Let's see now. The gas has 10% ethanol but you lost 17% in mpg . You don't suppose something else was going on?? The last time I checked, while ethanol has fewer BTU's per gallon than gas, it still has a lot of BTU's. Where did they all go when you were using the blend?

 

What if I dont have cats, is that bad?

 

I never really noticed any decrease in performance in my vehicles.

 

Def a MPG loss

 

You can't win!!! If we did that we'd be paying $10 a pound for sugar and All food would go through the roof!! Figure out a way to use all the field debris,the corn stalks weeds brush and so on, THEN you'd have something !!

 

Gas price is not controlled by ethanol. Gas price is controlled by the majors in a market rigged against the consumer. The price of a barrel of oil is what controls the price of gas and if you dont believe me ask the Majors. Of course Gas isnt dropping as fast as it went up do too the speculation and hysteria the speculators created a couple of months ago.

Ethanol uses other energy sources in its manufacturing that negates teh energy (fossil fuel) made in the process. In addition to being a "rub" in cost, you actually lose because of the fact a gallon of ethanol provides less energy than the equivalent gallon of gasoline.

It is nothing but a political ploy. It IS good for companies like Caterpillar adn John Deere making farm equipment. It is bad for the environment because farmers are essentially outdoor manufactureres using every square inch of soil with no regard to indigeness species that may happen to share the land with.

If you pass through the farming states , you will see lots of soy beans these days, that is used to make bio diesel.

The price of diesel is high because of a so called fire in a diesel refinery a few years ago. Now if you want to believe that fine, but its more or less the majors control the manufacture of diesel fuel and they arent incented to make it cheaper.

Why do you suppose the majors opposed the natural gas pipeline across Alaska? Because Alaska can supply half the natural gas used in this country in a year. Governor Palin stood up to those butt holes and passed a billion dollar bill to build that pipeline much to the chagrine of the Majors.

In a word, the whole energy market is rigged against us. Ethanol wont help in its current form. 10 cents a gallon less isn't worth the decrease in mileage one gets using it.

 

Beats me, but when I put unblended gas back in the car and drove it 2000 miles the gas mileage returned. My experience tells me ethanol is a bad choice. I actually lost more than 10 percent. It could be any number of things or combination of things, but fact remains I lost gas mileage. Hey, go buy the stuff if you want, Im just telling you my experience. I wouldn't put the sh** in my corvette for any reason.

 

You can get poorer performance...10% ethanol on hot days can result result in knock which when sensed causes the timing to be retarded and your horse power drops

 

You missed my point. And I did not say that ethanol "controls" the price of gas----a lot of things affect it. What I pointed out was that diesel is now more expensive than gas----it used to be cheaper. And the price of a barrel of oil affects diesel as much as gas. However, ethanol has increased the supply of fuel for spark ignition engines-----and supply DOES impact price.

Yes, ethanol uses other energy sources----coal and natural gas. My Vette doesn't run very well on either.

Caterpillar hasn't made any serious amount of farm machinery for years. What few products they did make, they've sold off to Agco-Allis several years ago. Another example of your "facts" being less than accurate.

Farmers own the land and pay the taxes on it. If you want to "hug a tree", go buy some land. I have high school classmates who farm----the ones that survived the last 40 years of low farm prices know that they have to take good care of their land.

Yes, there's a lot of soybeans being grown----but very, very little of it is currently being used for bio-diesel.

Refinery fires would affect gas prices as much as diesel. Any refinery making one fuel is making the other---just more . You're right about one thing---the refiners have little incentive to lower the price of diesel----there's only a little bio-fuel diesel to compete with them.

That's the same reason majors would like to see ethanol go away.

 

Not only didn't you get any "miles" from the ethanol, it actually reduced the miles you got from the gasoline!!

It's amazing that Indy cars can carry enough pure ethanol to even make it around the Indianapolis track once!! Maybe they run in reverse.

 

I read a thread out of texas the other day on here about this. They were complaining about ping on hot days. I found this interesting because on a hot day my car pings like a sum a beach. On cool days it is fine. Tis fuel is not for our cars.

 

Be glad you're not using MTBE. When they required that in the Colorado Springs - Denver area inthe late 80s, MTBE melted all the plastic and rubber fuel system fittings on my vintage E-Type Jag. Came into the garage one morning and found gasoline all over the floor! Had to rebuild the entire system with new components that could withstand the "new" fuel. (I was not pleased.....)

 

I've put close to 200,000 miles spread over 3 LS1's all running 10% ethanol in the retardedly humid St. Louis area. I've never had a problem with any of my fuel system components.

 

In PA, Shell advertises and claims no ethanol in their fuel at all. As far as E85 saving the planet.......it takes 3 to 5 times more energy to produce one gallon of ethanol compared to one gallon of gasoline.......E85 gets 25 to 35% less fuel economy than gasoline.......pricing is too close to make it a viable alternative. And if nothing else, E85 is driving the price of corn through the roof......and yes there are other alternatives to corn, but they're not using them because of cost effectiveness.

 

I've noticed some of the rubber parts drying out very quickly in my recently rebuilt '64 Corvair Spyder. Some of the rubber fuel components in the turbo return line have cracked up bad twice in 1 year.

 

The cost of fuel is out of control for 1 reason and 1 reason only.

Congress is out of control. They do nothing, nothing, nothing then go on recess for a month.

Simple Solution>>>>

TERM LIMITS

It works for the President, the mayors and governors of almost every major city and state yet we as a people allow these A**holes to stay office suckling at the public trough for Decades.

 

While your car may be pinging, it's not because of the ethanol. Pure ethanol has an octane rating of 110 or more. That's one of the reasons racers like it. Do a "google" on "ethanol octane" if you don't believe that.

Your problem is that the octane for the gas was probably very low before the ethanol was added----the ethanol is what brought the mixture up to 91 or 9 (whatever premium is in your area). On a hot day, the low octane gas is giving up "the ghost".

 

Finally, a post that I totally agree with!!!

 

Good write up. Ethinol as it is currently manufactured is a panacea to make us believe that we can be "energy self-sufficient". My biggest gripe is that we dont have a choice.

 

All I know is that 10% ethanol means that we buy 10% less oil from foreign countries to produce gasoline. It's definitely not enough to solve the problem, but it helps. Listen to T Boone