Does my Tacoma need this?

And how many people on here have noticed a decline removing it?

 

I'm sorry that this is getting a little heated but I said I didn't see value in it and was told that I was wrong. Yet nobody can PROVIDE evidence of its value, if any.

 

I am speaking in Terms of aero advantage and what/ how these help. The Prius rear trailing edge of the body is squared off, just like NASCAR rear ends. Your tail light on the taco is also squared off for a reason. Is that better?

I never said you were wrong. Pleas read carefully and comprehend what my post was about. I HAVE worked in wind tunnels for automobiles. It's been awhile, but I doubt that's changed much in 6 years.

 

Nope because I want to know how much more efficiency the air dam will gain me. You can't answer because you don't know.

 

I didn't work on the Tacoma, so I cannot give you a numerical value. I worked on other vehicles using a similar design feature. You wouldn't understand anyways if I could explain it to you. Just take the damn thing off.

 

Now don't go getting all personal just because you had to put your foot in your mouth.

 

You're a real winner!

 

Ha! Same to you, friend.

 

You've just summed up the dark art of aerodynamics perfectly. What works at one speed goes out the window at another.

This is why in WWII, as planes got closer and closer to the speed of sound they experienced all sorts of whacked out aerodynamic effects that killed many test pilots. If you ever want your brain to hurt look up compressibility stalls in the P38, or the Spitfire and it's aileron reversal airspeed.

Here's just one very simplified equation relating to drag vs power required to push a car through the air:

Or put more simply into a graph with simplified values:



Notice how fast the power requirements start to go up the faster you go. A reduction in C(d) is not immune to physics, the faster you go the more power you need.

None of the wheel is in that air stream.

Take a more tame, road going example, the first gen Miata. People are FANATICAL about aero on these things:

Note the high pressure areas (red) around the tire. Now watch when you lower the car, which causes the wheels to tuck more up into the body:

That pressure area vanishes, almost completely.

I'm not going to write a whole textbook on aero here, but suffice it to say that absolutely yes, something that gives a 1 MPG increase at 65 could be almost indistinguishable at 80.

Also no one can give an exact, truly scientific MPG number because 1) none of us have access to wind tunnels, and 2) a true scientific test is pretty much impossible. You would need to record MPG of the same car, doing the same trip, at the same speed, in the same exact weather. So we have to work given some assumptions, and the accepted result is roughly 1 MPG, but literally, YMMV.

As I've always said, aesthetics are up to you. If you don't like the looks of it, begone with it. You're not going to break the bank paying for gas, but you won't get the best mileage possible.

 

Yeah well I got better MPGs when I took mine off ... just sayin...

I would concur that a ~1mpg difference is well within the +/- tolerance of any MPG test. So your conclusion that it does nothing, I agree with!

 

It reduces turbulence.... air running into the axles and everything else is actually less aerodynamic.

 

Going to Colorado from Kansas??... take it with and trade for some weed.. problem solved. Nice truck btw!

 

Nitori, I appreciate all this information. And I would be willing to concede that, at the end of the day, you were right and I was wrong... at least on one single variable.

 

Okay great. Taking it off anyway.

 

Hahaha! I don't do that stuff. Never have. Colorado can keep it.

 

I took mine off. It's sitting the shop.

 

Chive on!

 

And this has been my point the entire time. Any benefit it would provide is so small that, at the end of the day, it simply DOES NOT MAKE ANY DIFFERENCE. The benefits are easily masked by other variables.

 

I love this thread... it's making me smile today!

 

Just trying to help out... its helps with stuff like stress and high blood pressure... just sayin... well at least that's what my friends tell me! Oh and now the doctors too!