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| REDUCE
DRAG, SAVE FUEL
(36-1) By M.B. & Karen Wilson |
Keep
Your Unit Cleaner, and Improve Handling.
Every
so often, Karen and I are approached by a company or an
individual to test a product that they’re selling.
At the 2005 Good Sam Rally in Fergus, Ontario, Jim Sheldon,
of Contour Aerodynamies Transport Technologies (CATT)
approached us. Jim represents a product called Airtabs,
which he claimed would save us fuel, allow our motorhome
to ride better in truck traffic, and keep the back of
our unit cleaner.
‘Here we go again’ we thought, ‘another
so called fuel saving gadget’. We’ve seen
lots of these gas saving schemes and they are here today
and gone tomorrow. We told Jim what we thought, that if
they really worked, why didn’t the manufactures
put them on the motorhomes at the plants? He then explained
how Airtabs were already being used in Australia on the
road trains (these are trucks pulling several trailers
and they’ve recently appeared in North America too).
We promised we would look into it and get back to him.
We later discovered that Airtabs weren’t only for
RVs. In fact, we were surprised to see them on 18 wheelers,
cab and trailers, and buses. From what we read, people
who used them seemed to have positive feedback on their
performance. We decided to give them a try and had the
Airtabs installed on our rig.
Karen keeps very good records on our motorhome, from tune-ups,
gas usage, oil and so on. We told Jim, we would take a
year to do the test, and if it worked, we would get back
to him.
 The
first thing we noticed was that the back of our unit and
our back-up camera lens was staying cleaner for a longer
period of time. Also, usually in a rainstorm our back-up
camera, which watches our car in tow, doesn’t give
a very good picture. But now the image was very clear.
Not only could we see our car, but we could now see traffic
coming up along side of us better too. This was a very
big plus. Next, we discovered that when trucks went by
us, we did not feel the shift or buffet we normally experience.
Our motorhome was holding the road a lot better. Finally,
after several RV trips, Karen added up the math on the
fuel. Her discovery: we were getting almost one more mile
per gallon. On a 38 foot, diesel pusher, almost one more
mile a gallon was enough to tell us that Airtabs did indeed
make an improvement.
At the 2006 The Rally in Cookstown, Ontario, we had Jim
come and do a seminar to explain Airtabs to the rally
participants. We shared our personal findings, and we
recommended them to the people who attended.
In the beginning, we were skeptical about whether Airtabs
would actually work, but today we wouldn’t take
them off our unit. We asked some of the people who bought
them to let us know what they found, here’s what
they said:
“We bought the Airtabs for the aerodynamic benefits
for our Trek motorhome. The tabs were easy to apply and
did not take away from the look of our coach.” Pat
& Mike Henning, Collingwood, Ontario
“I installed Airtabs myself on our 30-foot, 2000
Coachmen Class A, after confirming that they would adhere
to a rubber roof. We find that the Airtabs have made it
much easier to drive, and our unit is less affected by
other vehicles, especially large trucks. The improved
driving results made them well worth installing.”
Doug & Marion Fisher, Toronto, Ontario
There’s no doubt in our minds about Airtabs. They
worked for us and we do recommend them. When you call
Jim Sheldon, tell him the Wagon Masters told you to call.
For more information on Airtabs call (888) 416-3833 or
visit www.airtab.ca
Take Care & Happy RVing,
M.B. and Karen Wilson
The Wagon Masters
wagontrains@bellnet.ca (Page Top) |
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