Whose idea was it to ruin your class 8 trucks with these?

Posted by PWahl97@reddit | Truckers | View on Reddit | 68 comments

In my country (South Africa) we have mostly European and Japanese trucks but I've always liked the class 8 trucks in North America too, I've only seen a small handful of old imported class 8s here.

Anyways lets focus on my headline, who tf decided to put these ugly a** plastic hub covers on your newer 2020+ trucks? I see them on the cascadias etc. It makes them look like toys, there's no benefit to them, the old way has always worked with no problems. I'm sure the old school American truckers agree with this, if not why not?

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Waxitron@reddit

What a confidently stupid post.

Congratulations.

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PWahl97@reddit (OP)

It takes a lot for a grown man to get offended over a hub cover criticism post. Anyways the other commenters have explained the true logical reason nicely for me.

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Waxitron@reddit

Unsurprising response really. In case no one has told you to do so today, please shove your own head up your own asshole.

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PWahl97@reddit (OP)

Okay all done whats the next step now son?

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Responsible_CDN_Duck@reddit

Calling you out for being overly confident that there is no benefit has nothing to do with being offended.

At worst it makes me a little sad people can be so loud and confideny incorrect without seeming to take the briefest moment to ask questions before going off.

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FundsWhale@reddit

For what it’s worth I have them on my tractor. They look stupid and I hate them. Also in the winter they’re a pain in the ass to deal with if I got to chain my tires.

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AnalFanatics@reddit

If you save $1/day as an owner operator, you don’t notice the difference as it’s only ~ $300/year; but if you save $1/day in a fleet of 10,000 trucks, you have saved ~ $3,000,000/year, and that’s noticeable and worthy of a bonus to whomever formulated the suggestion.

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dhabs@reddit

Swifts secret to staying in business ; low drag hubcaps bayyyybeeeee

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PWahl97@reddit (OP)

Lol poor Swift, I always see them getting roasted on social media.

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DaSaw@reddit

It's an old tradition, but no longer true as I understand it. These days people in the know roast companies like Western, Superego, Amazon Prime contractors, etc.

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stevenmacarthur@reddit

I remember when JB Hunt and Schneider got all the memes - except the term "meme" didn't exist back then - but they were the ones getting all the ribbing.

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DaSaw@reddit

JB Cunt and The Great Pumpkin.

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stevenmacarthur@reddit

"Schneider" is German for "JB Hunt."

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Sea-Radish3964@reddit

It's a bird, it's a plane, NO, it's Swift in the passing lane!?!? Damn... didn't know they allowed you guys over there... lol. Yeah, you're not wrong, Welfare Express and Scamazon have definitely taken Ole Swifty Swifts place as fuck up of the year.

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AnalFanatics@reddit

I am an Australian, but whilst Swift doesn’t operate down here, even I know that they need something to offset the R&M budget… ;))

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Caveman23r@reddit

They are stupid and another one of those things that works on paper and a select fewbutton not everyone

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Wadester58@reddit

Schneider

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RudeOrSarcasticPt2@reddit

Shhhhhhhneiderrr.

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Coiler511dA4@reddit

Totally in the way. Hate those

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nastyzoot@reddit

We have a bad habit of falling for stupid shit like this. We've put wings under trailers, on the back of trailers, these rim covers, I've even seen scoops on the front of trailers. The "fuel savings" never outweighs the cost of installation and maintenance. For very big fleets it's more a way to show the public and government that they are "green". You are right though. It's ugly, a pain in the ass, and offers no practical benefit.

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SquashSquigglyShrimp@reddit

I assure you, the fuel savings absolutely outweigh the cost and I'm not sure why you think they don't. You realize they have engineers and aerodynamicists run all sorts of tests and studies well before these ever end up on a vehicle, right?

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SeaRow556@reddit

Because across few thousand trucks in a very large fleet which has alot of connections with the manufacturers and other business partners a 1-10% mpg fuel economy gain means big saving or at the very least talking points to the epa and carb for doing "their" part to lower the fleets overall carbon footprint even if such fuel savings would be a simple rounding error for a single truck operation.

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nastyzoot@reddit

Definitely the talking points thing. I have been with a few fleets who have adopted then shitcanned stuff like this...the purchase and maintenance never makes them worthwhile.

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GumbysDonkey@reddit

What maintenance? It's a plastic wheel cover. Stop hitting curbs?

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ratchetman0869@reddit

Pretrip says they’re supposed to take them off every time 😉

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EscapeWestern9057@reddit

Maintenance being the extra time you're paying to take them off to take the wheels off.

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GumbysDonkey@reddit

you push in 2 tabs in the middle hub and it pops off.

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EscapeWestern9057@reddit

Ah ok, I had assumed they used screws or nuts to hold it on. That's not bad at all.

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CoWood0331@reddit

It’s a lower number than that. A 1 truck fleet with side skirts and these can hit 7% fuel savings. The more interstate running you do the more you’ll save. If you do local it’s probably cumbersome but 7% is real and attainable.

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EscapeWestern9057@reddit

Also a 1% fuel savings when you're spending a million dollars a week on fuel is not a small sum.

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NFLTG_71@reddit

I worked for a trucking company that had those wings on the back of the trailer and I thought they were ridiculous until I saw that I was getting about according to the instant MPG on the dash it went from 7 miles a gallon to 10 miles a gallon but then again like I said it’s a freightliner you have no idea what the software is gonna do

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EscapeWestern9057@reddit

Yeah I heard they worked, but the problem was they relied on the driver ti actually do something. So they either broke or weren't deployed.

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NFLTG_71@reddit

Oh no, the company I worked for if you got caught not deploying your sails it was an instant write up. And the owner of the company paid guys 50 bucks if they snitched on another driver. Which I thought was fucking deplorable, but he’s the owner he could do what he wants.

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EscapeWestern9057@reddit

I luckily work for a company that's tiny, like me and the boss and his son, he's desperate for another driver for the other truck. I luckily do not have to worry about my boss being slimy like that cause he knows he's got it good with me and doesn't wanna loose me lol.

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Pigasus7@reddit

Do you think wheel covers reduce fuel consumption by 10%?

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SeaRow556@reddit

No, but whole packages can,

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TruckerBiscuit@reddit

I gained 1MPG switching from a stock Cascadia to one with the FlowBelow aero system (which includes these wheel covers).

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stateside_irishman@reddit

That's a significant improvement.

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TruckerBiscuit@reddit

8.6 to 9.6

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IntergalacticJihad@reddit

That’s doing a million miles in 116.000 gallons or 104.000 gallons. $48k at $4/gal, definitely makes sense over a fleet if your drivers aren’t out to destroy it all lol.

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ButterflyDesperate36@reddit

"there's no benefit to them" spoken like a true ignorant.

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PWahl97@reddit (OP)

I'm handing out free tissues 🧻 to those who took offense to the post instead of giving a proper answer. Downvoters please take some too, I've got enough to last hundreds of you.

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SexyWampa@reddit

Ok boomer.

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fmccloud@reddit

I mean, you’re the one who made a positive claim confidently that wasn’t true. And now you’re crashingout when it was pointed out to you. 🤷‍♀️

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1Stack_Mack@reddit

That's a roll of toilet paper, not tissues.

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PWahl97@reddit (OP)

Now this is a guy with good observation skills.

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1Stack_Mack@reddit

I try

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icy_penguins@reddit

As a long hood Pete's owner who thinks they look hideous as fuckall, I agree, theyre stupid. It would be much more advantageous for all these fleets to start charging higher rates and let's have a race to the top of the scale for the highest rates we can, but no, these numbnuts(fleets) would rather spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on all this shit to "save money" while racing to the lowest rate possible, doing anything and everything they can to save money instead of trying to bust the seems on the bank bags.

Do they serve a purpose, im sure there are studies out there that show they do. But if they could make them look cool it'd be way better.

Meanwhile im over here averaging 4mpg running the speed limits and running a PTO a few hours a day still not giving 2 fucks about fuel economy.

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DaSaw@reddit

NEW THING BAD! BECAUSE NEW!

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Deep-Arm5652@reddit

These with a decent tpms system work great.

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jgremlin_@reddit

there's no benefit to them

This is not true. I have an owner operator who has these on his truck as well as other aerodynamic devices. He even carries a 2nd set and puts them on whatever trailer he's pulling. Between that and other things he's done, he sees 9.5 mpg or better consistently. Most of my company fleet is seeing around 7.5 mpg. An extra 2 mpg adds up to a significant amount over a year, even for a single truck.

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