Roof Rack Gas Mileage Impact

They found that in 2015 roof racks nationwide were responsible for 0 8 percent of light duty vehicle fuel consumption or 100 million gallons of gasoline.

Roof rack gas mileage impact.

A close second was the kayak with 28 percent or a change. I ll justify these numbers below. Adding an empty roof rack to a vehicle can drop the gas mileage by about 7 percent. Their study was published recently in the journal energy policy in a paper titled fuel consumption impacts of auto roof racks.

Mileage went from 41 mpg at 65 mph to 40 mpg. Mileage went from 41 mpg at 65 mph to 40 mpg. A drop of 7 percent may not sound like much but it adds up over time. The other great thing with the thule system is that it takes literally 2 minutes to get the box off and maybe 5 10 mins to take the bars off each time so it really isnt that much of a hastle if you want to save on gas when you re not using it.

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. This editor many years ago in a move across the country to oregon from michigan found that the highway mileage of a four cylinder accord dropped from more than 40 mpg down to 32 mpg with a. Unfortunately even an empty roof rack will affect mileage. 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.

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. An empty rack has been reported to increase the cost of fuel over time from anywhere from 1 to 15 while a fully loaded roof rack will add 20 to 50 to your fuel bill.