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.

I ll justify these numbers below. A drop of 7 percent may not sound like much but it adds up over time. Mileage went from 41 mpg at 65 mph to 40 mpg. 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.

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. 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. 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. 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.

Mileage went from 41 mpg at 65 mph to 40 mpg. A close second was the kayak with 28 percent or a change. 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. 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.

Unfortunately even an empty roof rack will affect mileage. Adding an empty roof rack to a vehicle can drop the gas mileage by about 7 percent.