Watched a new Mythbusters with an update to the show they did with the 2 Ford trucks and the tailgate up and down, this time using a Gen2 Dakota, tailgate up, tailgate down, mesh tailgate and tailgate removed.....tailgate up was 2nd but was beat by a small margin with a mesh tailgate.....go figure.....but I hate the way those things look and they are useless as a tailgate if you have small items in the bed so I will stick with tailgate up and pray for fuel prices to come down.....just an FYI for the crowd.

 

from an older post:
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The 2nd time they tested it was with a motor boat fuel flow gauge (Flowscan company) retro-fitted to a Dodge Dakota regular cab. Adam claimed he had spent considerable time 'calibrating' the Flowscan gauge.

The 2nd tests were short on a crowded California highway at 25 and 55 mph, and they tried to read the Flowscan meter by eye to find the MPG, even though the Flowscan will only read to a tenth so that the best they could do was notice differences of about 2% (0.1/5.1 gallons per hour). They did travel up and back that stretch of highway to try to cancel out head and tail winds, but could not cancel out side wind effects. These results with the Dakota & Flowscan meter by Mythbusters reported that tonneau cover and tailgate up were better than either tailgate down or tailgate off. Adam's most controversial finding with his Dakota in this 2nd set of tests was that a plastic net with about 1 inch holes in place of the tailgate seemed to be best of all....but only slightly.

After reporting these results, the Mythbusters said they were
'totally sick of doing MPG tests with pickups'
and did not want to get any more emails or letters on the subject.

You can watch any of the Mythbusters past episodes by downloading files at:

http://www2.digitaldistractions.org:8080/torrents.php?showid=mb

more at

https://dodgeforum.com/m_771109/tm.htm

https://dodgeforum.com/m_705863/tm.htm

 

I wonder what my gas milage would be going 75mph in reverse with both windows down, and a hooker hog-tied to my roof......

 

i would imagine probably like 20MPG if ur lucky

 

but when you drive backwards doesnt that suck the exhaust back up and unburn it and fill your tank again?






how bout NO!!!!!! lol

 

Even thou Mythbusters did do a test that they said the tailgate up got better gas, but I know on all my other trucks (1997 Nissan Frontier 4cyl, 1990 1500 GMC Seirra V8 5.7L, 1995 Toyota T100 V6) I got better gas mileage when I put it down. You can do your own test. I drove for about a week one way and a week the other way, driving the same way,and I got about 50 more miles or so farther on a tank with the tailgate down. Which doesn't sound like a lot, but a tyipcal driver drives about20-30 miles a day, so that's another 1-2 days before filling up, which over a month or two will add up to almost andweek. I also had a toolbox on all three of those trucks so maybe with the toolbox it kept the wind from creating a vortex.

My guess is athigher speeds the vortex may help causing less drag, but I think atlower speeds that there isn'ta lot of downforce, so the tailgate down has less drag and the tailgate up doesn't have enough wind to make the vortex and is just causing drag.

Like alot of media people say theirs really not much difference in 87 vs 93 octance gas, unless you have a high proformace engine or sports car. But I dare you to use 93 for a month and then switch to 89 and you can tell a difference. I cantell in my 2003 Dodge Dakota 3.9L V6, when someone puts 89 in it.

 

i know on a buddy of mines 95 F150 he got 2 mpg better with tailgate completly off You know i was thinking they said on mythbusters the hard tonneu made no gains or losses so what if you had a lightweight cloth tonneu and had your tailgate removed to remove a lot of excess weight

 

The reason the leaves flew back in ur rear window probably wasn't because of the vortex/bubble. If you have your windows down and rear window open, as the wind passes your side windows it creates a suction and pulls air thru the rear window.