RTT and better gas mileage

I wanted to see if this has happened to anyone else. I have a 2018 with 33” tires and a 3.5 lift. I usually average about 17 mpg between city and highway driving. I recently put my RTT on the bed due to a house move and not having storage for it. I now average 19.5 mpg. What gives? I thought the extra weight would bring my mpg’s down.

Has this happened to anyone and why?

 

Does the area you moved to have less hills / more flat roads then where you previously lived? Otherwise your RTT must be filled with Helium and you always have a tail wind.

 

Could the same principle as why bed covers allegedly help gas mileage. The wind isn’t getting caught in the bed of the truck as much creating drag. This picture kind of explains it, ignore the captions:

 

A fifteen percent increase in MPG's after adding a RTT?
Negative..

 

The only way to know for sure is if you do a proper experiment- same road, same driver, same speeds, tent on, tent off.

 

Busted by Myth Busters years ago.

 

My factory 2019 Sport got about 20MPG and then I added steel front & rear bumpers and full steel under armor (but TRD aluminum front skid plate...to save weight you know) and now my average MPG is around 15-16 with no driving habits changed. Weight matters. A lot.

I'll prob add more air to my tires to make them lighter, that should help a bit I think...

 

Maintaining proper air pressure is important. I used to maintain 35psi and started noticing improper tire wear and radial drag. I bumped my psi in the front to 41 psi warm tires and 36psi rear warm tires . My front end is little over 3100 lbs due to winch and winch bumper . Fuel mileage is better. I wanted a better ride before and it sacrificed my tires a bit . Now corrected, truck goes down hwy better and I should of knew better. Actually rides on the road better now . Simple mistake

 

IDK, that drawing is pretty convincing..

 

lol some laws you can't break #physics #fluiddynamics

 

The departure of air from your vehicle has as much to do as the arrival of air to your vehicle when it comes to drag. If the tent increases laminar flow behind the vehicle, it could offset the extra weight in some highway situations.

 

The tent picks up a static charge, thus acting like a giant magnet, and pulling the gas-tank float upwards, giving the illusion of better MPGs.

These are the facts they don’t want us to know!

 

RIP Grant

 

It’s the same belief that putting the tailgate down while you’re driving saves gas, and hanging an old CD on your front rear view mirror protects you from laser radar.

 

Wait till you Armor-All the tent cover. You'll really be zooming!

 

How many miles were each sample taken from?
Everything else is the same? no tire pressure changes, mods etc
There is a good chance part of it is moving off of winter gas,, if you have it in your area.
Wind, weather etc.

 

After taking a few college courses that dealt with fluid dynamics (graduate level sedimentation and deposition courses in my geoscience degrees), my default reaction to anyone who makes definitive claims that they can predict anything related to fluid dynamics through their own intuition is full of shit. It’s one of the most empirical disciplines. Computer models aren’t even fully accurate.

Fluid dynamics is complicated AF. There are some very, very unintuitive and unpredictable elements to it. Tiny changes can have big influences, positive or negative.

 

That photo reminds me of the Polar Expedition. What a cool truck.

 

Damn that is super cool. I’ve never seen that before.

 

"Guinness World Record for fastest overland journey to the South Pole (700 miles), which was completed in one day, 15 hours and 54 minutes. The Tacoma Polar Expedition cost $400,000 to build."
https://www.barrett-jackson.com/Events/Event/Details/2010-TOYOTA-TACOMA-POLAR-EXPEDITION-195776