ToyotaNation truck forum freakout: "would you put this (aero) cap on your truck?"

[MetroMPG]

The link below takes you to a forum thread that is a response to Brett's aero bed cap on his F-150 that was featured in the CNET news.com gallery of ecomodded vehicles.

The response is overwhelmingly negative.

I seriously doubt it's representative of truck owners in general. There's some pretty astounding ignorance in some of the comments.

Link: Would you put this cap on your truck?

[Daox]

Originally Posted by MetroMPG

There's some pretty astounding ignorance in some of the comments.

I was even taken back by their comments. Its pretty obvious the level of knowledge for this sort of thing is incredibly lacking in the truck world. Its quite sad reading their responces. They are the reason progress is so stunted in the area of fuel economy.


I'm quite tempted to post there as I'm already a registered user (tercel/paseo forums). However, I doubt it would do any good. It doesn't look like anything will change their minds.

[NoCO2]

wow...and I thought I lived in a redneck part of the world...

[DifferentPointofView]

Mythbusters... I never trusted them, because their tests are flawed in every way. One time they did a test and proved it false, and a university did a test and proved it right.

I like how they believe anything on tv. and THIS is exactly what I talk about when I say the compact car people hate the Muscle car people the Jeep Guys Diss the Hummer guys, and everything else in between. We'll see when the new toyota Tundra comes with an aero cap later on hehe.

Well, theirs nothing we can do without showing SIGNIFICANT DATA

[trebuchet03]

Wow...

And I love how they misquote the Mythbusters episode.
-> Mythbusters never tested a bed cap nor made any claims about bed caps. They did test tailgate up/down, tailgate off, mesh tailgate.

And another thing, which makes me slightly perturbed - "better" does not mean best. Tailgate up| better. That doesn't mean it's the best solution. It's amazing no one mentioned the logical fallacy of the several comments saying something to the effect "Didn't you see mythbusters - tailgate up is better [than tailgate down] - therefore, this won't work."

I'm half tempted to post over there too, but what good will that do?

Also, I don't see where Bondo claimed it was 1.7mpg increase (someone posted in that forum that bondo claimed this on the ecomodder fourm. I'm looking at the thread (http://forum.ecomodder.com/showthread.php?t=583) and don't see it (am I missing something?)

-----
Take it as a reality check - want to know why people are so resistant? That's why. Personally, I'm thinking its a general lack of education in the realm of physics (IIRC, US is at the bottom of that education quality list). That being said, this is why I think posting over there will be fruitless - I haven't established any credibility over there, and then I'm going to put forward data (not claims, data) contrary to their speculation. Perhaps if we were in the old days when it was general knowledge and people realized aero was a way to go faster on the salt flats - but that age is long passed

[DifferentPointofView]

Make an annonymous account, and show them how stupid and ignorant they are. That way they'll never know it was you.

[trebuchet03]

Originally Posted by DifferentPointofView

Make an annonymous account, and show them how stupid and ignorant they are. That way they'll never know it was you.

It's not worth it though - the state of mind over there is completely against it :/ If it were a bunch of people saying "I wonder if this works" I'd jump right in. But it's a bunch of people stating as truth that it doesn't.

If someone wants to come here, cool - I'll spend time and explain it. Why? Because they took the effort meaning it might just be worth my time to do a nice awesome write up. Otherwise, naught - even their moderators are turning a blind eye on which seems to be the ethos in that thread.

Requirements for thread worth<my time:
Unsubstantiated claims? Check
Misquoted facts from someone else? Check
Internal Conflict? Check
Ostracizing someone within your own limited community? Check

[Gone4]

You assume they can understand aerodynamics enough to be persuaded by an argument concerning this cap. If they are relying on unrelated mythbusters testing, then chances are they won't understand or care to learn about aerodynamics.

I actually think it looks pretty good, but that's probably the nerd engineer in me.

[trebuchet03]

Originally Posted by GenKreton

You assume they can understand aerodynamics enough to be persuaded by an argument concerning this cap. If they are relying on unrelated mythbusters testing, then chances are they won't understand or care to learn about aerodynamics.

I actually think it looks pretty good, but that's probably the nerd engineer in me.

That's exactly why I'm not going to post over there

I think it's amazing how much people think weight plays a role. Yes, it's significant for acceleration/city use - but how much stop and go traffic do you have at highway speeds? While keeping a constant 0 acceleration, an extra 100 pounds is of no consequence (at least, not enough to be measurable)....

[dremd]

Heard Mentality on that forum. I'd bet that if the first 2 post were more + you would have a better representation.

Bear in mind that truck owners get bombarded by products that "improve" fuel economy, the majority do not . . . .

It is funny it wasn't that long ago (3~5 years ago) that I thought that the majority of Toyota owners were intelligent. Now I feel as though the majority are not. The realization point in my mind was when they entered NASCAR.

Edit:
Bear in mind that members of a truck forum are going to be primarily in to making their truck Bigger Beefier Badder NOT Eco . . . .