Trailer Air Shields

Fleet Equipment magazine had a huge article on it a few months back. Apparently there is enough of an increase in fuel mileage to use them. A lot of companies are starting to install them. Personally, I agree with you guys that say just another thing to go wrong and probably more of hazard. I am not a fan of this "going green" stuff either though so who am I to judge?

 

In my opinion this going green nonsense does nothing to benefit the planet or anything else. I like the black smoke rolling out of my stacks!

 

I know in Canada companies got a tax incentive installing them. I have seen several bent after driving in this winter weather. Makes you wonder how effective they are after damage....

 

what i like about them, is if you are driving in a crosswind they WILL make you more stable. more even pressure and more lower down. other than that couldnt care less.

anyone see some of these crazy ### things hanging off the back of some of the mwt trailers?? that is wild and your trailer then becomes like 56 feet haha. i was looking at one trying to figure out how all that #### folds up on the doors hahahaha.

 

they do work if u have a head wind or no wind but if its a side wind they suckand it makes it alot harder to control going down the road tearing them up i dont see how unless u hit a gator i had one corn i took their was no choice but to curb the trialer and i didnt do any damage to mine i have gone on alot of scales and never had any problems if it was in greenvile sc it could have been me thats were im from i do like that 4 wheelers tend to stay away a little bit more or so it seems

 

Not much longer for the cone. They already have them for the trailer tail

 

I can think of several RR crossings that would Trash a set of those.Matt

 

I'd take you up on that. My company is ordering all new trailers with them, and I'm seeing an increase of .75-1MPG on the trailers with the side skirts.

 

Here's the scoop on them......

They were mandated by California. They said that if your company runs into California then you must have them on 10% of your fleet. My company was featured in Fleet magazine about 2 years ago and was showing how they install them. Fast forward to 3 weeks ago....I asked the president of the company how much better our fuel mileage is with them on the trailers, his answer? We won't see any of the $2500 it cost to fit one of the trailers with these. We will retire the trailer long before we recoup any of the cost in fuel savings. They also had to retrofit the engines on some of our reefer trailers to make them CARB compliant, at a cost of $5000 each, I guess it wasn't good enough that California just about bankrupted themselves, now they are trying to do the same thing to trucking companies.