Roof Rack Cross Bars Gas Mileage

Let s say that you drive 15 000 miles per year gas is 2 50 gal and your gets 25 mpg.

Roof rack cross bars gas mileage.

On my old tucson i left the crossbars on no difference in fuel consumption. 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. 39 mpg thus the cargo box on the roof increased fuel consumption by about 5 compared to the baseline. Your fuel cost is ten cents mile or 1 500 year.

In fact it significantly cuts your highway mileage all the time it s installed whether there s weight up there or not. Using a roof rack and toting bulky equipment on top of your car isn t the only thing affecting your gas mileage however. 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. Agree with everyone here cross bars you will never notice.

It is designed to fit just about any factory or after market cross bars on any vehicle type with the exception of convertibles. Adding an empty roof rack to a vehicle can drop the gas mileage by about 7 percent. A drop of 7 percent may not sound like much but it adds up over time. Other modifications you make to your vehicle particularly those to.

The cargo roof rack carrier is very easy to install including all necessary hardware and mounts to your vehicle s cross bars with four u bolts. Adding any rooftop carrier cargo box or ski rack doesn t come free. 40 mpg roof mounted thule xtender 739 ski carrier with skis. A five percent change in fuel economy is worth 75 each year or.

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. Drag coefficient increases by speed squared. 42 mpg roof rack with thule dynamic 800 aerodynamic cargo box. 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.

Since then i dont run around with a rack or crossbars unless i am using them. A few years ago i checked my economy with and without rack over a few thousand miles and i was taking a hwy 10 mpg hit with a rack installed. 5 9 l 100 km approx.