With just the crossbars off, I didn't really see any gain. Most tanks were 20.X, one was 21.X and two were 18.X and 19.X. With the results going back and forth, that leads me to believe that my commute/driving style played more of a roll the last 5 weeks than removing the cross bars. I don't know if the air foil being attached still was causing a parachute, hence the reason for no substantial gains; fix one area and make another worst. The cross bars may have indeed helped the air flow over the air foil, rather than try to go through it.
After about 5 weeks of going crossbar-less, I finally pulled the air foil off today. I've only driven about 30-40 miles with it off, but I can already tell the wind noise has dramatically lessened. On Friday, I wasn't feeling well, so I turned the radio off and realized how loud the wind noise was. Today after removing the air foil, I noticed the truck is a lot quieter. I'm hoping the lack of noise will translate into an increase in FE. Only time will tell and we'll see in the next couple of tanks.
One nice thing about having a gas guzzler is that you have to fill up more often, meaning you can see the results sooner!
