Carrier Trailer Fairings, Allan?
 

So again while I was at the Carrier dealer he showed me the brochure for the trailer fairings I think they are made by Freight Wings but they are being sold by Carrier.

They claim a 4% increase in fuel efficiency (6% with gap fairings).

It says : At 50 mph and above, tractor-trailer aerodynamics is the most important factor in fuel economy. At 65 mph, over 50% of a truck's fuel is used to overcome drag.

Independently verified fuel tests demonstrated 4% fuel savings with belly fairings. At an average fuel consumption rate of 6 mpg, that's a savings of 667 gallons every 100,000 miles. This means a set of belly fairings can pay for itself in less then 100,000 miles.

Here's the link for the product http://www.transportparts.carrier.co...I11270,00.html

The price installed is about $1700. I'm seriously considering it. Just wanted an opinon. As a matter of fact Allan, the dealer is Canadian and I told him I need to run it by another Canadian :)

Of course all comments are welcome.

Merrick4 Since this thread is more or less about fuel milage I would like to ask a question . When I was at Mav orientation there was lots of discussions about driving slower to save fuel . I can't remember the actual figures but there was a certain percentage you would supposedly save by driving 62 mph compared to 65 . So my question is do you know if this is true , better yet have you tried different speeds to see
what milage you get at different speeds ? Common sense tells me that driving slower would infact save fuel but I would like to know the actual mpg vs different speeds . :?:

Actually I don't know Darin. I mean I'm not sure how to do it, that is fill it up and divide by miles all of that. I don't have an on board computer in the dash that tells me of my mpg rate.

All I can say is these big companies do it for a reason. I think one problem I have is I am heavy out of a stopped positioin. Also I was originally taught to downshift a bunch to save on brake use but now I find out that is not good either.

BUT I do drive slow and it's not only for fuel efficiency. I had one truck as a company OTR driver. It was set at 70 and I kept the pedal to the floor. Stuff was always going wrong like the fuel injectors. Then I found out you are not supposed to push these trucks. So I go slow primarly to go easy on the truck. You need to baby these things.

I'll say one thing, if going slow increases fuel efficiency, then it seems like a lot of people out there don't seem to care. I am not driving the slowest and almost always trucks are blowing by me. And I'm not talking about the company trucks either. My truck can go up to 80 but I think I have ony done that a couple of times. Primarily to get out of the "pack".

I didn't know you were with TMC, if I'm not mistaken you are going to haul cars Darin?

I went to Maverick orientation and was hired but decided I wanted to do my own thing . :) Yes I am going to haul cars. I am starting out sorta small (4 car hauler )and plan hopefully to move up to 8 to 10 car hauler after a while . I am suppose to have a deal with copart ( salvage car auction ) and was told there was plenty of work fo a four car hauler out of Nashville . :)

There is NOTHING like doing your own thing. It isn't always easy, but this has never felt like a "job" to me. I am doing my own thing and it feels great.

I wish you the best of luck and look forward to reading on your progress.

Thanks Merrick4 . Yep, I have been my own boss for so long ,I can't see
my life any other way. I was looking on the ooida site and ran across an article that said if you were to get just 2 tenths a mile per gallon more on your mpg you would save around $800.00 a year, using 5.5 vs 5.7 mpg. I used the same two mpg and figured the difference based on 100000 miles and came up with around 637 gallons ( much more than $800.00) Not sure when the article was written, could have been when fuel was $1.50 per gallon . Seems to me the fairings are a great idea . Good Luck !

There was a test done in Quebec this year and those savings seem about what the test sresults were. If I had vans I would use them.

One company that uses them up here is Robert (yellow Volvos, yellow trailers). They were concerned that they might see some damage this winter.

Go for it merrick!

Bison transport is also putting them on their trailers.

For that amount of money, I forsee payback in less then a year, and pure profit after that.