Fuel Efficiency:Mythbusters Style

Mythbusters has been on air for most part of the decade, and they have already broken thousands of myths, based on internet rumors and popular beliefs, the world has to offer. Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman started Mythbusters until the troika of Kari Byron, Grant Imahara and Tory Belleci became part of the team. With gas prices not dipping anytime soon, they launched a series of myths to help make your car fuel efficient.

On their second season, they tested whether turning on the air conditioning inside a car would be more fuel efficient than lowering the windows when traveling. At face value, both situations are not ideal in giving you sufficient fuel efficiency. By just turning on the A/C, it affects your fuel economy by at least 10%, on the other hand, lowering your windows lets drag enter inside your vehicle and it significantly dwindles a cars' fuel economy. Ironically the only way to avoid drag is to accelerate your car and in doing so you are dragging down your fuel economy further. The Mythbusters team tried this myth by running a vehicle in varying speeds, 89kph and 72 kph. In a controlled environment, the vehicle was subjected to turn the A/C on and to lower the windows down. Results have shown that when traveling on a lower speed it's advisable to lower your windows but when on a high speed it's advisable to roll up your windows instead and turn on the A/C, this would make your journey a fuel efficient one. Fast forward to their third season, the issue of having a pick-up truck's tailgate down than it is up is said to be more fuel efficient. In fact, letting the tailgate down creates drag at the back of your vehicle, which consumes more fuel than usual. Closing it creates a sealed vortex of air flowing over the vehicle that gives you a decent fuel economy.

They also have a collection of other myths like the dimpled car, in which they covered a car in clay and pressed dimples into it similar to a golf ball. The myth was centered on studies that have shown dimpled golf balls to travel farther compared to their counterparts The results were amazing as fuel mileage improved by almost 12% on a single gallon. Other myths include not taking any left turns, instead of driving normally, which is to wait for your turn go left. It's said that when your vehicle is in an idle state, it consumes more gas than taking three right turns. Despite covering a longer distance and is time consuming, the right turn route improved fuel efficiency by 3%. Lastly, one of their famous myths is the "Great Gas Conspiracy", which states that gas companies are in working with vehicle manufacturers to produce gas guzzlers. With this, they tested products believed to make your car fuel efficient. These included carburetors and a water fuel cell. All failed to make your car fuel efficient, they even made it worse. Surprisingly, one of the products used on this segment was cooking oil. It was used as an alternative to fuel and it made the engine run but was deemed to be inefficient.

Like any another resource, fuel might also run out in the future and we might have to find a suitable alternative or save on gas to prolong our resources. 

source :  http://goarticles.com/article/Fuel-Efficiency-Mythbusters-Style/4320802/