Gas Mileage |
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furpod
Moderator Group - pHp Joined: 25 Jul 2011 Location: Central KY Online Status: Offline Posts: 6128 |
Topic: Gas Mileage Posted: 06 Jun 2012 at 8:57am |
Very possibly just driving style/habits. After more than 30 years of comparing mileage in the exact same vehicles with the Mrs. She ALWAYS gets 10-40% better than me. Always. But I have more fun. She has also never had a ticket. I may have gotten a few in my youth. Our current daily driver is a '12 VW GTI. It does trip and instant mileage. She gets better trip mileage just running around town, than I sometimes get on the interstate.. |
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TIDALWAVE
Senior Member Joined: 21 Nov 2009 Location: MINNESOTA Online Status: Offline Posts: 315 |
Posted: 06 Jun 2012 at 8:49am |
HerbL...Before I bought my Pod, I talked to Forest River. One of their big points about the Pod was its aerodynamic shape! They stated that the shape would help deliver better mileage. We now how that worked out!!! I agree that it would nice if someone could run a Pod in a wind tunnel to see just how much improvement the new spoiler provides. I don't think that FR has either aerodynamic software nor run the Pod in a wind tunnel...with and without the new spoiler. By the way, the newest airliners are all designed by software...the aircraft are too big to test in wind tunnels.
This reminds me of all of the stuff sold to the public stating that it will increase mileage by 2, 5, 50 or 100%. Anecdotal evidence is terrible in determining aerodynamic efficiency. I get a 10-20% increase in mileage when I buy non-ethanol gas. Driving with or against a stiff wind makes a big difference in mpg. My sister's Mercury Grand Marquis consistently gets mid-30s mpg. Her friend who owns an identical model never gets better than low-20s. |
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TIDALWAVE
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techntrek
Admin Group - pHp Joined: 29 Jul 2009 Location: MD Online Status: Offline Posts: 9062 |
Posted: 06 Jun 2012 at 8:20am |
Should be true. High-mpg cars like the Prius come with special tires designed to squeeze out every extra mpg possible. For starters they are less "sticky" with harder rubber, and they also have a low-profile tread. When my wife's Prius needed new tires I intentionally went with a stickier/grippier tire because the factory tires just didn't get enough traction when you really needed it on gravel and snow. The mpg dropped by 2-3 as a result (a fair trade off for safety IMO).
I've seen many posts on other forums where members switch their truck tires from the factory road tires to knobby off-road tires, and get a drop in mpg as a result. I'm sure you'll see the opposite if you change out the pod's tires.
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Doug ~ '10 171 (2009-2015) ~ 2008 Salem ~ Pod instruction manual
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Burt
Groupie Joined: 04 May 2012 Online Status: Offline Posts: 62 |
Posted: 05 Jun 2012 at 10:38pm |
Yes, we have noticed the poor mileage also. However, our newer RPOD 171 Hood River came with some monster mud tires. We think that it would take about 50 years to wear them out but also believe that by changing them out to standard road tires the mileage will improve.
We may be looking to do the tire change to find out what happens. Has anyone else tried this? Thanks, Burt |
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HerbL
Newbie Joined: 16 Jan 2010 Online Status: Offline Posts: 21 |
Posted: 05 Jun 2012 at 5:22pm |
Outbound, never known you to be wrong or BS anyone. Computer models, etc. are no substitute for real world experience. At one of the roundups, a Forest River engineer did tell me that part of the reason for adding the spoiler was to improve aerodynamics. I would love to improve our mileage from a crummy 11.4 (over long trips using both side roads and interstates). Maybe others with the added spoilers will note any improvements in MPG and share the information with us.
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cane2
Groupie Joined: 06 Dec 2009 Online Status: Offline Posts: 92 |
Posted: 02 Jun 2012 at 12:20pm |
I am in 100% in agreement with Tital Canada fuel has a bigger kick to it, and the biggest factor is the 55- 58 mph. while towing. I am at or was 10-13 mpg with a 3.8 Chrysler van.
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TIDALWAVE
Senior Member Joined: 21 Nov 2009 Location: MINNESOTA Online Status: Offline Posts: 315 |
Posted: 02 Jun 2012 at 9:39am |
The Pod-spoiler is so small that it would make little difference on your mileage. About a year ago, I did some aerodynamic simulations on the Pod and various tow vehicles. For the spoiler to be anywhere near effective it needs to be much larger than the OEM spoiler. I suspect that you are using a different brand and composition fuel. If you use ethanol, you can expect a much lower mpg than from non-ethanol. Ethanol fuel typically gives 15-25% less mpg, it has less energy per gallon.
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TIDALWAVE
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dsmiths
Senior Member Joined: 10 Oct 2011 Location: Southern Ind Online Status: Offline Posts: 866 |
Posted: 01 Jun 2012 at 9:40pm |
Makes sense, I am sure there is a very strong low pressure area behind the pod. some aircraft use vortex generators, little bumps at certain areas behind the leading edge, instead of the air adhereing to the surface and then boiling at the trailing edge creating induced drag, the little bumps cause the air to be distrupted and not "stick" to the surface and it reduces drag at certain velocities, all of us know without looking at the speedometer when we reach that 56 to 60 mph and the drag increases like wow. I try to pull at 50 going up hill (hilly southern indiana) and no more that 55 on level and maybe 60 down steep hills.
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Dane and Donna Smith
2011 RP-172 2008 Chevrolet Trailblazer 4X4 lift kit prodigy wireless brake controller |
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Outbound
podders Helping podders - pHp Joined: 19 Nov 2009 Location: Oshawa, Ontario Online Status: Offline Posts: 767 |
Posted: 01 Jun 2012 at 8:58pm |
Its my fourth season (bought in August 2009) with the r-pod and so far this season, I've been consistently getting 15.6 l/100km (~15mpg), a significant increase over the 19.5 l/100km (~12mpg) I've got for the past three seasons.
Note: I travel at 90 km/h (56mph) when towing my r-pod. My tow vehicle is the same, the trailer is the same, the amount of gear that I carry is the same, my towing habits are the same. I've made five trips so far this year and am confident in the numbers. The only difference is the spoiler kit that was installed last autumn with the Canadian r-pod lighting recall... Has anyone else seen a similar improvement?
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Craig :: 2009 RP171 towed by a 2017 F150
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kymooses
Senior Member Joined: 01 Aug 2010 Location: Louisville, Ky Online Status: Offline Posts: 1807 |
Posted: 31 May 2012 at 12:13pm |
That's an interesting read and product.
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