Mythbusters Golf Ball Car

[GasSavers_Scott]

Mythbusters just did a new episode where they tested to see if a car that is clean, dirty, or covered in golf ball dimples is more fuel efficient.

Clean car: 26.4 mpg.

Dirty car covered in chunky mud: 24 mpg

Car covered in 850 pounds of clay, with thousands of golf ball dimples: 29.6 mpg.

The test was done on a Ford Taurus V6, over a distance of one mile at 65 mph on a closed road 6 times per test.

[VetteOwner]

cool
i saw most of it lol

but like they said it would be awfully hard to make a buncha small dimples in sheetmetal

[dkjones96]

Hail damage doesn't count?

[GasSavers_JoeBob]

Originally Posted by dkjones96

Hail damage doesn't count?

Maybe that's why my Cad does better than EPA...all the dimples from hail damage!

[leeschaumberg]

Hello All
Yes I watched this show at mythbusters that was on 10-21-09 pm. According to their report the test was run at 65 mph in a repeatable manner. They used whatever Car that was available. The golf ball indentations were to scale unlike the stick on stuff sold. This makes the car ugly and hard to wax. But the important thing is gas miliage increased 11%.

[BamZipPow]

Why clay? They could've use something a little lighter. Who sez that the extra weight plus the aero effect didn't affect the results? Did they do 850lbs of clay spread over the entire car without the dimples and check that?

[leeschaumberg]

Hello All
Clay was used so the car was not destroyed to do this TEST.

[OldCorolla]

Ok , so the test showed an 11% improvement in FE at 65 mph, with an extra 850 lbs in the car. This then in theory should show a larger FE gain using something that weighed considerably less. Whos going to do it first?

[imzjustplayin]

Originally Posted by OldCorolla

Ok , so the test showed an 11% improvement in FE at 65 mph, with an extra 850 lbs in the car. This then in theory should show a larger FE gain using something that weighed considerably less. Whos going to do it first?

Though weight has less of an effect if you're maintaining speed so I don't think it'd help all that much unless they encountered a lot of up hill driving.



Here is the video:http://www.megavideo.com/?v=17PNUJM8

After watching the video, I guess the only thing I would have hoped for were for the mythbusters to have used smaller but more numerous dviots but that would have taken considerably more time and they had the worry over the clay falling off so I understand why they choose that divot size.

[theholycow]

Originally Posted by BamZipPow

Why clay? They could've use something a little lighter. Who sez that the extra weight plus the aero effect didn't affect the results? Did they do 850lbs of clay spread over the entire car without the dimples and check that?

Something like this plastic on the underside of my VW?



Much of the bottom is covered in large panels of it.