Funny you mentioned Air Tabs...
Ironically, I have been installing a set of Air Tabs on my rig today. I have been thinking of buying them for awhile now, but finally decided to after the second time towing our car in the rain, which made it a filthy mess. Even with a skirt on the bottom, road dirt just gets thrown on the car in the rain.
The tabs are supposed to prevent this from happening. As well, they are supposed to improve gas mileage and handling when a semi passes you. But the main reason I bought them is to hopefully keep the toad cleaner.
Beacher; I think it might be more of a fluid dynamics issue. From that perspective, do you think they help in reducing drag?
As for the ugly factor, I don't think you can do anything to make a motorhome more ugly than it already is.
I did notice that I lost about 1/2 mile per gallon when I installed the vent covers, so I plan on putting a couple of tabs on those to see if I can recover that mileage.
Before installing the Air Tabs:
After:
I ordered 84 of them ($250 with shipping) and did both sides today. It looks like rain so I am going to hold off on the roof tabs until tomorrow.
I put 25 on each side, including 3 just forward of the rear wheel well, and I damaged one trying to paint it, so I have 33 left for the roof.
The problem I had with painting the tab is it apparently had mold release agent still on it as the paint did not stick evenly - but splotched. It will be hard to wash and clean them as the adhesive backing is already attached to the tabs and I am not sure if I would damage them by washing them or not.
But they look OK not painted in my view.
I did have a tough time in routing the tabs around the back side of the storage doors. The tabs are supposed to be 14" from the rear, and I could have put them on the doors themselves, but then the baggage catches would not work, so I could not keep the doors open.
So I ended up mounting the tabs behind the storage doors. Unfortunately, the surface is uneven due to the metal corner trim pieces for the door and rear wall.
To bridge the gap in the uneven area, I used some VHB tape with a 1/8" thick foam backing and used that to fill in the void between the metal strips. Then I used some white silicone to fill in an left over gaps to make the tab underside waterproof.
I will report back in a couple of weeks as to how effective they are.
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