2020 Explorer wheel well air curtains

[cowmeat]

My wife's new Explorer came with wheel well air curtain deflectors that supposedly shoot air around the wheels and lower the drag at high speeds. They also changed the rims to a flatter 10-spoke design which should help the air past the wheels. I did notice two small openings in each of the wheel wells where the air passes through, but they seem pretty small to be effective.

A pic of her new one and old one next to each other shows the openings on the sides where the old one had a solid bumper. Time will tell if the openings are really effective (or if they just end up getting plugged up with road debris) but a highway test at 70 mph with cruise on said I was averaging 32 mpg, not bad for a big heavy vehicle

[oil pan 4]

My wife's 2018 Hyundai sonata has that too.

[JulianEdgar]

There are plenty of references showing air curtains working.

You could always do what I did in my book - tuft the side of the car and then take photos with the air curtains open and then blocked.

[cowmeat]

Originally Posted by JulianEdgar

There are plenty of references showing air curtains working.

You could always do what I did in my book - tuft the side of the car and then take photos with the air curtains open and then blocked.

That's not a bad idea, I may give it a try!

I'm pretty curious about them and I assume they have at least some effect for Ford to bother doing the R&D to incorporate them