OK so this is what the CPC guy told me today
And I take his word for it as he is a cpc rebal himself
shame he wont take me up on my plan for gate crashing the JAPUT office at MK but hear goes
He is an owner oparator with only 1/2 dozen wagons but he says when you have a trailer that is about 18" higher then the wind deflector on the cab it uses 5% more on fuel and when you have a trailer that is about 3’ higher then the wind deflector on the cab it uses about 10% more on fuel
The idea being is that we have a wind deflector as high as the trailer and we dont use any of that 5/10% (which seams a lot to me) we only use as much as the trailer being as high as the cab
Then Pupil number 2 steped in (and BTW pupil 2 lives only 4 doors down from my instructor)(I am not joking this time)
He said imagine holding a plank of wood up in the air the same size as trailer hight differance with winds of 50-60 mph blowing at you
Now imagine weight behind that
Now I step in with my thinking cap on and say ‘is the wind deflector adjustable’ ow yes he said but the nut and blots would most probably be seized up thats OK I said once I have done it once it should all fit into place the second time
He said somewhere in the world there are self adjustable wind deflectors with a motor and a sensor but he has not seen any in use
So everytime I swap A trailer for a larger one can I rely spend 2 mins climbing on top to save a whopping 5-10 on fuel■■?
I’ve toyed with the idea of adapting the normally adjustable with a spanner deflector on one of mine to be automatically adjustable with a hand valve powered from the air system. Unnecessarily complex really it wouldn’t be hard for manufacturers to design a manual wind up and down handle on the catwalk.
I do wonder if there would be any fuel saving in it flattening down when stationary and raising as you pull away and speed up, possibly negligible.
A lot of DHL’s globetrotter’s ,63 plate and on, are being retro fitted with automatic height adjusting wind deflectors.
At nearly £2000 a pop the savings must be significant or they wouldn’t be spending that sort of money …
Tangray:
A lot of DHL’s globetrotter’s ,63 plate and on, are being retro fitted with automatic height adjusting wind deflectors.
At nearly £2000 a pop the savings must be significant or they wouldn’t be spending that sort of money …
Yeah I bet the savings are significant, I recently put a double bubble screen, on my bike, its only a inch higher than the original screen and at a bit more of a angle. What a difference this makes, I can sit as upright as I can, at 70 mph, and I am well protected from wind. Much more streamlined and aerodynamic than my previous naked bike, where the wind hit your chest/body and after a while, you can barely hold on, feels like your arms are being stretched.
Tangray:
A lot of DHL’s globetrotter’s ,63 plate and on, are being retro fitted with automatic height adjusting wind deflectors.
At nearly £2000 a pop the savings must be significant or they wouldn’t be spending that sort of money …
I drive one of these 63 plate DHL XL Globetrotter’s.
Now, not everyone at our yard knew that an XL roof spoiler is different to a Globetrotter roof spoiler…
Here is a Globetrotter roof spoiler
So what DHL decided to do to help the flow of these ‘teardrop’(they make me cry when i look at them) trailers, was to spec them with Globetrotter roof spoilers instead of the XL roof spoilers they came with.
To do this they took the XL spoiler off, cut down the top of the side spoiler, then fitted the Globetrotter spoiler (even thou they could have got away with leaving all the XL spoiler on, as there is a company out there that has done exactly that)
hence this…
But they then decided to have these electric adjustable things fitted. What they do is… when you switch the ignition on, the spoiler drops down as low as it can go, then after about 15 seconds, the sensor in the back of the spoiler senses the trailer, and automatically rises until it reaches the top of the trailer, then stops. It stops at exactly the same height as the non-automatic spoiler was bolted (the same as the white and yellow DHL motors in the pics) hence my questioning of why we had to have the automatic ones fitted. The only advantage i can see of the automatic ones is that the big gap is filled in on the side, but as i just said earlier, if they had left the original XL spoiler on, then this wouldnt have happened!
And as said, EVERY time you turn the key on the spoiler drops down then sets itself, and my god, does it make a lot of noise.
All the FH’s at my new job have self adjusting wind deflectors, hitch up to trailer, switch on ignition and hey presto it goes up to the height of the trailer. Clever idea.
Looking at those designs i doubt you would save much, for the simple reason the spoiler should cover the whole of the roof as a lot of wind can get through to the front of the trailer via the big gaps at the sides and the idea is to lift the air over the top of the trailer
of course a deflector will save money in the long run if fitted correctly and if the design is of a good class.
Boss & Driver:
OK so this is what the CPC guy told me today
And I take his word for it as he is a cpc rebal himself
shame he wont take me up on my plan for gate crashing the JAPUT office at MK but hear goes
He is an owner oparator with only 1/2 dozen wagons but he says when you have a trailer that is about 18" higher then the wind deflector on the cab it uses 5% more on fuel and when you have a trailer that is about 3’ higher then the wind deflector on the cab it uses about 10% more on fuel
The idea being is that we have a wind deflector as high as the trailer and we dont use any of that 5/10% (which seams a lot to me) we only use as much as the trailer being as high as the cab
Then Pupil number 2 steped in (and BTW pupil 2 lives only 4 doors down from my instructor)(I am not joking this time)
He said imagine holding a plank of wood up in the air the same size as trailer hight differance with winds of 50-60 mph blowing at you
Now imagine weight behind that
Now I step in with my thinking cap on and say ‘is the wind deflector adjustable’ ow yes he said but the nut and blots would most probably be seized up thats OK I said once I have done it once it should all fit into place the second time
He said somewhere in the world there are self adjustable wind deflectors with a motor and a sensor but he has not seen any in use
So everytime I swap A trailer for a larger one can I rely spend 2 mins climbing on top to save a whopping 5-10 on fuel■■?
by which Speed starts saving? Makes not much Sense when it starts by 62mph and your Lorry is restricted to 50 mph How much Fuel you need to save to have them Wind Reflector paid?
Tangray:
At nearly £2000 a pop the savings must be significant or they wouldn’t be spending that sort of money …
Yes they would because they are stupid, bucket loads of money & no idea what to do with it.
kindle530:
hence my questioning of why we had to have the automatic ones fitted. if they had left the original XL spoiler on, then this wouldnt have happened!:evil:
And that original spoiler is quieter & much nicer. So they want to spend £2k modifying a truck that can barely do 52mph meaning less wind resistance resulting in reduced effectiveness of any aerodynamic enhancements. If you really want to save fuel the first thing you do is not buy a Volvo:!:There’s so much crap in DHL trucks that I just don’t think you need ie mute radio in reverse or open doors, N/S proximity sensors, big catwalk, deflectors etc
kindle530:
DHL ‘teardrop’(they make me cry when i look at them) trailers:evil:
Fugliest things I’ve ever seen & the trailer bed slopes down so much that you have to mess about raising it when you back onto most conventional docks:evil:
though the trucks in the pics are fairly
closely coupled it always amazes me as
to the gap some drivers leave tween cab and trailer
that wastes masses of you
