susanne

Thank you, Paul. I'm trying to drum up business at : http://www.nomorerack.com/daily_deals/view/1547419-gaspods_aerohance Its a whole new market for us, and as far as I can tell anything in the fuel savings genre. They do flash sales, Doing this they have become among the fastest growing sites on the internet - ranked number 4 by whomever does ranking of the sort. Products are up and gone in a flash. They are mostly used for liquidation sales for big players, but they have 3,000,000 subscribers and 18 million viewers a day. I'm not sure what percentage of their viewers care about saving fuel, but if we can encourage a small percentage of them to think about it, well, that is what we want to encourage.

http://www.nomorerack.com/daily_deals/view/1547419-gaspods_aerohance Regular price - $59.95 - so this is more than a 40% savings. This is a short term sale for the holidays. Be sure to opt out of receiving more offers, unless you like to be inundated. This is a short term sale on a kit of 9 GasPods that attach magnetically to the hatch cover of your CMAX. Or, consider as a gift to your family and friends, who are still driving gas guzzlers. Once they see how much money they can save, and how much good they can do, by saving just a little on fuel..... Their next step might be doing more, joining your club and buying a CMAX!

Mike - Great to see you having so much fun.

Regarding car wash.... Adhesive definitely stay put. We provide 3-M double sided automotive tape.... Magnetic after 2 years of field testing, so far, so good. No complaints of any washing off. If any do come off, please let me know.

Frank and Nick - I do appreciate your position, as well as your understanding that my reason for supporting the stream of consciousness is that there is nothing wrong... indeed, put one hand on your head and state the following: "If it isn't fun, don't do it. If you have to do it, make it fun." Now turn around 3 times and..... There is nothing wrong with having fun along the way. Like all other test team members, with whose data everyone commenting here will be cumulated and tallied, they already have a good long term baseline mileage for their cars. They will continue to log with their GasPods installed for a long enough period of driving to overcome the placebo effect. We'll have both impressions and raw data to look at, but with the CMAX its going to take some time, since CMAX drivers participating already get such phenomenal mileage! .

fbov - The fun of posting a stream of consciousness and gathering a body of field data are not mutually exclusive. In fact, encouraging test team members to communicate enhances transparency. And, it was the procedure of the naysayers I criticized. They have no information or experience.

I vote for keeping the discussion going, and let us enjoy the journey with Jus-A-Cmax, catsailor, mtb9153, ptjones, and any more of our GasPods Test Team client members that choose to post. Nothing said here is going to overcome the naysayers who have called GasPods "snake oil." Their motivation is not proof or truth or fact. I've monitored those posts and not one was made by anyone who has direct experience with GasPods. And, I personally find the stream of consciousness reports interesting and enlightening.

deleted - will post later.

Jus-A-CMax - its eco packaging! You are the first complaint so far.

Catsailor, Thank you for the invite, and please feel free to contribute given your experience and education in the field. The Computational Fluid Analysis we conducted showed an escalation in effect with speed. We ran the study at 35 mph and at 65 mph. In both cases reduction in the drag coefficient of the vehicles started at about 25 mph, and became "significant" at about 45 mph. Our personal logs show about a nominal 1/2 mpg savings with Santa Barbara city driving, but jump to a consistent extra 6-8 mpg on freeway road trips. We drive a leaves a lot for aerodynamic improvement Volvo cross country station wagon. (Branded when the kid was on swim team.) The back windshield effect.... The windshield is dirtied by turbulent air looping back from the ground to the windshield. That is what a lot of the aerodynamic improvements you see in your CMAX over my station wagon already address. GasPods are an easy way to contribute toward the fix a bit more. GasPods are just tall enough to grab air as it is breaking away from the surface of the vehicle. That breakaway is what generates the turbulence that creates backwash. Skin friction studies show that a GasPod is an optimum height to be just short of picking up drag. They are an aerodynamic shape, wider and taller at the front, tapered to a trailing edge, which accelerates air as it follows along the GasPod contour, that moves more air faster into that low pressure vacuum behind the vehicle allowing more of the air to stream on by, and less to turbulate and dirty your windshield with backwash.

You'll recover these costs with the rebate when we see your results :) And you are welcome to visit us in Santa Barbara anytime!

mtb9153 - I didn't mean to appear absent. I was on a long needed vacation driving around the Big Island of Hawaii. Unfortunately, Avis supplied us with a Ford Fiesta. If it had been a CMAX I would post pictures here.

Paul - Welcome to our Test Team. We're enthusiastic about your experimentation, and curious to see how your placement adjustments 7" from the rear roof line, to 10" from the rear roof line, compare with that of mtb9153 and catsailor. Both dialing in placement of GasPods on the CMAX a little further back than our instructions. I'm sure catsailor can explain this better than I, but I think that the curves of the CMAX rear, between arrows in the attached picture, are moving the rear measurement point, sweet spot, back to 1"-2" from the rear roof line.

mtb9153 - May we share some of your pictures and posts?

What a fun topic! Old Stoney was a big ol' Ford Country Station Wagon. When he died, my parents gave me their 1967 Camaro 350 SS convertible to drive that my father had given my mother as a b'day present in 1967. My son drove that same Camaro when he was in high school. I finally sold it to a collector in 2007.

mtb9153 - Is your road trip reflective of the best mileage you've had to date?

Great!!! And, your pictures look great too!!! Look forward to hearing your mileage after a few tank fulls.

Yes. But until you receive the new adhesive hoofs, just leave the white GasPods where they are, as long as you are game for doing a bit of comparison, I'm assuming the spoiler, or lift gate, is not ferrous.

mtb9153 - the "x" are meant to tell you to remove the GasPods from that location when you place the next row further back. Just in case you misunderstood from the illustration and left 2 rows, when you move onto step 3. Please place all the way across in a curve as shown an inch or two from the trailing edge. Please place GasPods all the way across as shown in our installation instructions - center point, right and left sides, then equidistant in between.

Thank you mtb9153 for your curiosity and enthusiasm. The Ford Cmax Hybrid body is very well designed. The slope running from the front end, up over the windshield and to the back is already aerodynamically clean. Placing GasPods over the front windshield might help with a box like our Volvo station wagon or the Ford Flex; its counter productive placement on your clean machine. #1 Remove the front set of GasPods. The curve running around the car body in line with the rear lights marks the outside trailing edge of the car. See Image 1-9_logo.png below. That moves the placement sweet spot further out and back than might be on a hatchback with straighter lines. To test the accuracy of the following, everyone might like to see what your current rear placement alone might do. So, please just spread them a bit further out toward the side, with the left and right side end placed, as pictured in Image 2-gaspods_white2.png below, and let us know what happens with your mileage. In the meantime, I'll get you out some new adhesive hoofs for your black GasPods so you can do the following: #3 Let's give a try with the GasPods placed closer to the end of the spoiler, following in line with the curve of the vehicle, as pictured in 3-gaspods_white2.png. That places us within that 7"-10" sweet spot for the true trailing edge of your vehicle. Image 1-9_logo.png We ask our Test Team members to provide, and aggregate fuel savings data based upon a minimum of 2,000 miles of baseline and 2,000 miles with GasPod mileage to control for other variables that may affect mileage. In actuality, mtb9153, you should have an indication as to whether they are working as placed, or at all, for your vehicle in the first couple of fill ups. Image 1-9_logo.png: 2-gaspods_white2.png 3-gaspods_white2.png:

Add spoilers, roof racks, utility lights, and different car shapes, models and modifications to the mix. Our Test Team members are working with us in this regard. Test Team members are interested drivers who have taken advantage of the discount we offer for providing baseline mileage, and a rebate for providing with GasPod mileage. Many, like this Ford Fusion driver - http://www.gaspods.com/wp-content/uploads/Results-2008-Ford-Fusion1.pdf - go farther and continue reporting back with different configurations, and new, subsequent baseline mileage. We hope to hear back from mtb9153 who is moving GasPods around on his CMAX as well. The trailing edge vacuum exists with almost all vehicles. There is a sweet spot between the end of the roof or trunk line, and 10" before that where improvement can be seen on most passenger vehicles. We are working with our Test Team members to fine tune these sweet spots for different car body shapes.

Thank you. We're happy to be invited here by your members' thread. Yes. I am President of the Company. When posting about GasPods, I'll keep my posts germane to topics posted by others that are unaffiliated. I am here to keep information accurate, and unless invited to do otherwise, I'll keep posts limited to doing just that, or answering questions that may be asked of us. I've been a participant in forums since the mid-1990's. I'll do my best to follow the rules, but each forum and moderator have their sensitivity points. If I run astray of yours, just let me know and I'll temper down.

I think the spread on gains claimed starts at about 35 mph and gets better as speed picks up.

According to the website, any form of data that shows odometer and gas consumption, including that tracked at fuelly.com to be a part of their Test Team