A roof box has in impact on both.
Roof box fuel consumption.
Adding any roof box increases frontal area of your vehicle of course.
Leaving engines aside for a moment two major elements affecting a car s economy are weight and aerodynamics.
He compared the gas mileage of his car at 54 7 mph 88 kph with 1 no roof racks 2 an empty roof rack and 3 a mountain bike on the roof rack.
Adding a roof box means your car has to carve a bigger hole in the air which requires burning more fuel so your mpg will suffer.
The biggest problem we had was parking.
Normally car does 33 mpg down to about 30 just now service due.
It s impossible to give an exact figure because it depends on so many factors but britain s biggest roof box manufacturer thule states that your mpg is unlikely to decrease by more than 5.
He found that compared to the baseline of no roof rack the empty rack reduced his mpg by 12 7 and the roof rack with a bicycle reduced it by a whooping 27 3.
The gear with the most impact were the dual mountain bikes strapped to the roof which impacted the fuel economy by 31 percent or 9 mpg.
6 0 l 100 km 39 mpg thus the cargo box on the roof increased fuel consumption by about 5 compared to the baseline.
I would guess a roofbox adds around 5 to fuel consumption although there are many factors at play especially if you if you sloiw down to 60 65 you may then even see a reduction in fuel compsumption.
A close second was the kayak with 28 percent or a.
Couldnt fit into any car parks with a height restriction or multi stories.
Last year on a run to paignton 900 round trip we got about 35mpg fully loaded roof box included.
Their study was published recently in the.
But no matter how aerodynamic it might look it also alters the flow of air around your carefully shaped wind tunnel tested.
Why do they have such an effect.
However with the roof box it was only capable of 32 5mpg 31 per cent less than its claimed economy via the government tests.
5 6 l 100 km 42 mpg roof rack with thule dynamic 800 aerodynamic cargo box.