susanne

My wife ordered a set for her 2013 ECOBoost Explorer, should have shortly. :)

 

Paul

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 is right.  rigorous testing procedures, controlled environment, baseline data variability, confirmation bias, minimum sample size .................................. it's all real; and it is beyond our resources to measure anything les than say 5 % on our car's performance.

 

Nevertheless, and most importantly, to quote our friend "Have fun" - Go for it, it might be worth a shot!

 

Let's see, where did I leave my dyno/windtunnel, it was here somewhere yesterday, I'd swear?

 

Perhaps someone can hook up with a shop and do some 'blind' testing.  Have the shop install and remove the pods about 20 times, and run your test loops without knowing what is on top.  Or, find a driver without bias, and have them ecocruise ten loops, with & without  ................. we need better baselines, and larger sample sizes at a bare minimum................ Just wacky thoughts.

 

I think they probably work, but will I ever know for sure? This car, this specific mod, almost certainly not.  So, give me some more of that wacky data so I can make my own wacky wild-as__ guess.  (Wish I lived next to Matt, and could have him make me some Lexan wheel covers too - seriously!)

 

Not even worth two cents,

 

Nick

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.

So I finally got my gaspods in the mail this evening.

 

First impression...not good. It was wrapped in a brown bag. Okay, may be I was expecting some fancy packaging, I dunno.{snip} Yeah, its harsh but I truly expected a more professional packaging, that brown bag jus killed it for me.

 

:twister:

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

_{Here is the deal, I bought into Gas Pods not because I do a lot of city short spurt drives BUT because when I have to drive +2 hour distances on open highways I wanted to maximize what MPG's I was getting. I think if your on a lot of back roads doing 45-55 mph you may or may not be able to measure the results. Once I got 13B07 installed and I could set cruise control above 62 MPH and now I cruise at 65-68 MPH in a 65 zone THAT is when I thought the Pods would really shine.}

 

_{I am not looking at my individual tanks but every time now I am on the open road I check out mentally what my MPG was for that long haul? Was really surprised at those few trips I had over 50 mpg.}

 

_{The other thing I noticed and since its been raining and drizzling here with a Nor-Easterly parked above the mid Atlantic my rear glass has not needed to be wiped as often when at highway speed.......maybe Susanne can comment on this real effect of having the Pods installed????}

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. 

Crap, the shipping and taxes really killed any discount. I forgot what state we lived in and even based in Santa Barbara, I could drive there and back CHEAPER than it is to mail those thingos.... :doh:

 

And still have money leftover for a nice ice-cream on the beach.

You'll recover these costs with the rebate when we see your results :)

And you are welcome to visit us in Santa Barbara anytime!

Not sure if you will hear from her directly.  She doesn't regularly monitor the forum I think.  I haven't heard from her in awhile.  I have a set of nine gaspods I'm not using.  They are black and mount using a super sticky adhesive.  I'd be happy to forward them to you if you like? LMK.

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.

Gas Pods PTJ.JPG

Installed my GasPods today approximately 7" before the rear edge. Made sure they don't interfere with hatchback motion and don't hit roof. Will experiment moving them to 10" before the rear to see if there is any difference. They are nice looking units and only took a few days to receive after ordering! Keeping them black for now as wife thinks they match the trim ;) . Paul

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.

See my post in fuel mileage titled 47.5AvMPG for latest driving with the GasPods

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

No actually it is metal just like the roofline up to the glass panoramic roof

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

So I will be moving "ALL" 9 white GasPods to the rear spoiler as Ford calls it on the Liftgate?  Correct?  Starting at the center and spreading across the full width of the spoiler about 1 to 2 inches from the edge?  Correct?

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. 

Susanne I'm not sure I follow what you are suggesting with the red "X"'s?  I think you are saying remove those Pods and place them down lower on the lift gate spoiler?  But only on that one side (Drivers side?)

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. 

Everyone reading this thread, just wanted to say that I'm still playing around with the positioning to see where it might give me the best results.  Because most of my driving is in town and because I always run with my A/C on my results might not be the best.  [snip]

 

Suzanne if you are monitoring this do you think it is a bad idea for me to place the first black GasPods I bought from you on the leading edge of my glass roofline?  Maybe being out in front of the rare earth magnetic GasPods is disruptive to what they can do at the rear of my CMax?  I have attached the latest pictures once again so you can analyze them.  Possibly their placement is to close together and should be spread out more evenly across the roofline like in the rear?

 

I look forward to any input...

 

Do you do studies of each type of car to find the best placement of the pods?

Welcome to the forum - wondering if you are affliliated with th Gas Pod company?

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 they are touted to work best at above 55-65 mph

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

was wondering the same thing but felt bad to ask after the unfortunate event that happened to him.

was wondering if they let him use them right away and use previous fuelly data or made him get 2000 miles of baseline data first.

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