on all FedEx Express (or Wal-Mart, JB Hunt, Schneider, UPS) trucks you know that they pay for themselves.