Not good news about E-15 gasoline, now apparently in at least three states!
Buyer beware… Especially if your vehicle (like mine) is older than 2012… In addition to voided warranties…
And Snopes gives it a mixture… sigh
Nobody Asked Me…
Veritas nos liberabit
Hey Old NFO;
I don’t like Ethanol infused gas, it raises havoc with the internals of the motor. it kills the motor of the older cars. it also chews up the lining of the gas tanks. Last year, I replaced the fuel pump on a friends daughter’s Nissan Sentra, she had a early 2000’s model. What killed the pump was it getting clogged with the residue of the lining that coated the interior of the tank.
Aside from all the big brother knows best issues, and some really idiotic environmental problems resulting…
Check your vehicle’s manual. Generally if it is newer than about early to mid ’90s, it will be OK on up to 10% ethanol, provided you use it reasonably often (don’t leave old gas in it — but that’s always been true). It won’t be OK on anything over that. There are cars made today (“FlexFuel”) which will run on up to 85%, although with reduced fuel mileage.
If you must run 10% ethanol in an older vehicle or in a smaller engine or two cycle engine, such as a lawn tractor or chain saw or what have you, use the highest grade premium you can find and either make sure to run the tank dry after you’ve used it or systematically put a gasoline stabilizer in with the fuel. Either will help.
This gas is the greenies dream and older car owner’s nightmare
Yay, EPA! You GO, Gub’mint!
/sarc
Older’n 2012? My newest is a 2010, and that’s Milady’s car.
Bob- I’m not surprised…
Ian- Good point on the fuel stabilizer. I hadn’t thought about using that.
Rick- yep…
Buck- Sigh…
Paw- I hear ya!
And you can’t find non-E15 gasoline ..?
Four people in our family = four vehicles, none newer than 2011, plus my 1995 hunting/hauling/towing truck. They all run okay on E-10, although I do use fuel stabilizer in the truck and occasionally fill it up with premium whenever I have a spare $100(not very often).
IMO the bigger story is that the environmentally harmful inputs (energy, fertilizer, water, etc.) required to plant, grow, harvest, and process the corn used to make ethanol do more damage than the ‘green’ fuel does good.
It’s an unholy alliance between big agra and the tree-huggers.
And that’s why one of my vehicles is motivated by an all-mechanical Diesel engine.
With ultra low sulphur diesel, you should add about 2oz of two cycle oil at each fillup. This new crap doesn’t lubricate like regular diesel.
And I do! Good idea to spread to others. All-mechanical pumps don’t get the lubricant any more with the new fuels. Hence, accelerated decrepitude. Er, ah, accelerated wear on the pump internals.
I don’t burn that shit in anything I own. I’d rather pay the extra 6 cents a gallon for regular non-ethanol gas. Ethanol is nothing but a fraud to get the price of corn higher for corporate farmers.
I just got my blood boiling yesterday seeing E-85 for $2.99, knowing that I’m paying way more for food so some clown can pay fifty cents less a gallon on government subsidized fuel.
So we can “lessen foreign dependence”.
While we refuse to drill more here.
So we can lessen foreign dependence.
Rev- Some people can’t…
Tim- Exactly…
WN- Yep, good point!
WSF- Thanks, I didn’t know that…
Robert- That’s nice IF you can get regular gas…
Ed- Thankfully, I haven’t seen that (yet)…
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ICFvy1Ecrp0/UiICA3zFXfI/AAAAAAAAAsM/cuJlIsre-Wg/s1600/Oil+Gas+Water+Mix.jpg
Ethanol 2 cycle mix on bottom, fresh 2 cycle mix on top.
$400 carbs rebuild.
Where to find ethanol-free gasoline:
http://pure-gas.org/
May not be in your area, but there are still a lot of places selling it.
And for a high performance car, there’s always 100LL from your local airport.
Way back when, I ran racing engines on either 100% methanol, or, more usually, 75-80% methanol and 20-25% nitromethane. We had to use 1/2% acetone as a blender to keep the fuels from separating, and 1-2% benzol (now banned as a carcinogen) as an ignitor to get the mix “lit off” even under 15:1 compression ratios. Carbs and injectors have to be modified because it takes about 2.3X as much methanol as gasoline to make an engine work right because alcohol is a cold burning, highly oxygenated fuel. It also corroded anything auminum in the fuel system or engine – after each race we fired the engine on alky, then stuck the fuel line in a gallon gas can to run it on premium (or avgas, if we could easily get some) gasoline to flush the alcohol out of the fuel system and engine. It ran like absolute crap and wouldn’t accept any load, but keeping it barely running for 30 seconds flushed the system.
Diesel has approx 128 BTU/gal, gasoline has approx 116K BTU/gal, methanol is 68K, ethanol is 64K. 10% ethanol in gas reduces the BTU/gal to about 110K, meaning more fuel has to be burned to achieve the same amount of work, meaning lower fuel mileage.
Maybe, after the zombie apocolypse, we can get gummint to terminate all ethanol subsidies and farmers can go back to growing food instead of fuel.
I know, when pigs fly. Although, as Brigid has pointed out, “with enough thrust, pigs fly just fine.”
Ed- Ouch, that left a mark (on the pocketbook)…
drjim- Thanks!
Norb- Ah yes, the smell of nitro in the evening… ;-D Thanks for the info, and agreed!
Yeah, I thank G-d I have the room in the budget to pull up to the local friendly Egyptian immigrant’s gas station (hand printed signs on every pump “free coffee inside!”) and get the ethanol free gas. It’s not just the better mileage and lower maintenance, either, it’s the thumb in the eye of mandates, voting with my wallet, and as for the gas station owner…
Great guy. Loves his country, loves his state, has just about everything he can reach painted Tennessee volunteer orange. Some folks are born American, and just get here fast as they can.