L82shark

I have noticed in my area that more and more stations are moving away from the ethanol in their gas? Last year there was only one station in about a 20 mile radius that sold pure gasoline. Usually a line when you went there as everyone was filling up their boats and fuel cans for their lawn equipment. I am a firm believer that ethanol had destroyed more small engines than a lack of mixing oil. Not to mention the issues I had with my older cars like my C3. Anyway, I think its a good thing, nothing like good old gasoline that smells and burns like gas. My problems have gone away since I can purchase non ethanol gas again. Anyone else noticed more stations moving away from the ethanol? At first it was mom and pop stations, now my local Shell is carrying non ethanol and a new chain for our are, Spirit has begun moving in selling real gas. Something going on or are they responding to demand? When are the feds going to jump in for not using the corn?

7T1vette

It's all a BS effort to go "green"....or, at least, that's how it started. Now, the corn lobbyists are pushing it just because it maks more money for corn. It sure does nothing for vehicles, with lower mileage, higher cost and damage to metal and rubber parts (if not designed for use with ethanol).

Just another case of "money" calling the shots.

couperdecar

Not so long ago bronze gas was 10% , silver was 5% and gold was 0%.

NOW I see bronze and silver are both 10% and since there is nothing stated about gold I'm guessing its still 0%.

Before ethanol I used to use bronze in everthing. Now its premium in all my vehicles. I can't be the only one. How is the government figuring its saving the planet when it pushes us to use a more refined gasoline?

U17

Do you know they lost the .45/gal subsidy from the government JAN.1 ???http://pure-gas.org/

SoCalErv

Ethanol was introduced in gasoline to replace Methyl Tertiary Butyl Ether (MTBE's) which was a horrific additive that never broke down. Talk about an environmental nightmare, it was king of kings.

It was introduce by ARCO, which held the patent and continued lobbying the use until we couldn't deal with it any longer.

Now I am not a supporter of ethanol in gasoline but it does serve a purpose for a cheap additive the keeps gas within the reed vapor pressure. Basically the reed vapor pressure has been the specification that stopped vapor lock and helped emission during the driving seasons. Remember years ago stuck on the side of the road cooling your fuel lines!

lrc89

Ethanol was never introduced to replace MTB. MTB replaced TEL and both served as octane boosters and upper cylinder lubricants.

Both MTB and TEL are evil chemicals that we are all better off without.

We now have better valve stems and seats that don't require lubrication and lower benzene, lower RVP, higher toluene lead free fuels with increased octane.


Ethanol was introduced in an effort to go green but has been a failure around most of the world for all of the previously mentioned reasons plus one.

Ethanol - an alcohol - is hydroscopic - adsorbs water. If you have a vehicle like a corvette, that you drive occasionally, ethanol fuel sitting in your tank, even 10%, will adsorbed water from the atmosphere via the tank breather. This water will accumulate in the bottom of your fuel tank and lead to corrosion and the induction of free water, rust and scale into your fuel filter and possibly your engine.

Don't, for any reason use ethanol mixed fuel in any of your internal combustion engines. The only benefits derived from continued usage go into Government revenue and farmers pockets.

Mike Ward

And yet- some of us have been using E10 for 20 years or more and have never experienced any of the horrible things that are constantly being predicted. Yes ethanol from corn is a really dumb idea, but the stories about side effects are just more interweeb myths. No, I don't want to hear about your neighbour's weedwacker.

L82shark

I am just happy more stations around here are getting away from it. It has cost me a lot of time and $$ repairing the stuff it screwed up. Ever since I found a source for regular, good old gasoline I dont have problems with my small engines. Luckily I didnt run enough of it through my other vehicles to really screw them up. I learned the hard way on my pace car. In 08 I installed a new fuel tank and filled it up prior to going to the 'stan. A year later I had to drain it all as it seemed like water had replaced the gas! Also, it made the inside of my fuel lines on my boat look like rust covered spaghetti in just a year or so, it had started disolving from the inside of the fuel lines Local boat dealers say they always have at least one boat in the shop for ethanol problems.

Have you ever put ethanol gas in a bucket and looked at it? It looks like **** after a 3 day drunk. I cant believe they got away with this for so long and vehicles are still running on it. Another reason govt always gets carried away and ends up screwing things up.

milo30

I've had it sit in my car, which sat outside, for 2 years and in gas cans in the garage for months, used it in every small and large engine that I have owned both 2 stroke and 4 stroke and never had any issues with it. I don't know of anyone that has had problems because of it's use.

When one person has multiple problems in multiple engines it makes you wonder if the problem is the ethanol

L82shark

Run it in yours all you want. All I know is since I quit using it -zero issues. Its well documented on the issues with ethanol. Must be something to it as more and more stations arent selling it anymore.

Little light reading:
http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars...-damage-engine

http://www.fuel-testers.com/ethanol_...ecautions.html

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25936782...small-engines/

http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyl...514_058678.htm
Google your own results with engine damage from ethanol. All I know is the issues I have experienced - mainly with water on the cars and it may be due to the high humiditiy down here, have disappeared. I was averaging about 2 years on weedeaters and stuff before I had to rebuild everything.

lrc89

Gave ethanol fuel E10, the benefit of the doubt when I purchased a new car in 2006, because the vehicle was manufactured for ethanol use. Filled from empty and for the whole of that E10 tank, was like driving with a trailer full of sand behind the car.

Poor performance and even worse fuel usage.

From my own experience I decided that it wasn't worth the drag. Why buy a performance car to use fuel that removes some of that performance and then costs extra because of reduced economy.

Ethanol exponents are welcome to enjoy my share. I'm glad to see ethanol being removed from service stations in my area.

jordan89

I never had a problem with it out here in Cali. I always filled up my '78 Z28 with it and never had not one problem with it.

sprtplt

You won't use it in any modern two-stroke tool and NOT have problems.
I assume it is the cheap (Chinese) material used in the fuel lines, caps, and seals that dissolve and cause trouble very quickly from ethanol exposure.

mrvette

Everyone dancing around the May pole here....

removing lead from gasoline cost us octane and MPG.....I lived through that BS, and know from my own experiences....looking down the throats of those weenies....

CAT *** trophic converters cost much more in MPG......for decades, no matter who says what NOW.....it's a LIE....looking down their throats on that one tooo.....


ALKY....What a joke.....

so in sum total the MPG cost is over 20% with a corresponding performance figger....so go figger....

the liberal screwing over of the motoring public is the biggest SCAM of the last 50 years....



anyone dispute the above simply dunno jack on a practical basis, they are some theory idiot in love with the liberal lobby....

CASE CLOSED.......

81pilot

Have you ever had a 2 piece plastic gas tank on a lawn mower come apart? Have you ever had aluminum needle jets on a motorcycle carb corrode so much they won't work? I have and more, whenthe state finally mandated that alcohol content be on the pumps I could start avoiding it and have had no more of those issues. It is NOT a myth.

Mexican Bob

Ever taken a drive through Iowa? Ever wonder how a small corn farm can be so lucrative? Anybody see the caucuses in Iowa last month?

Iowa is "first in the nation" in terms of presidential elections in the USA. Iowa corn farmers are heavily subsidized by the requirement that fuel contain corn-based Ethanol. It isn't a mystery why. The fact that it happens so blatantly is nearly absurd when the hypocrites in DC point the finger at the "corruption" of others.

So the real scam is how do we decrease fuel economy, which makes fuel consumption go way up thereby increasing tax revenue from fuel sales AND buy votes at the same time? ...without spending a dime of "our own money?" Pass laws that require Ethanol to be added to the fuel and pass the "cost" on to the taxpayers. It is an incredible refinement of corruption. It is a shakedown of magnificent proportion that is nearly as interesting from a purely observable state--if it was so sadly oppressive and burdensome. It is the government's big DICK firmly implanted in the backside of everyone who drives, which is by far the greater volume of fuel consumption regardless of whose weed eaters died.

Having ran pure methanol race cars, I can tell you that there simply isn't as much heat energy to be had from the same volume of fuel compared to gasoline. If you dilute your gasoline with Ethanol, you will reduce your fuel economy and increase your fuel consumption...which gives me constant wonderment as to why anybody would knowingly purchase an E85 vehicle....

If anybody wonders why I use Ethanol as a pronoun rather than ethanol as a noun, it helps me to understand and call the beast by its name. Wouldn't it be just nifty if the government could take their hands out of the pockets of others? Really, they're simply taking care of us and we're too stupid to realize it, which is why they're so much smarter than us and we should be so glad that they've come to our collective rescues.

There are a lot of small time corn farmers who would definitely oppose any legislative changes that would make it impossible for them to realize a very good living on just a few acres of corn...


MxB

Mike Ward

Now there's a new one. Care to explain?

Mexican Bob

Not my argument, but I may have an explanation:

Lead additives increase octane, which is the ability to suppress combustion. Removing lead and reducing the octane rating of fuel means using some other method to suppress combustion, one of which is enriching the mixture, which would reduce fuel economy.

Of course, I may be wrong...as this isn't my "presentation," but I felt that perhaps I could contribute a possible/plausible response?


MxB

Mike Ward

Except the octane ratings weren't reduced...............

Mexican Bob

It is impossible to argue with someone who knows every aspect related to the problem...and it isn't even my argument, so I'm not going to go there. I think that it is safe for me to say that I lived through the period and bought fuel during it and I definitely don't know everything about it.

Your response is simply asking me to support the argument rather than considering that I was offering my meager input as at least one "justification" for the argument as it was presented. Obviously, I'm completely and utterly stupid for even considering contributing this input, since it wasn't my argument and since I don't know the justification of the one posing the argument.

I would be *extremely* hesitant to say anything absolute about commercial grade pump fuel. At best, it is "all over the board" in terms of measurable qualities such as true octane rating...which is a bit of an interesting quantity in/of itself. To that end, I'm not willing to accept a blanket statement that the reduction of lead in fuels didn't modify the octane rating, particularly over the period of time between availability of leaded fuel versus no longer offered at consumer pumps for highway use. However, I am able to accept a generalization that octane values remained "unchanged" between fuel offerings. The lubrication values of leaded fuel versus unleaded fuel, contributing wear and resultant wear could also be factors in the argument, but it still isn't my argument, so I'm once again stupid for commenting.

It wasn't as if one day there was leaded fuel and the next day there wasn't...at least not in terms of no overlap between have versus have not. Again, none of this matters because "ethanol" doesn't belong in motor vehicle fuel any way. It is as foreign and inappropriate as are rechargeable cars being the answer to our "energy" problems.


MxB