Air tabs ... Vs. rivets?

Are the rivets doing the same the tabs are?

I ask because I'm looking for a solution to the crapcadia mirrors. Seems like some rivets around the leading edge of the flat part would do the trick.

 

The photos show that they do something to the air. Anything that helps the air flow another has to help mileage, it's simple physics that even a drop out from Tennessee can see.

But it really looks like the rivets are doing the same thing, for a while lot less money.

Let's say you are a slacker lead foot that only does 100k a year, at 6mpg. If the tabs save a 10th or gallon, that's $1,600 per year at $300 per set. Since the rivets are causing the same water patterns.... Shouldn't they save as much at a whole lot less?

If my math is wrong, or I'm totally missing something, please, feel free to blow my supposition out of the water to make me rethink.

 

It's a 10th mpg at best from my research. Won't make a difference to me except for the stability that a ton of folks have noticed.

If I had 4000 trucks.... Tabs or rivets would no on every one of them. It's like the trailer tails, they do work and do save fuel, that is a scientifically proven fact, getting drivers to deploy and use them is another matter since they ain't buying fuel. They only have a chance at a fuel bonus and I guess an extra $100 per year to them isn't worth all the labor involved in pulling a cord.

 

The Cascadia mirrors are really why I asked this. I'll be home next weekend and I'm going to put rivets on the flat sides to see if it makes a difference. Suppose I should apply for a patent or copyright or something before I post anything.

I think I read somewhere that posting was about the same as a patent or something like that.

 

Well.... It would be pretty hard to attach something to the glass.... Specifically myself and a gazillion other Cascadia drivers are trying to figure out a way to stop rain and road funk from collecting on our mirrors. Some kind of modifying has to be made to the big old plastic shell the glass sits in to make the stuff flow on down the truck, instead of wrapping around and sucking to the glass.

If you don't drive one every day, you don't have a clue and are uninvited from the conversation, unless you are an aeronautics of hydrodynamics engineer.