anyone ever read this..... http://www.lubedev.com/smartgas/faq.htm

im not inclinged to try it on a $40,000 truck, but I wonder if this really works

 

Do a search, comes up regularly, it's a standard snakeoil post. Comes up every few months.
Chris

 

what is a snakeoil post?

 

Sorry to be obscure, Carnivore. Snake oil was/is a generic term used to designate false cures, usually in medicine, but more and more used to describe things like the magic pellet that you drop in your gas that gives you 100 mile to the gallon. Or the secret carburetor that doubles your gas mileage. In medicine it's usually apricot pits, or special vitamins that will cure cancer, or let you live forever...

The acetone scam is an old one. It's been posted before, as have several others. The turbinator is a good example.
Search for acetone.

These websites crop up all the time. They rate in accuracy like 'Bush secretly dynamited the levees to kill blacks'.

I wish there WAS a secret miracle cure for bad mileage that didn't involve less throttle, air in tires, and taking your foot off earlier.
Anyway, every forum gets these questions, usually right after a new website goes up. I see this one is going on in the Political forums as I type.
Oh, well.
Chris

 

I've found hitching my car/truck to the vehicle in front helps, but you gotta make sure they're heading in the direction you want to go. Also, it seems like they figure out real quick something's wrong when their vehicles don't accelerate like they used to.

The acetone gimmick had me wondering for a while because this wasn't a scam product that anyone could sell for a big profit. After all, we can all get acetone cheaply and easily. Eventually, I decided the reason was to sell the devices that would report your mileage back to you.

As an aside for anyone who's still reading, Popular Mechanics (Sep, '05 issue) did a test on a bunch of those "miracle mileage cures" and, surprise, surprise, they were all debunked. Many dramatically reduced fuel economy and/or performance, with none actually increasing fuel economy by any statistically significant amount. Tests were done on a dyno, which eliminates tons of real-world factors we would have to try to deal with, like wind speed and direction, traffic, actual fuel consumed, etc.

Personally, some of these devices never made any sense to me. But I must admit that if I thought I could sell a half a million magnets at $20 a piece, I might be tempted.

 

People who sell the mileage devices (only Scangauge that I know of) don't have any reason to pull scams. They can't keep up with the demand, and have raised their prices three times. Still can not keep up. You can call and talk to the guy that owns the outfit. Very nice, but overworked...
People just like to post fake cures because either they believe in them, due to the gullibility of many, many people, or because they like to make trouble. Trolls for example.
I'm not talking about the folks asking about them, rather the ones putting up the sites.

Drafting actually can get you fantastic mileage.
Don't do it.
It even improves the mileage of the semi you are drafting on. Read up on the NASCAR three car draft for a good read on turbulence and drag.

Still crazy to do on the road...
Although, I had a slightly nuts uncle who 'drafted' behind big rigs from St. Louis to Los Angeles, and only used about twenty gallons of gas. He was a bus driver, very skilled, and knew a lot about this kind of nonsense.
He did this in a mid size car, with his wife and kids. I said he was kinda nuts.
I wouldn't get in the car with him on a bet...

As to gimmicks and add-ons that you can buy, there was one that worked. All the independent tests showed it could increase your gas mileage, and I used one, it gave me noticeably better mileage.

The government tested it, and approved it. All claims were verified. I bought about four thousand of them at 29 bucks apiece, wholesale, and distributed them across three states.

Then we had a gas crunch, and I was pretty smug.
A year later, the stores returned 3965 unsold units, and it was the worst loss of my career. We actually had to smash them up, do to contractual agreements not to reduce the price.

The customers didn't want them. They wanted propellers that went in the tailpipe. Fan clutch eliminators (which kill your gas mileage), they wanted miracle additives. They wanted magnets and pyramids. I got tens of thousands of requests for those things. That's just in the tri-state area, California, Nevada, Arizona.


The device that worked had to be spliced into your A/C clutch power wires, and had a vacuum line. When you nailed the throttle, like passing, merging, or climbing a steep hill, it disconnected your A/C clutch (like you can now do on most cars with a switch). American cars and many foreign didn't have that feature in the eighties.
The thing really worked, and really improved gas mileage. And wouldn't sell for beans. They wanted gimmicks and feel good stuff. Not actual fixes.

Still the same way, I'm afraid.
Chris

 

i tried drafting a few times and it helps a lot especially on some semis there was almost no turbulence when i stuck my hands out the sunroof. but new headlights or windshields cost a lot more than gas, even bigger price are wrecks..

 

May I add that when their tires start coming apart and throwing tread everywhere you will have a seat cleaning bill to add to the windshield, headlights, sheetmetal damage and all .