How many of you have a truck and drive with the tail gate down thinking you will increase gas mileage?

Question

I own a truck and see this every day. It is a common misconseption. If you have your tailgate up the air cirulating into the bed fills up the bed and cuts the resestance.. it's like filling a pool with water.. after you fill it up the air goes over the current in the bed. I just never understood why people actually believe that lowering the tail gate would decrease wind resistance.. it would actually increase it.

Answer 1

With my old Ford, I took the tailgate off to keep it from being stolen; you should have seen the looks when I walked through the dorm buidling carrying it.  No noticeable change in economy.

I never removed, or left the tailgates down, on either my subsequent F150 or GM1500's, and the few times I had to remove the tailgates of my company issued F350', there still wasn't any appreciable change in the fuel economy of any of them.  Tailgates are expensive, make sure the goosneck is high enough before you try to back under it.

I understand the concept, but that doesn't mean that I don't wish I had been involved in all the old "netgates" in the late 1980's and early 1990's.

Tailgate closed, keeping the junk and beer cans from  hitting cars behind me and causing lawsuits sounds like a better idea than trying to gain an extra mile per gallon by leaving the tailgate open or removed.

Answer 2

this was on myth busters and they found it does not help a thing!

Answer 3

Yeah the Mythbusters episode proved it completely wrong!  They had much better MPG with the tail gate up, and had a pretty decent underwater model to show why!