Mud flaps are something fleets probably don’t pay a lot of attention to, especially when it comes to fuel economy, and tend to focus on bigger things like tractor and trailer aerodynamic devices and low rolling resistance tires. But the reality is that the right mud flap — an aerodynamic one — can save fuel and improve maintenance.
One caveat: there is a big difference between good aerodynamic mud flaps and bad ones and every fleet needs to understand the differences because choosing the wrong one has negative consequences.
I remember being in a meeting with Mesilla Valley Transportation (MVT) CEO Royal Jones. When presented with an aerodynamic mud flap, Royal said, “We’re not running those fly swatters on our equipment.”
The next week, MVT Solutions ran three track tests on a set of aerodynamic mud flaps and we found that they did, in fact, save fuel. For the MVT fleet that equated to an annual savings of $275,000. If you know Royal, you can guess his response: “It looks like we’re in the fly swatter business.”
Three months later the entire fleet was retrofitted with them and they have been spec’d on new vehicles ever since. And Mesilla Valley Transportation (CCJ Top 250, No. 68) is not the only fleet to see the benefit of switching to aerodynamic mud flaps.
In fact, aerodynamic mud flaps are often the first choice a fleet makes when looking to improve MPGs because of the small capital investment and quick return on investment. However, fuel savings will vary.
For MVT's sleek dry van equipment, savings were less than 1 gallon per 1,000 miles; let’s call is 1%. This is a small number and it's one of the reasons the benefits have been difficult to quantify. While testing with other fleets, we’ve seen higher savings simply based on vehicle configuration.
