Fancy wheel covers with swirls or spinny things can look nice, but they have a fuel economy cost. At higher speeds, the dominant friction force that your vehicle has to spend gas fighting against is air resistance. Cars with big open wheel wells or wheel covers that are not smooth and flat are generating extra turbulence and drag. If your car already has pretty smooth covers, replacing them may not make much difference, but if you have something tricked out and drive fast a lot, you could improve your fuel economy a couple of percent by switching to something smoother. This thread has a fellow claiming a 4% improvement after replacing his wheel covers with large pizza pans!
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