saving gas by following another car

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I can seem to find more info on this technique. I tried on highway but I really don't know the distance between 2 cars. I would never tailgate but maybe 4 or more car distance. It's not easy when driving at 60 - 65mph as most cars pass mine than me following them. truck may be too slow sometimes.

Reply to
liu
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Better yet, make a retractable grappling hook and clamp on to a semi truck going your way. Then just turn your car off and take a nap.

Reply to
Paul

If you're talking about "Drafting", it only works if you get within a few FEET of a big truck. Not car lengths, feet! Not for the faint of heart and pretty much guaranteed death if anything goes wrong.

Reply to
E. Meyer

Mythbusters tried that in an experiment (controlled course, of course) and found the savings to be negligible at best, and not worth the risk. They also found a certain distance range in which the gas usage became worse, at a distance less than the recommended 2-second safe distance. It had a lot to do with the truck's air wake.

Drafting is certainly best reserved to the professionals on the track.

Reply to
MLOM

It's kind of putting yourself in a precarious postition. It works well for Richard Petty. It's kind of illegal in most states on roads and highways. In racing, it's called 'drafting'. On the open road, it's called 'tailgating'.

When someone is 'drafting' me on I-91, and I'm driving something other than the Supra or the Scion, I feel that's generally a good time to check how much pedal pressure it takes to lock 'em up...

Reply to
Hachiroku $B%O%A%m%/(B

Now that's the best idea I've heard ye...wait a minute! You stole that from the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers!!!

Reply to
Hachiroku $B%O%A%m%/(B

I think it's pretty much crap. To get any real benefit from "drafting" you have to be right up on another vehicle; I'd think that any savings you'd see would be offset by the amount of accelerating and braking you'd have to do to stay in that pocket without rear-ending the other vehicle. Not to mention that if you make a mistake you WILL rear-end the other vehicle, and that if you're close enough to pick up a draft, you're also so close that you've cut down on the cooling air flow through your radiator.

The best and easiest way to increase your gas mileage is to conserve that momentum. The less accelerating and braking you do, the better. When you do accelerate, do it briskly - but every time you brake, you're throwing away momentum that the engine had to work to give you. e.g. if you see a stop light ahead, just let off the gas and coast up to it. if it turns green before you get there, great, just get back on the gas and get up to speed. If you have to stop, OK, at least you weren't on the throttle the whole way up to it. I've been playing with my new company car as it has instantaneous and average MPG available on its trip computer and I have found that I already was a fairly decent driver from an economy standpoint, but that that big pig of an Impala really drinks the gas when you accelerate. It can actually knock out some fairly decent economy numbers if you're at a steady cruise, but around town, care in driving can make a big difference in economy (from "acceptable" to "oh, my God, that's awful.")

nate

Reply to
Nate Nagel

Mythbusters took this one on a couple years back. They decided that yes, it was possible, but they found that to make it useful, the spacing has to be so close that all it takes is a split-second of lapse by the person trying to do the drafting to turn him into a permanently embedded bumper ornament.

Personally, I'd love the gas savings, but getting it isn't worth the danger involved in trying to follow a semi at 50+ MPH with only 2 feet between my bumper and his to get it.

Reply to
Don Bruder

LOL. I never heard of them but a quick google search turned up some fun Youtube vids!

Reply to
Paul

Well, that's a good point. I have AAA road service.... they claim free towing anywhere. If I just took the engine out of my car and called in for a tow anywhere I needed to go, I'd never have to pay for gas again. Hey, this could work....

--scott

Reply to
Scott Dorsey

negligible???? They got around a 40% saving if you were within around

10 feet. At 20 feet or so they were still getting around 15% savings. It appeared that you could easily get 10% and be safe if you were paying attention. People in LA regularly drive within 20 feet.
Reply to
Ashton Crusher

LOL !!! :)

Reply to
Paul

liu wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@q9g2000yqc.googlegroups.com:

Speaking of too slow, four car lengths is not *near* far enough to avoid an accident. The proper distance is measured in seconds. You're playing with death there.

Reply to
fred

The bastards have figured that out. You get only 4 free tows per year, from then on you have to pay for them. I asked an AAA tow-truck driver what the open-market rate was -- $7/mile, and that was 5 years ago or so.

Reply to
The Real Bev

Cruise control's likely to save you more fuel than anything else.

Anything that involves braking costs extra fuel, try to position yourself so you can use engine braking alone, not waste energy heating up your rotors and pads.

Graham

Reply to
Eeyore

The steering and brakes then won't work on most cars.

Graham

Reply to
Eeyore

You've never come across them ? How old are you ?

Graham

Reply to
Eeyore

And even then it's been a big problem for Formula One drivers for decades on account of the 'dirty air' from the car in front. They can get so close and then they're 'stuck'. New regs seem to have improved it this year with some good overtaking.

Graham

Reply to
Eeyore

That explains your road death figures.

Graham

Reply to
Eeyore

Quite so.

Graham

Reply to
Eeyore

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