TurboT

Has anyone seen a increase in MPG with a tonneau cover?

stock03

I have yet to see any change with one. I use mine for road trips to keep things in the bed dry.

kjp

I've had mine on since January and have yet to see a difference.

br6ad

No difference in mileage here.

J10495T

I have not seen a difference and i have had mine since May and made a 3K mile trip to lower florida and back with it on. Works great for keeping things nice and dry and out of any elements.

D-Roc

Haven't seen any with mine, either.

2003Ram

Are the aerodynamics of the cab-to-bed and the bed itself that good that there's no difference? I've been seriously looking for one for MPG savings only, but if there is no MPG difference, I'll stop looking.

TurboT

I had one on my Chevy gas hog. I could tell a small difference on the interstate. It made no difference in town. I am going to get one eventually. If they seemed to help MPG, that was going to be the next purchase.

kjp

I suggest that you get a soft cover, i have a hard cover and hate it cant haul oversized stuff without taking it off. which is a real pain sometimes good thing is I can lock my stuff up. Just some food for thought.

woodrep

I think Tonneau covers or bed covers are going to yield better results from vehicles that have lower horsepower and torque. I have talked to several diesel with tonneau cover owners, gas with tonneau cover owners. The smaller duty like say 1/2 ton gas trucks seemed to actually gain a result, which was minimal if at all, but the higher horsepower trucks didn't seem to gain a mileage benefit. If you think about it, our trucks have a ton of horsepower and torque which comes stock, and having the bedcover on with all that horsepower and torque won't really help the mileage increase on our powerwagons. I owned a 1 ton chevy that had a 454 gas in it. It got 9 miles to the gallon empty and 9 miles to the gallon loaded haulin cows, so maybe they are going to get as good of mileage that they are already getting without doing power or timing mods. Don't get me wrong I need a tonneau cover so that I can keep things dry, but I don't think that an MPG gain will come out of it. I am not an expert by any means to this topic, but have studied and asked a ton of questions to random tonneau cover owners that I have run into at various places. Just my .02
By the way, has anyone heard of tonneau covers actually amplifying the drone of exhaust ?\
Thanks
Scott

donnee

Shortly after getting my 05, I put a rollup tonneau cover on it.
Not so much for the mileage factor as the fact that I got tired of idiots using the bed as a trash dump

2003Ram

This test shows nice improvement in gassers - One Dodge, one Ford, one chevy all showed some improvement.

http://toyotatruckworld.tenmagazines...ticle&aid=2835

cbrahs

Correct me if I am wrong, but it is not a horsepower or torque issue, it is an aerodynamics issue.

Allways_Lost

I got one and if anyone else has the same mods they can compare my mpg to theres.

I get 23 on the interstate setting the cruise on 80 if i drive at 70 i get right around 24.5. avg.
I never get less than 21 around town.

snoyes

I think they have discussed something like this on mythbusters... What they found is engineering/aerodynamics wise modern trucks get the best fuel mileage with the tailgate up and nothing in the bed. I think it has to do with the dead air space created from the cab, and how it flows over the tailgate. Someone will surely chime in here with a discussion on turbulent vs. laminar flow, boundary layer separation to help explain this, but over all you should seen no improvement with a tonneau cover or removal of the tailgate....