Fuel Efficiency:Mythbusters Style

Mythbusters has been on air for most part of the decade, and they have already broken thousands of myths, suggested by fans and other rumors circulating the World Wide Web. 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 debated whether turning on the air conditioning inside a car would be more fuel efficient than lowering the windows when traveling. At face value, doing such would not give you maximum fuel mileage. By just turning the A/C on, it decreases your fuel economy by at least 10%, on the other hand, rolling down your windows creates drag inside your car thus dwindles your vehicles’ fuel economy. Ironically the only way to combat drag is to increase your speed and in doing so you are dragging down your fuel economy further. The Mythbusters team tried this myth by driving a vehicle in to two separate speeds, 89kph and 72 kph. In both speeds, the vehicle was subjected to turn the A/C on and to roll down the windows. Results have shown that it’s more fuel efficient to travel with your windows down in lower speeds and turning the A/C on when traveling faster. Looking at their third season, they weighed whether driving a pick-up truck with its tailgate down is more fuel efficient than it is up. 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 unexpected as fuel mileage improved by almost 12% on a single gallon. Others include taking right turns while driving, instead of driving the normal way, which is to wait for traffic to clear and go left. It’s said that idling your vehicle uses up more gas as opposed to taking three right turns. Despite having a longer distance and is time consuming, the no left 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 cahoots with vehicle manufacturers to produce fuel inefficient cars. With this, they tried products believed to make your car fuel efficient. These included carburetors and a water fuel cell. All failed to make your car fuel efficient, some even made it worse. Surprisingly, they used cooking oil as an alternative to fuel and the car’s engine roared to life but wasn’t considered fuel efficient.



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.