Roof Rack Gas Mileage

The empty roof rack had a nearly 2 percent impact on fuel economy which translates to a little more than three quarters of a gallon of gas.

Roof rack gas mileage.

So if your car usually gets 30 mpg on the highway and you add a full roof rack your highway gas mileage will drop to 24 27 mpg. Your fuel cost is ten cents mile or 1 500 year. Generally adding a loaded roof rack to your car will lower your gas mileage by at least 10 percent. Some drivers may see their gas mileage drop by as much as 20 percent depending on vehicle type and type of roof rack.

The roof rack mpg experiment. Off the showroom floor the regal tourx gets 21 miles per gallon in the city and 29 mpg highway for a combined fuel economy of 24 mpg. He found that compared to the baseline of no roof rack the empty rack reduced his mpg by 12 7 and the roof rack with a bicycle reduced it by a whooping 27 3. Let s say that you drive 15 000 miles per year gas is 2 50 gal and your gets 25 mpg.

Mileage went from 41 mpg at 65 mph to 40 mpg. Drag coefficient increases by speed squared. Berkeley lab says that roof racks cause as much as a 25 percent loss in fuel economy and accounted for almost 1 percent of national consumption in 2015.