Side Skirts and Tails or undercarrage

The Freightwing looks nearly identical to Transtex... Between the two, I'd pay less attention to the savings claim, than I would price and installation cost. Regardless of which you choose, you'll be money ahead in the long run.

As for cross wind, it still helps mpg, but with an overall loss as you can expect. I don't have any actual comparison numbers for this, just what I remember from last time I ran one w/ high cross wind. Only a guesstimate 4.9mpg w/out vs 5.1 with. <--very small gain, hardly noticeable and likely what Allan M experienced... and he probably right about undercarriage system being better in this condition.

Just an idea, I know X-tra lease has trailers w/ skirts for rent. If you could find a company renting undercarriage would be nice comparison for you.

 

Howdy,

The skirts, tails and undercarriage have pros and cons:

Skirts will give you about a 3-4% increase SAE independent tested but in crosswinds it might reduce MPG plus they are prone to damage, but are CARB compliant and about $1200.

The undercarriage (smarttruck) says 10% but no verification anywhere, independent testing has shown about 2% which is the margin of error. Just looking at them I have no idea who they can claim that. But, they do offer good cooling for your tires and brakes, about $1200 just for the "scoop".

The TrailerTail has been SAE independently tested by Prime, Mesilla Valley, Nussbaum and now FedEx is testing them. Overall average increase is about 6.5% or about .03 a gallon. They are CARB compliant also as it gets more than 5% savings (you only need 1 device that is 5%). But, if the driver does not open them, they wont work! These run about $2100 but get the best results. My bet is the tail.

 

The owner of my company watched the testing by MVT pretty closely. Consequently all our new trailers have the skirts and tail. Our 2011 and up tractors have wide singles on the drives. Since about a 3rd of our road tractors have duals on the drives, we've held off putting singles on the trailers. We put 10 2013 tractors on the road with all Volvo drivetrains with I shift. With a newer trailer they are seeing 8mpg or better..

 

[FONT=Droid Serif, georgia, serif]Well, I know MVT is quick to adopt anything that seems to work but obviously they are getting some good results to make the investment and I think they are up to about 4500 trailers now. The increase seems to be about 8/10ths with both the Trailertail and skirts.
[/FONT]"TrailerTails® save our fleet over 4/10th mpg."
[h=5]- Jimmy Ray - VP of Engineering Applications, Mesilla Valley Transportation[/h]
"I'm saving 8/10th mpg with the addition of ATDynamics TrailerTail® and Skirts. I won’t pull a trailer without them!”
[h=5]- Jay Olmstead, Owner-Operator, LaValle Transportation Inc.[/h]