tonnaeu cover vs. flatbed vs. campershell ??
 

Anyone know if a tonnaeu covered pickup truck bed is better then a flatbed for fuel economy? How about a campershell?

[the rest of this post is irrelevant and, I'll warn you, just me rambling on about my situation in life. Typing it all out and explaining my problem to strangers helps me see the big picture and make better decisions.]

I just inherited a '09 GMC Sierra 2wd v6 reg cab long bed. Thing is supposed to get 17 mpg city and 20 highway. I'm measuring its first tank right now so I don't know how it compares exactly, but it only has 30k miles on it and already has a nice tonnaeu cover on it. Basic no-frills work truck but very low milage and good quality.

If I decided to keep it, maybe I could put an aluminum flat bed on it! Would be a fun project to build myself maybe. But only if it helps MPG.

Full size trucks really aren't my thing though, so I was thinking about replacing it with a smaller Toyota Tacoma or something. I'm about to go look at one right now that is an '03 4-cylinder manual that gets 20 mpg highway and 25 highway. Besides the all new turbo-diesel Chevy Colorados (30mpg highway), I think thats the most fuel efficient truck ever made.

It's a small, basic pickup. Really basic. Regular cab, manual everything. And she's asking $6,500 for it. And the GMC might be worth $11k. So I could sell the GMC and have lots of money leftover for upgrades and a truck that suits me better...

But the Tacoma does have a nice camper shell.

The other vehicle I'm thinking about getting is a Subaru Forester. They fetch about the same amount of money, and get 2 or 3 more MPG. But it's not a truck. But it fits twice the number of passengers...

I'll still have my motorcycle that I'll drive to work every day that it doesn't rain, and get 50 mpg. And I'll still have my Jeep which can now be relieved of it's daily driving duties. Or I can keep using the Jeep+motorcycle, sell the GMC and invest the money. In jeep parts mhahahaha

Aeroshell best.
Camper shell probably second best.
Tonneau third.
Partial tonneau fourth.
Flatbed last.

Just a thought, but wasn't the 2.3L Ford Ranger rated at something like 22/27? They didn't hold their value nearly as well as a Toyota, so you could maybe for the same cash end up with a nice 08-11 model...

Why not keep the full size that you already own and know it's history, and mod from there? Plucking the typical pickup truck low hanging fruit could yield much better highway mileage than stock...

And I believe you'd be better with your tonneau than a conventional camper shell, but an aero shell, built properly, could be best...

I think campershell is the worst actually. There is no chance the air off of that does anything but swirl like the air coming off the back of a box truck. The bed cover gives a good chance the air coming off the cab lands and reattached before tumbling off the tailgate (a smaller box truck). The flatbed is probably to low to get the air to land. So aeroshell is best, flat bed cover next, regular open truck bed, tailgate up next, flatbed or tailgate down, and finally full camper shell the worst especially considering the added weight and cost.

I have seen some testing of the latest and greatest full shells being almost as good as a flat tonneau, almost. But never would spending $3000 on one ever get you ahead compared to a $200 tonneau.

Don't we already have threads about all of these? Sorry, perhaps if I were a truck guy I might remember more specifically. Here is the wiki entry for aeroshells: Pickup truck aeroshell - EcoModder

What year Forester are you considering? I had a 1999, it developed a bad head gasket (which was common for about twenty years), and it seemed like I was repairing it every couple of months. I bought the car with 93,000 miles and only put on 10,000 myself. I had an Ultragauge, drove 55 MPH wherever possible, and only averaged 27 MPG.

Half-tonneau > full tonneau.

What I'm not hearing is the use case, IOW, intended use. If you make a flatbed, You could use a hydraulic lift and side-boards and haul units of bark-mulch.

With a half-tonneau you can have lockable storage at the tailgate, instead of a contractor job-box at the front of the bed.

http://ecomodder.com/forum/member-fr...02-5-26-32.png

You could take a camper shell and slant-chop it and have the 90% equivalent of a custom aeroshell. Essentially just fill in the pizza truck.

flatbed
 

I removed the bed from my dodge truck and lost 2-mpg(16.7-to 14.7) immediately,plus it overheated and I had to reduce speed by 10-mph just to be able to drive it.
With the wheel skirts,nose fascia/airdam/grills-block,and aeroshell I could get 21.5 mpg at 65-mph.

A flatbed is not likely to improve aerodynamics. But anyway, if you don't have any actual use to the enclosed space provided by a camper shell, just get a tonneau and call it a day.