I have a 2008 ford ranger with a 3L V6. I do mainly highway driving. I am looking for ways to increase the fuel economy on this and I am wondering if anyone knows how much a Tonneau cover increases the MPG.

Thanks,

 

A cover will help, but very little, maybe .2 - .8 mpg. A net type tailgate works better.

 

Seems that I saw an episode of Mythbusters about that topic. They tried the tonneau cover, removing the tailgate, tailgate up and with one of the those tailgate nets. I can't find the episode online, but I rememebr that the best results were with the tailgate net, then with tailgate up then the others were a bit lower. But the tonneau cover did improve the mileage a little over removing the tailgate completely. I was surprised that the tailgate up was second only to the net.
I look at it this way: When you are thinking about a $300-400 improvement to raise your gas mileage by 2 or 3 MPG (I think those are generous figures), how long will it take you to justify that purchase? Example: you get 20mpg before the improvement. You might get 23 Mpg after. That means about 30 miles per tank, or 2 gallons of fuel per fill up. At $1.85 per gallon, it will take you about 100 tanks of gas to pay for the cover, IF it actually helps your mileage more than riding with the tailgate up.

I have discovered that by driving moderately (staying at or near the speed limit, using the right gear, air in the tires, slowing down when you see a red light ahead, instead of trying to be the first one to the light) all help your mileage more than anything else.

Sorry, BearRiver beat me to the answer, but his figures are probably more accurate than mine.

 

I have a lund tonneau cover and it didn't help my mileage......

 

I'm one of those people who tracks his mileage on every single tank and when I installed my tonneau cover, my mileage went up about 1 mpg. If you jump on the throttle all the time, you probably won't see anything.

 

Who me?

 

really cover helps well at high speeds ranger does not run usually, so you will save 3-5%. I have soft cover (tint). saves about 3%. But slowing down from 70mph to 55-60 MPH I save about 7-10%.

 

I have a LeBra soft tonneau cover, and I didn't notice any increase in mpg's.

 

I also have a LeBra (low profile) soft tonneau on my Ranger. I didn't get it for the sake of gas mileage, but I think it may be helping.

My 3.0 Flex motor is getting me a consistant 21+ MPG on my highway trips to work. I have a 4wd extended cab with the automatic too and around here, we are still in the winter mode.

The key thing that I keep preaching about is driving slower than the speed limit.

 

improvement from removal of the tail gait is probably more due to the fact you are removing a lot of weight from the truck.

 

The test done by Mythbusters was with two identical F150,s same road same time speed set on cruisecontrol. No cover truck with the tailgate up went 30 miles further than the one with the tailgate down. Which causes wind turbulance behind the vehicle. With the tailgate up a bubble of air formed in the bed and a smooth flow of air over the vehicle. This was later proved in a wind tunnel with smoke. Myth BUSTED.

 

My experience has showed no real gain, like said 1mpg tops. Buy the cover if you have a use for it, skip it if you want it just for MPG.

 

I have an Undercover and didn't notice any real difference in the mpg, but I bought it to be able to lock up the bed,