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As I contemplate another fairly long journey in the CTT, I'm looking at the roof racks and wondering what (if any) effect they might have on mileage in a beast like this. Some quick Googling turns up some surprisingly large impacts on mileage for some other vehicles when equipped with empty racks, certainly more impact than I expected to see.
I'm curious if anyone's noticed a difference on the Cayenne. I'm in AZ, so high speed-limits and I usually cruise at 88mph, pretty fast and drag is exponential, which makes me WAG that there could easily be a 1 or 2mpg difference with/without racks at speed. Anyone make any real-life observations about this? They've been on my car since I bought it, but mostly because I think they look cool, I haven't carried much on them besides a Xmas tree and some lumber (see my avatar).
There's about a 2 mpg hit with just crossbars. Ironically, with the roof box in place cruising at 75-80, we still get about 15.5 mpg Not a lot of difference between bars only and bars+roofbox.
If I drive ~70, I can eek out about 18.5 mpg with no bars or box, but that's kind of boring.
The last time I drove to CA (~400mi) I got a very consistent 17.2 in each direction with cruise set at 88 for hours on end (other than passing or when getting stuck behind a jackass in a tractor trailer passing another truck because it's 1/10 of a mph slower.....
I'll remove the racks and try another test run in the next couple of weeks. Results in this thread.
Wow, that is really good mileage for that speed! I rarely get over 14.5mpg, even on highway trips at slower speeds than that.
When I bought it, it was showing 12.5, I don't know if that's what it was really getting or if it was artificially low from people "test driving" it. I'm averaging 14.2 around town, but I get into the twelves when I'm playing.
Are we really asking about mileage on something that gets such poor mileage anyway? 14, 15, 16. Seriously. We aren't putting 100,000 miles on a year like I would on my fleet vehicles where a change of 3-6 mpg makes a real dollar impact across the fleet. On these SUVs, if you put on 10,000 miles a year the difference between 14 and 15 is 49 gallons a year or about $160. The difference between 15 and 16 is 41 gallons or about $133. 20,000 miles a year and 14-15 goes to 97 gallons or $315. 15-16 is 83 gallons or $270. so 14-16 at 10,000 is $293 and 14-16 at 20,000 is $585. Big deal. You'll spend more than that on going out to dinner twice a year or having lunch twice on a ski trip. It's two good bottles of wine. Gotta put things in perspective.
Truthfully, how many people here look at the price of gas and decide to fill or not to fill up and will drive to another station to save a dime or quarter? If you are, you might need to reconsider having this vehicle. It's like a guy I know that traded in his Cayenne Turbo because the oil changes were too expensive and bought a Ferrari FF instead. He then complained about he cost of service on that. Looking at the wrong numbers. Life is too short for worrying about the little things like this.
On my 1,500 mile trip last week in my modified 09 Turbo S with Yakima Skybox installed and the cruise set to 84 MPH most of the time I averaged 13.2 MPG. I have not yet done a trip with a naked roof or with bars but without the Skybox as of yet to compare.
Are we really asking about mileage on something that gets such poor mileage anyway? 14, 15, 16. Seriously. We aren't putting 100,000 miles on a year like I would on my fleet vehicles where a change of 3-6 mpg makes a real dollar impact across the fleet. On these SUVs, if you put on 10,000 miles a year the difference between 14 and 15 is 49 gallons a year or about $160. The difference between 15 and 16 is 41 gallons or about $133. 20,000 miles a year and 14-15 goes to 97 gallons or $315. 15-16 is 83 gallons or $270. so 14-16 at 10,000 is $293 and 14-16 at 20,000 is $585. Big deal. You'll spend more than that on going out to dinner twice a year or having lunch twice on a ski trip. It's two good bottles of wine. Gotta put things in perspective.
Truthfully, how many people here look at the price of gas and decide to fill or not to fill up and will drive to another station to save a dime or quarter? If you are, you might need to reconsider having this vehicle. It's like a guy I know that traded in his Cayenne Turbo because the oil changes were too expensive and bought a Ferrari FF instead. He then complained about he cost of service on that. Looking at the wrong numbers. Life is too short for worrying about the little things like this.
If removing the racks buys me 1.5mpg, it's the difference between doing the trip to LA with a fuel stop in the middle vs doing it in a single leg. Additionally, the Costco at each end of the trip (literally 1 mile from my destination) is $0.35/gal cheaper than the stations along the way. So, just on this one trip removing the rack could potentially eliminate one fuel stop and save $7.35 in each direction. And the only cost is hanging the racks on the wall instead of leaving them on the car. Might even be quieter too. That's worthwhile to me.
We need more experimenters on here. I say try it and let us know. I bet folding in your mirrors and lowering will also have a subtle gain. All of these gains can be easily offset by big, heavy wheels/tires, though!
We need more experimenters on here. I say try it and let us know. I bet folding in your mirrors and lowering will also have a subtle gain. All of these gains can be easily offset by big, heavy wheels/tires, though!
I've played with lowering ride height and not detected any difference from it either way. The other part that I failed to mention is that the fuel stop in the middle, besides gouging on gas invariably puts me back behind all the people that I've already passed AND causes me to blow $20 on food and snacks for the family, so the savings in time and money are potentially much greater than just the fuel savings alone.
This trip in particular is in a sweet spot for seeing a difference since it's almost exactly the same distance as the car's range.
I do agree with Jeff's general sentiments that fuel cost concerns are usually overblown. I've got an inlaw that keeps wanting to upgrade his H2 to a Porsche to "save money on gas", I keep telling him that spending $100,000 to save $100 a year on gas is not much of a savings....
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This trip in particular is in a sweet spot for seeing a difference since it's almost exactly the same distance as the car's range.
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Now eliminating a stop because you are at the limit of range and you want to get there. I get that. It's like my airplane. If I can legally and safely get there by pulling back 10% power and doing it with no stops to fill. I get that. It's not the money for the fuel, it's the general "I made it on one tank" feeling. Now with an airplane you do throw in the minor difficulty of bathroom stops on a tank of fuel .............. Someone, somewhere is getting wet, either me in the plane or the guy on the ground below me.
Jeff,
I'm also a pilot, so I've got a soft spot for eliminating stops and extending my range Speaking of bathroom breaks, one of these days I'll have to tell you the story of my buddy who didn't heed my warning about no stops on the flight between KOAK and KSMO and ended up peeing in a bottle high above the grapevine North of LA.....
Actually, the thing he used wasn't really a bottle. It was a plastic receptacle with some kind of special absorbent powder in it. It also had an oddly shaped funnel on top so that *in theory* it was usable by women as well. It was floating around in my flight bag for probably 10yrs before it got used, it was a free sample that I was given at Oshkosh one year. Since it was so old and I didn't know if it might leak (due to abrasions, etc.), I made my passenger hold it for the remainder of the flight rather than putting it down. This led to the odd situation of "Drink the beer in your RIGHT hand, do NOT drink from the LEFT."
For the non-pilots, there are no open-container laws in aircraft, passengers are free to drink.
06-12-2018, 06:37 PM
Roof Racks effect on Cayenne mileage
Speaking of bathroom breaks, one of these days I'll have to tell you the story of my buddy who didn't heed my warning about no stops on the flight between KOAK and KSMO and ended up peeing in a bottle high above the grapevine North of LA.....