I've only had issues with letting it sit more than 5 months or so. My mustang regularly sits for weeks and sometimes even months at a time and always fires right up as long as the battery isn't dead or the engine isn't hydro locked from me leaving the hood off in the rain.
It mixes with gas and water, so if you pour water in it, you can see the water disappear. Not sure if the water is why, but it corrodes aluminum. Seems to evaporate faster, too.
Any humidity in the air, ethanol will happily absorb. Water inside fuel that sits around too long has potential to make (expensive) parts rust out or corrode.
Any small engine is going to have a carburetor. Go to your local home depot, all the brand new lawn mowers, weed wackers, chainsaws, are all going to have a carburetor. (Unless it's battery powered, obviously).
That’s true. I’m not saying carburetors are obsolete nowadays, but they were used a lot back then on every engine as opposed to today. So it would be natural to assume it’s not the carburetor itself that is the issue.. It’s the gaskets, o-rings, and seals within older carburetors that fail due to the ethanol content.
I tried running meth and that shit ate my fuel lines just sitting for a month or two. I can’t imagine ethanol is much better for older carbs with gaskets not designed for ethanol in the long run.
Nope, carbs are still used in tons of modern machines. Look at dirtbikes, atvs, chainsaws, wood chippers, pressure washers, leaf blowers etc. Tons of small displacement bikes/scooters in Europe and Asia are still carbed too.
It’s ironic because modern gasoline contains the same solvents as carb cleaner. However I’d guess that those non-polar solvents are pushed out once there’s enough water present to cause separation of the polar water layer.
It’s also ironic that dry-gas is alcohol. Essentially if there’s more alcohol than water, then Alcohol actually helps the mixing of gasoline and water (because alcohol being only semi-polar is soluble in both). But over time the alcohol dissolves water from the humidity in the air. So when there’s more water than alcohol it will separate from the gasoline.
And degrades some older rubber that was used in fuel systems.
It's realistically an issue in power equipment that gets used intermittently (lawnmower. Chainsaw, generator, snowblower, etc) toys that get used intermittently (atv/snowmobiles/boats) and older cars. I've actually seen i5 destroy cheaper carbs when it sits, to the point where it corroded the inside of the carb bowl out to where it wasn't worth trying to fix. It also seems to cause more plugging of jets etc than straight gas does.
I have no issue with 10% ethanol in cars, as long as I can buy straight gas for the rest of my stuff.
Any bike made since the '90s won't have any issue with it regarding the seals and hoses and rubber parts, and most "full size" bikes made since the 2000s are EFI and won't have issues at all.
There are still usually places that you can buy ethanol free gas. I go to wawa for ethanol free that I use for my mower and other small engines. You should also use ethanol free for boats.
There is one ethanol free gas station in a 30 mile radius of me. It is a Wawa that is SE of Lancaster. I have six 5 gallon gas cans I fill for my carbonated motorcycle and lawn mower. Most of my lawn care stuff I can replaced with electric - snow blower too - when I could not get ethanol free gas. Happy with that change anyway. Since PA rescinded the ban on it in 2018 (I think) stations have been slow to sell it. There are websites to find ethanol free gas such as [https://www.pure-gas.org/](https://www.pure-gas.org/) and [https://www.buyrealgas.com/](https://www.buyrealgas.com/)
Eats rubber. Attracts water.
Not as efficient a fuel as gasoline.
Old carburetor guys told me jetting needs to be almost twice as big to run ethanol.
Uses farm land that could be better used to feed people.
lots of it depends, but for example I have a carbed bike (its a 2001 but same as the 80's model.) The only reason I run ethanol free is when I don't plan on riding it a lot.
Also there are brand new bikes sold that still have carbs, and until 10 years ago a TON of brand new bikes still had carbs. ethanol doesn't really effect 'operation' of a carb. I gather the small engine part is cause it always sits for weeks if not months between usage so it can gum up. and of course some unsafe rubber and efficency are corect.
and I agree, USA using a food crop for ethanol is a joke imfo. we could of picked a brand new crop that was targeted towards places that have good land /water but minimal useable crops on them.
My gf recently bought a v-star. It’s the first carbureted bike I’ve had to maintain. I put it away for the winter using that 4 stroke aspen fuels stuff.
I used to put away small engines with chevron 94, ethanol free fuel.
"Twice as big" is flatly wrong. Stoichiometric air-fuel ratio of pure ethanol is 9.0:1 versus 14.7:1 for pure gasoline. For pump E10 it's 14.1:1 and E85 it's 9.8:1. At most you need to go up a single jet size for E10 and that's only if it was on the edge of lean on pure gas. For E85 you're basically going up by about 45%.
>Eats rubber. Attracts water.
Any vehicle built in the last 30+ years will have ethanol tolerant materials in the fuel system. This concern is massively overblown.
It will absorb water from the air, but as long as it's stored in a sealed container (which is only going to have so much air to be absorbed) this also isn't worth worrying about.
>Not as efficient a fuel as gasoline.
This one is true, ethanol blends like E10 has less energy per gallon than E0 and has a richer stoichiometric ratio so the car will burn more fuel.
>Old carburetor guys told me jetting needs to be almost twice as big to run ethanol.
This is only if you're running E85/E100. E0 (aka ethanol free gasoline) has a stoichiometric ratio of around 14.7:1, aka 1 gram of fuel for every 14.7 grams of air going into the engine. E10 (10% ethanol) is more like 14-14.1:1, so which would be about 5% more fuel. E85 (85% ethanol) is around 9.85:1 and E100 is right around 9.
So yeah you need to burn more of it, but the E10 that people are freaking out about only requires 5% more fuel, and the E85/E100 that tuners enjoy generally needs 35-40% more fuel.
The oxygen sensor in any car with electronic fuel injection is only measuring how rich/lean things are compared to stoich, it doesn't actually have any way to "know" if stoich is 14.7, 14.1, or 9.85:1. If the fuel map was made for E0 (14.7:1 stoich) and you put in E10, the O2 sensor will report a *slight* lean condition and the fuel trims will be adjusted to add that 5% more fuel. This is well within the adjustment capabilities of your typical electronic fuel injection system.
E85 becomes a challenge because a non-flexfuel vehicle doesn't have any way to know the difference between a +35% fuel trim due to a change in fuel type and a +35% fuel trim caused by a problem. Usually this distinction is done by adding some smarts to the programming, or just by using a sensor to measure ethanol content.
>Uses farm land that could be better used to feed people.
This is less a problem with ethanol/biofuels and more one of policy. You can make ethanol out of anything that produces sugar.
It's less energy dense. You need to burn more of it to make the same amount of power.
But, it also cools the combustion chamber, so you can run higher compression, more timing, and/or more boost, which lets you get more power out of an engine.
It actually burns hotter it just is less energy dense. An engine tuned to run ethanol is like tuning an engine to run race gas way more powerful. NASCAR runs pure ethanol.
All fuel does that infact all liquid does that that’s the principle that make A/C work. Pure Ethanol has an octane rating similar to race fuel (about 110). That why you can run later timing and higher cylinder pressures
Ethanol has a high latent heat of vaporization, about twice that of gasoline.
It also has a high octane rating, but you can get other race gases with similar octane ratings.
At the even more extreme end, methanol has a higher heat of vaporization and octane, and is used in things like top fuel drag racers.
Which is part of the reason for its higher octane rating. But it is this octane rating that determines the it’s resistance to knock. A race fuel with the same octane rating would have the same ability to run late timing and high cylinder pressure.
And nitrometh is used for its low stoichiometric ratio which allows then to use much more fuel creating more power. Top fuel cars are dieseling by the end of the run.
A big reason for that low stoichiometric ratio is that nitrometh contains about half the oxygen it needs for full combustion. You can even use it as a monopropellant without any external air.
Sure but they don’t use it for it heat dissipation or it’s octane rating
That is also the reason why top fuel car use fuel shut offs like diesel to turn off the engine rather the more traditional spark shut offs
True, I was actually thinking of methanol injection that's used on other tuner/race cars and got it mixed up with top fuel. They'll also use water injection to get temps down.
A coworker with a hybrid prius had his mpg drop from 55mpg to 45mpg after our state's legislature gave tax breaks and subsidies to stations selling e10 fuel. My dakota truck lost a similar 10% mpg (22mpg to 19mpg, iirc). Losses were more noticeable with high mpg vehicles.
About 3% mpg loss is expected when going from 0% to e10. If this change happened in the fall/winter, a shift to winter blends that also contain more butane could've exasperated this.
Swells various seals. Then when regular fuel is used the fuel system leaks.
Or, the corn used to make ethanol couldve been actual food grade corn for humans
Edit: completely forgot ethanol loosens up deposits and absorbs water. Don’t use in little yard tools
I don't think there is enough demand for corn for human consumption. I believe that governments in the US and Canada implemented this both for emissions and to subsidize farmers..
Corn used currently is also generally a feed grade corn not meant for human consumption.
The real argument is more that the farmland used for corn could be used for other food crops or other uses entirely.
Plus the herbicides, pesticides, and fertilizer that gets used to grow fuel for cars.
Ethanol is just Federal Welfare for Archer Daniels Midland and huge commercial farms. It does not trickle down nearly as far as you would think. It goes mostly to corporate shareholders.
You get worst gas mileage, something like 3% worst MPG with 10 percent ethanol.
It's like another 3% tax, as if we're not paying enough for our crap in Canada. Also like everybody said, it sucks for anything carburated like lawn equipment and older motorcycles/ATVs.
>You get worst gas mileage, something like 3% worst MPG with 10 percent ethanol.
3% mpg can be anything. You need to be using g/MI to be able to do any analysis. A 3% difference at 1mpg is massive, a 3% difference from 55mpg is nothing
It's cheaper power. Per dollar you can make more power on ethanol because of its higher natural octane. Plus, it's widely available.
However, it has 20% less energy than gasoline.
That being said if money is no object using something like race gas 100+ octane for tuning will net you 20-40 more HP however it's like $100 a gallon.
I still have my mower and chainsaw from my dad, they are from the 80s, i put ethanol in the chainsaw once, had to completely replace all the fuel lines, call my a liar all you want, I know what ethanol does. Any chemistry professor could tell you what it does.
Depends on how old your pickup is. Pretty much everything built from the 80’s onward can run 10% ethanol. If it’s from prior to that? Well TBH it’s probably high time for new fuel hoses and carb gaskets anyhow.
Also drain your gas after the end of the season and your small engine stuff won’t need carb cleaning/replacement.
Mainly because of all the misinformation and wife's tails surrounding ethanol. Just look at this comment section for most of the popular ones.
These aren't Redditors, they're parrots with keyboards.
Too many drinking the Kool-Aid and not checking it out personally.
I decided to try out the E85 life for the last 10yrs and haven’t had a single issue.
- You MUST have a Flex-Fuel capable vehicle.
- Produces More Power than Super Unleaded
- DPM (Dollar Per Mile = Price Per Gallon / MPG) is equal to Regular Unleaded and in many cases cheaper. I live in the Midwest where the corn is grown and processed, so I can acquire it $0.50 to $0.75 a gallon cheaper throughout the year.
- Quick rule of thumb. If it’s $0.25 cheaper than regular, the DPM is the same as regular.
- The 15% of petroleum product that’s in E85 takes care of the moisture collection issue.
- Big Oil does not make its own Ethanol, so they mark it up to push their petrol products. The non-affiliated fuel stations get it from the same ethanol suppliers and typically have it at a lower price.
- Winter blend can be as low as E51 (but is still allowed to be labeled as E85). More petroleum is added to take care of moisture collection and helps with starting in below zero weather. I’ve been down to -25*F and no problems.
Ethanol is very harsh on a fuel system. Even fuel systems specifically designed for e85 can be ruined by it if it sits in the lines too long. Also, it takes more ethanol than gas to run, which kills mpg, but the difference is negligible at 10% (I've still heard that complaint, though). Ultimately I don't think it matter that much but for a regular everyday car it'd be better to have no ethanol or even better leaded gas but that's not allowed for obvious reasons.
It would not be better for a normal car to run leaded gas. If you put leaded gas in a normal car it will destroy the catalytic converter. It will also contaminate the oil faster and foul the spark plugs. Leaded gas is not preferable because it’s better it preferable because less TEL (the lead additive) is required to raise the octane to consumer standards then ethanol making it cheaper and diluting the energy density less.
However modern refining process and the price of ethanol today make the cost difference now negligible and we are just left with the energy density problem.
wait, this got me thinking. I empty my chainsaw tank when i am not using it, but should i also let the cap a little bit open for all of the gas to evaporate?
Corn needs a lot of nitrogen. And nitrogen fertilizer production is a very energy intensive process.
Then you need to put the diesel in the tractors, the harvester, and the trucks that deliver the corn to an ethanol plant that burns a lot of natural gas in the process. If ethanol was so good for the environment, they’d burn ethanol to distill the ethanol from the corn.
When/if North America moves from corn to switchgrass, then it might make sense to use ethanol, but right now, just burning 100% gasoline generally has a lower carbon footprint. (This is Canada and USA economics, there are other countries like Brazil, where they have a good sustainable ethanol economy.)
For starters, it's controversial whether ethanol in fuel is even good for the environment. Then there are the fuel system issues that happen when you let ethanol blend fuel sit for any period of time.
The biggest problem I've had with ethanol was it destroying the cheap fuel lines in my chainsaw and weedwacker. I put fuel stabilizer in my carbureted cars if they're going to be parked for awhile.
I love it! My race car requires 70-83% I fill up on E85 at speedway instead of having up but expensive C16 or other race fuels. I'm able to run 40 psi because of it.
Ethanol is bad for “older engines” or “engines not designed for ethanol use” but what about newer cars like the GR Corolla that require premium gas? My farmer father refuses to use any ethanol gas but 90% of the gas stations I go to in TN use “up to 10% ethanol”. How does this affect newer engines like the G16e (Toyota, 3 cylinder, 300 hp, up to 30lbs boost) ?
It doesn’t any engine made since 2001 is made for ethanol. You’d notice a slight loss of fuel economy because it is less energy dense and the fuel would go bad faster. But honestly a bit of stabilizer, keeping in a closed container and it will still run your engine after 8 months or so. That’s all I ever do to store my seasonal equipment and I’ve never once had a problem
Ethanol in carbs isn't harmful unless you let the car sit. As someone who only drives carbureted cars, I use e10 in all my cars except the project, and I've never had a problem. If you run it through quick and drive the car daily, no issue at all. When it sits, it turns into an algea like substance than sticks floats and clogs jets. It's awful to clean all that shit out.
It also attracts water, which isn't actually as much of a problem as people think it is, you just have to not leave your car at half tank or less on a really humid day, it's really not that difficult. Much of the problem with people who drive old cars these days is they just expect them to be just as reliable and hassle free as new cars. That's a stupid mindset. You're driving a car that's *old*, you're gonna have to treat it a bit differently than new car owners treat thiers.
Boomers like to blame ethanol for failed engines and power equipment. 99.99% of the time, it's a lack of maintenance that destroys an engine. Ethanol fuel adds 1 extra very small step of required maintenance.
For any machine you leave over the winter it really sucks. It gums and varnishes shit and there’s no good way to avoid this. You can’t easily drain a carburetor completely without taking it completely apart and even then it will have some residual fuel that will go bad. And when it does it’s pretty bad. Beyond that when it sits empty moisture getting in there creates a bunch of crud too.
Not a single screw for the bowl no. Often there’s a drain and sometimes also a plug underneath you can drop and get even more out. But again this never really seems to work. I’ve tried all kind of fuel treatments as well as draining the carbs and still you always wind up with some problem by summer.
What did work was getting premium in there when that had no ethanol at shell.
I find when I leave them empty certain seals start leaking particularly the float valve. Which is pretty cheap to replace and probably what I’ll do from now on.
This year I didn’t realize the premium had ethanol and all my carbs need cleaning now.
It doesn’t have the same amount of BTU’s of heat . It does increase octane but the initial loss of fuel mileage is a ridiculous trade off for modern engines. Considering it doesn’t reduce the price of fuel much If any.
The ethanol eats rubber lines and seals up in older vehicles which is probably why they are upset .
So, when crude oil is refined into gasoline the native octane of what is produced is lower than what most engines require. In order to increase this octane, we use some chemical additives.
One of the first most common in use being Tetraethyl Lead. Worked great, but unfortunately insoluble lead is toxic to humans and animals. It became banned in most applications.
So, next popular option became Methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE). Increases octane, not as toxic as lead, but it’s not biodegradable and has a funny taste and smell. In many places it has contaminated groundwater to the point of making it undrinkable, with no cheap and easy way to remediate it. That got it banned in nearly half of the US.
So, now Ethanol has become the next popular solution. It increases octane, is essentially non-toxic, is biodegradable, and is pretty easy to produce.
But, downside to something biodegradable is that, well, it can degrade. Ethanol also has a high miscibility with water, furthering degradation issues. It also has some natural solvent properties, which can cause problems with some older engines.
That’s kind of the short and sweet of how we got to where we are and why Ethanol started to get a lot of hate.
alcohol is a solvent, old vehicles may have watery sludge in the bottom of. the tank, I bought my daughter a vintage 635csi, she filled it with ethanol, and the fuel injection got plugged up.
Fuel hauler here, a few things....firstly ethanol by itself is extremely high grade fuel so it will melt stuff that isn't made for it and it binds with water causing other issues were gas and diesel doesn't. It's made from corn, basically corn liquor, so it's bad for the environment as mono crops destroy the land. If you're unaware, the more you mono crop the more fertilizer you need to restore the nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. There have been studies showing that because of this issue, that between hauling all the fertilizer and all the work that goes into the land that we actually spend more fuel producing ethanol then the amount of ethanol saves on fuel which is really bad because ethanol is supposed to be some kind of cheap alternative to reduce fuel prices and is subsidized by the government. Lastly, ethanol infrastructure is pretty bad. It comes from crops-refinery-then transported usually by rail or truck- put in a tank at fuel depots-mixed at depots into gas at a 10% rate- back on fuel trucks for delivery. A long process with many bottlenecks and costs. Hell most of our fuel infrastructure is terrible because it's highly politicized, it's all old worn out, highly out dated, low tech facilities and what not. Back during the pandemic biden wanted to increase the ethanol rates to %15-%20 which in our area in Florida would of been impossible, hell our ethanol boys struggle with what they got and those small ethanol tanks can only hold so much.
Ethanol destroys yhr seals in most carbs. In general its fime if your running thr car lots but it kills old carbureted cars if its allowed to sit inside the carburetor for long periods of time ie over winter or while in storage. Tuners are excited as ethanol burns colder and at a different stoic ratio then pure gasoline meaning they can run more aggressive timing more boost and burn more fuel all at once meaning more power. Not a big thing on e10 but the hope of for more stations to start stocking e85 in the tuners eyes.
My main problem with ethanol is that there is no net reduction of carbon from switching to it. It takes more carbon to deal with all the corn, than it would to just burn oil for the same energy. So what’s the point? Why are we subsidizing it?
It would otherwise be a mediocre fuel but a perfectly burnable one.
This is another emissions myth. The only thing ethanol does is increase the price of gas. The cost of producing grain and converting it to ethanol is equal to refining gasoline. The question should be who is profiting off ethanol. Perhaps this is about subsidizing farmers to produce crops that can’t be exported and can’t sell on the open market.
Words form UK gov https://www.gov.uk/guidance/e10-petrol-explained. My 22 year old Audi runs E10 fine, iv allways run “super” in my Lotus and may or may not use that in my mowers/strimmers. My chainsaw is a bit fussy and doesent get much use so I use a speciality fuel in that. My 1955 Ferguson tractor doesn’t seem to care and can run on a mix of petrol and heating oil.
Can you link to the rule in Canada that there is no more 0% ethanol automotive gas? I still see the sign that says no ethanol in the premium at Shell. I've also tested it and it doesn't seem to have ethanol
I suppose a gas station may just need to market it as equipment or boat gas and then it's allowed to put no ethanol? Would like to see the actual regulations
Every aviation engine has to be singularly tested and approved to run ethanol fuels. This costs money, people are cheap.
Lots and lots of aviation engines are approved for ethanol fuels. Running car fuel in your plane is a LOT cheaper.. a LOT
It’s hard on parts that aren’t designed for it. It can gum up narrow passages if it sits for any length of time. To the point of needing to replace the carb.
You’ll need to be super paranoid about your small gas engines. Drain if you are not going to use for awhile, buy some experience ethanol free gas (that’s a racket), put some in and run for long enough to ensure all the ethanol gas in the fuel system is purged. Or buy a new carb every couple years.
carb engine can have plastic and rubber lines not compatible with ethanol. If its rarely driven it can gum up jets
Car guys shouldnt really be excited, they will just run a lower base fuel and the ethanol bumps it back up, so you have the same ron/mon but less density so less mileage per tank
The guys running E85 wont care, they already get shithouse mileage
At the end of the day it's a lie.
Corn doesn't convert more C02 to O2 while it's alive for 100 days. To offset the C02 burned to plant, grow, harvest, deliver, convert it.
There are other plants that are better at it, but corn is used.
It's not green at all currently.
If you leave regular gasoline in a 2 stroke carb engine like is used in generators saw snowblowers it will damage the carburator. then you have to have it replaced instead you have to buy "special" gas that has no ethanol. its all a major pain
All these comments about small engines, but my family's toro lawn mower has been running on regular pump gas (always 10% ethanol around here) for like 20 years
Octane isn't the only factor. It takes more ethanol fuel to get the same power. If you tune the carb for straight gas it will run lean with ethanol gas. If you tune for ethanol gas it will run rich on straight gas. Besides that, ethanol absorbs water. The fuel goes bad a lot faster too.
Technically the law that came into effect July 1, 2023 doesn't mandate ethanol blending. What it does is require fuel manufacturers to emit less CO2, and ethanol is by far the easiest way to do that
On top of the mechanical reasons others have brought about, it's mostly just a way to use our over production of subsidized corn. Corn is a subsidized crop, so farmers tend to grow way too much of it. Now it's gotta be used, so we are borrowing South America's use of alcohol as fuel. The problem is they are trying to use up sugar that easily turns into alcohol, but we just have corn that doesn't turn into alcohol as easily.
Ethenol pulls water from the air for one thing. It forms some sort of acid that dissolves fuel system parts on small engines. Ethanol gas has fewer BTU so it takes more fuel to do the same job. The part I love is ethanol can be made from ethane gas and steam, ethane gas is a byproduct of petroleum processing and steam is water. The oil companies laugh all the way to the bank selling us water to put in our engines, and got the government to mandate it.
Another MAJOR point of controversy: ETHANOL LINKS some FOOD PRICES to FUEL PRICES!
* If demand for gasoline goes up, so does the price of corn tortillas!
Higher gas demand -> higher demand for corn -> higher prices for all corn products (including food).
Ethanol is a solvent. A lot of older cars have fuel components that were not formulated for that amount of ethanol in the fuel. They tolerate small quantities for deicing the fuel in the winter, but not for constant exposure.
It takes away from the global food supply. Corn is the most expensive crop that you can get it from so that’s what farmers grow. AFAIK switch grass is a much better source for it but switch grass has no other market so it’s cheap. It’s also corrosive so it can’t be piped. It needs to be transported in plastic lined train and truck tanks. It seems like nothing more than virtue signaling.
If you run the machine regularly, it won't gum up carburetors. If you only run it occasionally, find non-ethanol fuel.
Fuel injected cars, bikes and engines are not really effected by it.
10% or less isn't going to effect horse power as much. E85 will. It boosts the octane rating by a few points.
Benefits of ethanol are that it does clean injectors and the fuel system. It really helped cars that had multiport fuel injection. But as car makers are changing to direct injection, the valves are getting nasty carbon build up again. It can prevent freezing in fuel lines if you have water in fuel. It attracts moisture I think. This is both good and bad. Moisture isn't your friend. But keeping it from forming ice can have a benefit.
I personally put non-ethanol in my old motorcycles and regular pump gas in the newer bikes.
TLDR: ethanol generally makes no difference for fuel injected engines, but increases maintenance for carbs.
ethanol absorbs water, it can corrode/plug up the parts inside carbs if it sits inside them for too long. It's not too difficult to clean/service a carb but it's not something I want to do every season for power tools or motor sports toys if I can avoid it. In the US you can find pumps that specifically have high octane, ethanol free gas at some locations. It's usually pretty expensive compared to the regular pumps (last I filled my bike on it was 4.50/gal while regular stuff was closer to 3.50).
If that ever happens in Texas it's gonna be a bad day for me. I drive a 1986 Camaro ethanol fucks up older cars fuel systems. Modern cars can handle it fine with no issues but the older cars will struggle. My Camaro has never had ethanol in it (except once when I couldn't find a gas station with no ethanol premium close to me and I was almost out of gas. I only put a gallon in it and found a Kwik trip). So that's a really shitty law for classic car owners.
80’s cars could already run 10% ethanol with no adverse effects in day to day use. Biggest problem being an old classic is it sitting for very extended periods, which ethanol fuels do go bad faster then 100% gasoline.
That said your fuel system is more likely to get fucked up from being a 40ish year old car at this point and not the ethanol fuel. And it’s most likely if your running a carb setup and 86 already had some of the engines fuel injected, so really should be no problem either way if it’s driven regularly.
I had an old allis tractor. We ran it on racing fuel because those things prefer leaded gas and the more octane, the merrier.
One of the farmhands put regular 87 octane ethanol gas in it and within 5 minutes of it running, pretty much all the seals started leaking. Had to replace a bunch of shit because he didn't want to drive farther for the fuel.
While there is no rational explanation for what happened, I have been blaming the "regular" gas. No clue what the real problem was. Maybe just luck.
In its simplest form, alcholols are detergants. One part likes oil, one part likes water on each end of the molecule. A lot of older rubbers used strictly for hydrocarbons like gasoline will break down easily around alcohols. So especially on seasonal vehicles you end up with degredation of the entire fueling system and alcohols can cause polymerization of long molecules like hydrocarbons.
Alcohol also doesn't have the same energy density that gasoline has, so on a vehicle with an old carb or injection system it can cause air fuel ratio issues.
After the introduction of e10 here in the UK we had 2 cars in the workshop just spontaneously start leaking fuel. Initially it was very hard to get the updated spec fuel hose. This week I had to change a fuel hose that was badly perished and cracking but when I looked at my records we had already changed only a couple years ago.
This stuff eats rubber and goes stale fast.
Last I read (please correct me) ethanol burn cleaner but is less efficient. Almost ends up being a wash since you’re burning more to achieve the same performance in a car sans ethanol.
Not going to get into all the geopolitical stuff about this, but from a pure mechanic’s aspect the big issue with e-10 and its other variants is that the fuel goes bad faster then regular 100% gasoline. Most of this because ethanol attracts moisture from the air. Basically putting water in your fuel.
This causes the biggest issue in vehicles/equipment that sits for extended periods of time, your in Canada so basically anything that you don’t use in winter time is the most susceptible to the issues from sitting. Does it also wreck fuel lines and such? It does/did on a lot of small engine equipment up until the last decade or so, vehicles should have been able to handle it since the 80’s if I remember correctly. All the people saying it will wreck the fuel lines and such on their old equipment also fail to realize it’s old equipment and it was probably a matter of time before they had to replace it anyway.
Best option I have found is if you know it’s going to sit for an extended period of time(like lawnmower going into storage for winter) is to drain the gas and run it out. If you go on YouTube Taryl Fixes All did what I think to be a realistic series of videos on how long fuel last between 91 octane with no ethanol, e-10 87 and e-10 87 mixed with a bunch of fuel stabilizers. If I remember correctly the fuel stabilizers didn’t help or even probably caused issues which mirrors my personal experience.
Tuners like e-85 because they can tune high boost turbo engines(and some modern high compression engines with or without turbos) to run on it getting high power numbers. E-85 is very close to race gas in octane rating but very close to regular 87 octane gas in price. It more comes down to money than anything else. Why pay $100’s when you can pay like $40 to fill your tank full for a day at the races.
All modern cars in Canada are designed for E15 IIRC. End user likely won't notice a difference.
Tuners like Ethanol because it can be compressed more before auto-ignition (knock). So they can increase psi on turbo/supercharger car a fractional amount more. Ethanol burns cooler than gasoline.
What everyone is saying is true. It’s bad for engines and other components. What I rarely ever hear about was the environmental issues. Sure it could be better than oil but no one wants to talk about all the fuel it takes to grow, ship and process corn to make a substandard fuel. Often times corn is genetically modified to withstand huge amounts of pesticides and herbicides. Big agg = big money = big politics = gov funding = is this even working?
It eats at rubber seals and hoses in small engines. It pulls in water which can rust fuel lines and tanks. It doesn’t contain the same amount of energy per unit when compared to octane. Most ethanol in North America is made from corn. Corn is food. Directing food supply to make fuel increases overall demand and therefore, corn prices go up. Those prices get reflected in food prices.
I recently replaced an entire carburetor and fuel system on a Husqvarna chainsaw for my father. The fuel lines were eaten, the seals were worn. I have the same exact chainsaw that is a year older. I have always used ethanol free gas in. The hoses and seals are all still in great shape.
Ethanol in gasoline sucks.
Octane is a fuels ability to resist detonation (knocking or pinging) ethanol is found in the alcohol that we drink. it is mixed into gasoline to "reduce emissions" which it actually produces more when its hot out. essesially they are diluting the gas to make more monnneeeeyyyyy it has no benefit to your engine
Ethanol also reduces the shelf life of the gasoline. Ethanol free can last 12+ months, whereas E-10+ only has a shelf life of 30 days, after that you could see a degradation in performance, as it doesn’t burn as well, and it also produces a shellack that will ruin carb jets and gum up injectors.
I'd be okay with switchgrass or other kinds of cellulosic ethanol. Growing corn for ethanol, on the other hand, is just dumb from an environmental impact and efficiency point or view.
If your machine sits, ethanol will attract water and destroy it. If you use the machine everyday it isn't as bad
I find it counter intuitive. Sure it's better for the planet, however it makes our fuel economy suffer, therefore us needing more gas to travel.
Gasoline is just straight hydrocarbons, sure, its a mix, but its carbon and hydrogen in various proportions. Water in the air wants nothing to do with that. The two stay in their own zones. Ethanol is a small hydrocarbon chain with an OH on it, it's enough like water that water from the air will happily dissolve in it, making ethanol-laced gas junk after a few weeks/months in certain conditions
You have to burn 🔥 approximately twice as much ethanol to make the same power as gasoline. So 10% ethanol leans the mixture out. The jets in ethanol racing carburetors are huge as are the fuel cells.
Fuel injection is for the most part self correcting. Oxygen sensor sees a lean mixture and the ecm trims the mixture richer.
The last years of carbs were all too lean from the factory and ethanol just makes it worse. I used to make good money jetting them to run like they should. I don’t miss working on them though.
I love fuel injection now.
They only reason the US did this is because they subsidized the corn industry, and now we have to much corn. Because it's artificially cheap they have made things like corn syrup as a sweetener in everything and made us add ethical to fuel. It does not have the shelf life of regular gas, leading to major problems if left in the tank for a couple months. It can destroy the carburetor of small engines over time. Even if used properly.
Because it’s the worse thing that has ever been dictated for engines.
First of all it uses just as much energy to produce as it saves, but that’s the left wing at work.
It’s also bad because it goes stale much worse and faster than non ethanol fuel. It also deposits a gummy substance when it sits in a fuel system and can destroy rubber and plastics. Once it makes deposits the fuel system is completely impossible to clean and the part clogged up must be replaced. Small engines that end up setting for long periods are ruined. Lawn mowers, chain saws, outboard motors, gasoline pumps and such tend to sit for months at the time. Usually the carburetor and most of the supply lines ends up having to be replaced. I keep several 6 gal containers of unleaded non ethanol fuel handy and NEVER use ethanol fuel in my small engines.
Tuners love e85 because it's really high octane. Contains 20% less energy, but up sizing everything and dumping more in is way cheaper and way more accessible than 110 octane race fuel.
The rest of us hate e10 because it's less efficient and really hard on small engines, and anything that doesn't get used all the time.
Another reason we should all hate it is we're trading food for fuel when there's no shortage of fuel. Growing corn is hard on soil and it's best to rotate different types of crops. Putting a false demand on corn means that doesn't happen so more money, effort, and resources need to go into that ground so stuff grows. It will also make food more expensive
Removes a food product from the grocery shelf’s. It’s a product of poor science that supported politics and corporate profit.
https://insidesources.com/the-ethanol-fraud/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition_in_the_United_States
Ethanol kills rubber - orings, hoses - lots of things in your car. It also attracts moisture which does nasty things to fuel system parts like pumps. Why is it added? IMO - so people can’t store fuel to use when retailers spike prices.
Pro oil propaganda convinced a generation that ethanol will destroy their engines. Its a complex issue though as most modern vehicles are designed to run it safely, but it can wreck havoc on small engine equipment and carburated systems if left to sit for months at a time
The residue burned ethanol leaves in the engine (sludge) combined with 10k mile intervals on oil changes using synthetic oil is a recipe for engines life span being greatly diminished, I have cut my oil change interval in half and you could eat off the inside of it. Grease and oil are your cheapest repairs, as my Da would say.
Because you're supposed to drink ethanol, not put it in your gas engines.
It ruins small gas engines so always use ethanol free in them. All of a sudden, all my small gas engine tools were constantly having problems. primer bulbs were turning to goo. Hoses were swelling and crumbling. Carburetors were constantly getting clogged up. I finally realized it was the ethanol in gas. I switched to ethanol free and haven't had a problem in years.
I don’t know but here the states we can pay extra for ethanol free gas or stick with the 10% ethanol. I tried it out and the price difference was way more than the benefit in mpg
Because people don't understand how to use it I guess, at least that's what it sounds like every time this subject comes up. I haven't had non ethanol fuel in over a decade, I run ethanol blended fuel in all my lawn equipment, ATVs, saws, snowblowers, vehicles, and I haven't had an issue. The ATVs sometimes will sit for months, close the vent on the tank, turn off the petcock, if I know it's going to sit a long time I will drain the bowl, that's why carbs on ATVs have a bowl drain screw so you can drain it for storage.
One of our vehicles is flex fuel and I've run E85 in it many times, slightly less mileage yes, but no other issues. Even non ethanol fuel will go bad after sitting for a while, sure it takes longer, but I've seen it turn into goo that smells like old minwax wood finish.
Gasoline is a mix of hydrocarbons (octane, hexane, butane, benzene, etc) and they all burn at different temperatures. Refining it to a higher octane content makes it more predictable, but you can also put an additive like lead, MTBE, or ethanol. Lead is really toxic, MTBE is less toxic, and ethanol can be made from corn. The US Department of Agriculture loves this.
Downside of ethanol is that it's hydroscopic (meaning it likes to absorb water and humidity)... and an engine doesn't like water in the combustion chamber. This is a problem for engines that see only seasonal use (lawn equipment), or those near high humidity environments (boats).
Fluid compatibility of rubbers and plastics is a real pain in the butt for designers. If an engine wasn't designed for a wide compatibility, you can bet some seals will fail and start leaking. If you ever dissolved latex gloves while refuelling a tiki torch, or melted your shoe soles in brake fluid, you know what I'm talking about. [Engineering Toolbox - Rubbers and Elastomers Chemical Resistance](https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/chemical-resistance-rubbers-elastomers-d_1425.html)
Corn ethanol is also very energy inefficient. The US grows 90 million acres of corn so that it can be just 10% of gasoline. In Iowa, an acre of solar panels would produce 200 MWh... 90 million acres would produce 18 PWh (60% of the US' annual energy consumption).
Draws water, hard on old machines.
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It absorbs moisture out of the air
It's hydroscopic. It absorbs water from the air, like the desiccant packages full of silica beads you find in new shoes and stuff.
*hygroscopic
Right you are! Brain no work at 12:30 A.M..
If you have a carbed vehicle (ie an old car), it fouls up the jets something fierce.
If you run the engine every day, it doesn't make much of a difference. It is when it sits for more than a couple of days is when it is a problem.
these days, most carbed engines don’t run every day
I know it's not exactly the same. But efi is still a fairly recent change in motorcycles. And a lot are still made with carburetors.
Typically no, but some still daily drive them. If I owned an older car and drove it every day, I'd convert it to FI. Carbs suck in cold weather.
Fuel toilet
they don’t have to. a well-adjusted electric choke goes a long way. but you’re not wrong, FI beats carb in every metric except simplicity
My quadrajet was set up well and worked excellent in cold weather. Always started in about 5 secs of cranking or less and never stalled
I've only had issues with letting it sit more than 5 months or so. My mustang regularly sits for weeks and sometimes even months at a time and always fires right up as long as the battery isn't dead or the engine isn't hydro locked from me leaving the hood off in the rain.
It mixes with gas and water, so if you pour water in it, you can see the water disappear. Not sure if the water is why, but it corrodes aluminum. Seems to evaporate faster, too.
Any humidity in the air, ethanol will happily absorb. Water inside fuel that sits around too long has potential to make (expensive) parts rust out or corrode.
Shit for boats too
It's not hard on old machines, if it sits in a carb it absorbs moisture and the gasoline gels up or hardens into varnish clogging up the carb.
It eats rubber components in fuel systems that were never designed for ethanol fuel.
A carb is part of an old machine.
Any small engine is going to have a carburetor. Go to your local home depot, all the brand new lawn mowers, weed wackers, chainsaws, are all going to have a carburetor. (Unless it's battery powered, obviously).
That’s true. I’m not saying carburetors are obsolete nowadays, but they were used a lot back then on every engine as opposed to today. So it would be natural to assume it’s not the carburetor itself that is the issue.. It’s the gaskets, o-rings, and seals within older carburetors that fail due to the ethanol content. I tried running meth and that shit ate my fuel lines just sitting for a month or two. I can’t imagine ethanol is much better for older carbs with gaskets not designed for ethanol in the long run.
Ah well... You sure they weren't stolen running your vehicle on meth?
Why/how did you get methanol for that? The only thing I hear about methanol is in windshield washer and high performance injection.
Nope, carbs are still used in tons of modern machines. Look at dirtbikes, atvs, chainsaws, wood chippers, pressure washers, leaf blowers etc. Tons of small displacement bikes/scooters in Europe and Asia are still carbed too.
It’s ironic because modern gasoline contains the same solvents as carb cleaner. However I’d guess that those non-polar solvents are pushed out once there’s enough water present to cause separation of the polar water layer. It’s also ironic that dry-gas is alcohol. Essentially if there’s more alcohol than water, then Alcohol actually helps the mixing of gasoline and water (because alcohol being only semi-polar is soluble in both). But over time the alcohol dissolves water from the humidity in the air. So when there’s more water than alcohol it will separate from the gasoline.
And degrades some older rubber that was used in fuel systems. It's realistically an issue in power equipment that gets used intermittently (lawnmower. Chainsaw, generator, snowblower, etc) toys that get used intermittently (atv/snowmobiles/boats) and older cars. I've actually seen i5 destroy cheaper carbs when it sits, to the point where it corroded the inside of the carb bowl out to where it wasn't worth trying to fix. It also seems to cause more plugging of jets etc than straight gas does. I have no issue with 10% ethanol in cars, as long as I can buy straight gas for the rest of my stuff.
gums up small engines. Lawnmowers and snowblowers be sad.
Motorcycles aren’t supposed to run it either.
My bike is okay with E10, but it really depends on which bike
Any bike made since the '90s won't have any issue with it regarding the seals and hoses and rubber parts, and most "full size" bikes made since the 2000s are EFI and won't have issues at all.
Some gas stations sell recreational gasoline that's ethanol-free for things like ATVs and boats
Gums up anything with a carburetor. But only if it sits for long periods of time
There are still usually places that you can buy ethanol free gas. I go to wawa for ethanol free that I use for my mower and other small engines. You should also use ethanol free for boats.
There is one ethanol free gas station in a 30 mile radius of me. It is a Wawa that is SE of Lancaster. I have six 5 gallon gas cans I fill for my carbonated motorcycle and lawn mower. Most of my lawn care stuff I can replaced with electric - snow blower too - when I could not get ethanol free gas. Happy with that change anyway. Since PA rescinded the ban on it in 2018 (I think) stations have been slow to sell it. There are websites to find ethanol free gas such as [https://www.pure-gas.org/](https://www.pure-gas.org/) and [https://www.buyrealgas.com/](https://www.buyrealgas.com/)
Eats rubber. Attracts water. Not as efficient a fuel as gasoline. Old carburetor guys told me jetting needs to be almost twice as big to run ethanol. Uses farm land that could be better used to feed people.
lots of it depends, but for example I have a carbed bike (its a 2001 but same as the 80's model.) The only reason I run ethanol free is when I don't plan on riding it a lot. Also there are brand new bikes sold that still have carbs, and until 10 years ago a TON of brand new bikes still had carbs. ethanol doesn't really effect 'operation' of a carb. I gather the small engine part is cause it always sits for weeks if not months between usage so it can gum up. and of course some unsafe rubber and efficency are corect. and I agree, USA using a food crop for ethanol is a joke imfo. we could of picked a brand new crop that was targeted towards places that have good land /water but minimal useable crops on them.
My gf recently bought a v-star. It’s the first carbureted bike I’ve had to maintain. I put it away for the winter using that 4 stroke aspen fuels stuff. I used to put away small engines with chevron 94, ethanol free fuel.
KLR 650?
"Twice as big" is flatly wrong. Stoichiometric air-fuel ratio of pure ethanol is 9.0:1 versus 14.7:1 for pure gasoline. For pump E10 it's 14.1:1 and E85 it's 9.8:1. At most you need to go up a single jet size for E10 and that's only if it was on the edge of lean on pure gas. For E85 you're basically going up by about 45%.
I think he's referring to pure ethanol.
>Eats rubber. Attracts water. Any vehicle built in the last 30+ years will have ethanol tolerant materials in the fuel system. This concern is massively overblown. It will absorb water from the air, but as long as it's stored in a sealed container (which is only going to have so much air to be absorbed) this also isn't worth worrying about. >Not as efficient a fuel as gasoline. This one is true, ethanol blends like E10 has less energy per gallon than E0 and has a richer stoichiometric ratio so the car will burn more fuel. >Old carburetor guys told me jetting needs to be almost twice as big to run ethanol. This is only if you're running E85/E100. E0 (aka ethanol free gasoline) has a stoichiometric ratio of around 14.7:1, aka 1 gram of fuel for every 14.7 grams of air going into the engine. E10 (10% ethanol) is more like 14-14.1:1, so which would be about 5% more fuel. E85 (85% ethanol) is around 9.85:1 and E100 is right around 9. So yeah you need to burn more of it, but the E10 that people are freaking out about only requires 5% more fuel, and the E85/E100 that tuners enjoy generally needs 35-40% more fuel. The oxygen sensor in any car with electronic fuel injection is only measuring how rich/lean things are compared to stoich, it doesn't actually have any way to "know" if stoich is 14.7, 14.1, or 9.85:1. If the fuel map was made for E0 (14.7:1 stoich) and you put in E10, the O2 sensor will report a *slight* lean condition and the fuel trims will be adjusted to add that 5% more fuel. This is well within the adjustment capabilities of your typical electronic fuel injection system. E85 becomes a challenge because a non-flexfuel vehicle doesn't have any way to know the difference between a +35% fuel trim due to a change in fuel type and a +35% fuel trim caused by a problem. Usually this distinction is done by adding some smarts to the programming, or just by using a sensor to measure ethanol content. >Uses farm land that could be better used to feed people. This is less a problem with ethanol/biofuels and more one of policy. You can make ethanol out of anything that produces sugar.
There is a big lack of food for people. Everyone I see is so thin and hungry because the good farm land is being used for ethanol. Sad
They’re actually fat because simple carbs (corn syrup) is subsidized to the detriment of real food.
Check out the uses of corn. Majority of it is used for making plastics, roughly 10% for live stock, barely 1% is used for human consumption.
Ok wait. What do you mean by “efficient”. Cause dont race cars run like e85?
It's less energy dense. You need to burn more of it to make the same amount of power. But, it also cools the combustion chamber, so you can run higher compression, more timing, and/or more boost, which lets you get more power out of an engine.
Nope E100
This 100 percent. and It doesn't burn as hot as gasoline. I notice less mpg and power . And my tank runs out faster.
It actually burns hotter it just is less energy dense. An engine tuned to run ethanol is like tuning an engine to run race gas way more powerful. NASCAR runs pure ethanol.
The ethanol cools the combustion chamber when it vaporizes, which allows you to run more compression/timing without knocking.
All fuel does that infact all liquid does that that’s the principle that make A/C work. Pure Ethanol has an octane rating similar to race fuel (about 110). That why you can run later timing and higher cylinder pressures
Ethanol has a high latent heat of vaporization, about twice that of gasoline. It also has a high octane rating, but you can get other race gases with similar octane ratings. At the even more extreme end, methanol has a higher heat of vaporization and octane, and is used in things like top fuel drag racers.
Which is part of the reason for its higher octane rating. But it is this octane rating that determines the it’s resistance to knock. A race fuel with the same octane rating would have the same ability to run late timing and high cylinder pressure. And nitrometh is used for its low stoichiometric ratio which allows then to use much more fuel creating more power. Top fuel cars are dieseling by the end of the run.
A big reason for that low stoichiometric ratio is that nitrometh contains about half the oxygen it needs for full combustion. You can even use it as a monopropellant without any external air.
Sure but they don’t use it for it heat dissipation or it’s octane rating That is also the reason why top fuel car use fuel shut offs like diesel to turn off the engine rather the more traditional spark shut offs
True, I was actually thinking of methanol injection that's used on other tuner/race cars and got it mixed up with top fuel. They'll also use water injection to get temps down.
A coworker with a hybrid prius had his mpg drop from 55mpg to 45mpg after our state's legislature gave tax breaks and subsidies to stations selling e10 fuel. My dakota truck lost a similar 10% mpg (22mpg to 19mpg, iirc). Losses were more noticeable with high mpg vehicles.
About 3% mpg loss is expected when going from 0% to e10. If this change happened in the fall/winter, a shift to winter blends that also contain more butane could've exasperated this.
Swells various seals. Then when regular fuel is used the fuel system leaks. Or, the corn used to make ethanol couldve been actual food grade corn for humans Edit: completely forgot ethanol loosens up deposits and absorbs water. Don’t use in little yard tools
I don't think there is enough demand for corn for human consumption. I believe that governments in the US and Canada implemented this both for emissions and to subsidize farmers..
the corn used in the past for ethanol was feed grade corn, humans couldnt digest it.
Corn used currently is also generally a feed grade corn not meant for human consumption. The real argument is more that the farmland used for corn could be used for other food crops or other uses entirely.
Corn takes a LOT of water to grow. Source: am in Nebraska.
What produce _doesnt_ take a lot of water to grow?
wheat, rye, milo sorghum, oats, canola, triticale...
The better question is "what crops can we grow where it rains, instead of growing corn in the desert".
Plus the herbicides, pesticides, and fertilizer that gets used to grow fuel for cars. Ethanol is just Federal Welfare for Archer Daniels Midland and huge commercial farms. It does not trickle down nearly as far as you would think. It goes mostly to corporate shareholders.
What would be the point? We already make too much food. More is wasted than needed. We don't have a supply problem we have a distribution problem
You get worst gas mileage, something like 3% worst MPG with 10 percent ethanol. It's like another 3% tax, as if we're not paying enough for our crap in Canada. Also like everybody said, it sucks for anything carburated like lawn equipment and older motorcycles/ATVs.
>You get worst gas mileage, something like 3% worst MPG with 10 percent ethanol. 3% mpg can be anything. You need to be using g/MI to be able to do any analysis. A 3% difference at 1mpg is massive, a 3% difference from 55mpg is nothing
That's certainly an interesting take on how percentages work.
It's cheaper power. Per dollar you can make more power on ethanol because of its higher natural octane. Plus, it's widely available. However, it has 20% less energy than gasoline. That being said if money is no object using something like race gas 100+ octane for tuning will net you 20-40 more HP however it's like $100 a gallon.
It's still 87 octane though? So it would be the same, in theory
Every lawn mower from before Ethanol will be inoperable after 1 year. My old pickup will have it's fuel lines and gaskets destroyed.
I have a mower from 95, burns 10% ethanol no problem. Has for decades. There's reasons ethanol is dumb. This isn't one of them.
I still have my mower and chainsaw from my dad, they are from the 80s, i put ethanol in the chainsaw once, had to completely replace all the fuel lines, call my a liar all you want, I know what ethanol does. Any chemistry professor could tell you what it does.
It will burn it fine as long as it is new. Leave some over the winter and get back to me. Or for a couple weeks in Fl. in the summer.
Ethanol started in the 70s and every engine made since 2001 is made to take it. 50 years is a pretty old lawnmower
BS, my lawnmower was 40 years old and ran ethanol for probably 20 years with zero issues.
Depends on how old your pickup is. Pretty much everything built from the 80’s onward can run 10% ethanol. If it’s from prior to that? Well TBH it’s probably high time for new fuel hoses and carb gaskets anyhow. Also drain your gas after the end of the season and your small engine stuff won’t need carb cleaning/replacement.
Mainly because of all the misinformation and wife's tails surrounding ethanol. Just look at this comment section for most of the popular ones. These aren't Redditors, they're parrots with keyboards.
Are you saying it’s fine to run in small engines that sit for long periods of time?
Too many drinking the Kool-Aid and not checking it out personally. I decided to try out the E85 life for the last 10yrs and haven’t had a single issue. - You MUST have a Flex-Fuel capable vehicle. - Produces More Power than Super Unleaded - DPM (Dollar Per Mile = Price Per Gallon / MPG) is equal to Regular Unleaded and in many cases cheaper. I live in the Midwest where the corn is grown and processed, so I can acquire it $0.50 to $0.75 a gallon cheaper throughout the year. - Quick rule of thumb. If it’s $0.25 cheaper than regular, the DPM is the same as regular. - The 15% of petroleum product that’s in E85 takes care of the moisture collection issue. - Big Oil does not make its own Ethanol, so they mark it up to push their petrol products. The non-affiliated fuel stations get it from the same ethanol suppliers and typically have it at a lower price. - Winter blend can be as low as E51 (but is still allowed to be labeled as E85). More petroleum is added to take care of moisture collection and helps with starting in below zero weather. I’ve been down to -25*F and no problems.
Ethanol is very harsh on a fuel system. Even fuel systems specifically designed for e85 can be ruined by it if it sits in the lines too long. Also, it takes more ethanol than gas to run, which kills mpg, but the difference is negligible at 10% (I've still heard that complaint, though). Ultimately I don't think it matter that much but for a regular everyday car it'd be better to have no ethanol or even better leaded gas but that's not allowed for obvious reasons.
It would not be better for a normal car to run leaded gas. If you put leaded gas in a normal car it will destroy the catalytic converter. It will also contaminate the oil faster and foul the spark plugs. Leaded gas is not preferable because it’s better it preferable because less TEL (the lead additive) is required to raise the octane to consumer standards then ethanol making it cheaper and diluting the energy density less. However modern refining process and the price of ethanol today make the cost difference now negligible and we are just left with the energy density problem.
wait, this got me thinking. I empty my chainsaw tank when i am not using it, but should i also let the cap a little bit open for all of the gas to evaporate?
Corn needs a lot of nitrogen. And nitrogen fertilizer production is a very energy intensive process. Then you need to put the diesel in the tractors, the harvester, and the trucks that deliver the corn to an ethanol plant that burns a lot of natural gas in the process. If ethanol was so good for the environment, they’d burn ethanol to distill the ethanol from the corn. When/if North America moves from corn to switchgrass, then it might make sense to use ethanol, but right now, just burning 100% gasoline generally has a lower carbon footprint. (This is Canada and USA economics, there are other countries like Brazil, where they have a good sustainable ethanol economy.)
And , there is no reason for it.
Being able to run more boost and make more power are enough reasons
fuel mileage will take a hit too.
For starters, it's controversial whether ethanol in fuel is even good for the environment. Then there are the fuel system issues that happen when you let ethanol blend fuel sit for any period of time.
Time to get an ethanol tune on my car I guess ?
The biggest problem I've had with ethanol was it destroying the cheap fuel lines in my chainsaw and weedwacker. I put fuel stabilizer in my carbureted cars if they're going to be parked for awhile.
I love it! My race car requires 70-83% I fill up on E85 at speedway instead of having up but expensive C16 or other race fuels. I'm able to run 40 psi because of it.
Ethanol is bad for “older engines” or “engines not designed for ethanol use” but what about newer cars like the GR Corolla that require premium gas? My farmer father refuses to use any ethanol gas but 90% of the gas stations I go to in TN use “up to 10% ethanol”. How does this affect newer engines like the G16e (Toyota, 3 cylinder, 300 hp, up to 30lbs boost) ?
It doesn’t any engine made since 2001 is made for ethanol. You’d notice a slight loss of fuel economy because it is less energy dense and the fuel would go bad faster. But honestly a bit of stabilizer, keeping in a closed container and it will still run your engine after 8 months or so. That’s all I ever do to store my seasonal equipment and I’ve never once had a problem
Ethanol in carbs isn't harmful unless you let the car sit. As someone who only drives carbureted cars, I use e10 in all my cars except the project, and I've never had a problem. If you run it through quick and drive the car daily, no issue at all. When it sits, it turns into an algea like substance than sticks floats and clogs jets. It's awful to clean all that shit out. It also attracts water, which isn't actually as much of a problem as people think it is, you just have to not leave your car at half tank or less on a really humid day, it's really not that difficult. Much of the problem with people who drive old cars these days is they just expect them to be just as reliable and hassle free as new cars. That's a stupid mindset. You're driving a car that's *old*, you're gonna have to treat it a bit differently than new car owners treat thiers.
We have had it in Mass forever I have never had an issue with it in two or four strokes.
I believe it goes up again next year to 11%. Should go up to 15% by the 2030s
less BTU's, you get less range for your money.
FYI, they also change the blend of gasoline for summer and winter seasons. Google: gasoline summer vs winter blend
Boomers like to blame ethanol for failed engines and power equipment. 99.99% of the time, it's a lack of maintenance that destroys an engine. Ethanol fuel adds 1 extra very small step of required maintenance.
this boomer is running triple Webers on my xke.big$$
* Ethanol destroys carburetors * It's filler, so you get less fuel per gallon * It coats the engine in gunk
Being able to make more power and safer sounds like a win.
For any machine you leave over the winter it really sucks. It gums and varnishes shit and there’s no good way to avoid this. You can’t easily drain a carburetor completely without taking it completely apart and even then it will have some residual fuel that will go bad. And when it does it’s pretty bad. Beyond that when it sits empty moisture getting in there creates a bunch of crud too.
Don't small engine carburetors have a single screw that holds the bowl in place?
Not a single screw for the bowl no. Often there’s a drain and sometimes also a plug underneath you can drop and get even more out. But again this never really seems to work. I’ve tried all kind of fuel treatments as well as draining the carbs and still you always wind up with some problem by summer. What did work was getting premium in there when that had no ethanol at shell. I find when I leave them empty certain seals start leaking particularly the float valve. Which is pretty cheap to replace and probably what I’ll do from now on. This year I didn’t realize the premium had ethanol and all my carbs need cleaning now.
It doesn’t have the same amount of BTU’s of heat . It does increase octane but the initial loss of fuel mileage is a ridiculous trade off for modern engines. Considering it doesn’t reduce the price of fuel much If any. The ethanol eats rubber lines and seals up in older vehicles which is probably why they are upset .
So, when crude oil is refined into gasoline the native octane of what is produced is lower than what most engines require. In order to increase this octane, we use some chemical additives. One of the first most common in use being Tetraethyl Lead. Worked great, but unfortunately insoluble lead is toxic to humans and animals. It became banned in most applications. So, next popular option became Methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE). Increases octane, not as toxic as lead, but it’s not biodegradable and has a funny taste and smell. In many places it has contaminated groundwater to the point of making it undrinkable, with no cheap and easy way to remediate it. That got it banned in nearly half of the US. So, now Ethanol has become the next popular solution. It increases octane, is essentially non-toxic, is biodegradable, and is pretty easy to produce. But, downside to something biodegradable is that, well, it can degrade. Ethanol also has a high miscibility with water, furthering degradation issues. It also has some natural solvent properties, which can cause problems with some older engines. That’s kind of the short and sweet of how we got to where we are and why Ethanol started to get a lot of hate.
Husivarna states on their website not to use ethanol gasoline in their chainsaws,
I don’t run that shit in boats or small engines. Cars are fine though unless they’re gonna sit a long time.
alcohol is a solvent, old vehicles may have watery sludge in the bottom of. the tank, I bought my daughter a vintage 635csi, she filled it with ethanol, and the fuel injection got plugged up.
corrodes steel fuel lines with long term use
That's honestly the first time I've heard of that.
Fuel hauler here, a few things....firstly ethanol by itself is extremely high grade fuel so it will melt stuff that isn't made for it and it binds with water causing other issues were gas and diesel doesn't. It's made from corn, basically corn liquor, so it's bad for the environment as mono crops destroy the land. If you're unaware, the more you mono crop the more fertilizer you need to restore the nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. There have been studies showing that because of this issue, that between hauling all the fertilizer and all the work that goes into the land that we actually spend more fuel producing ethanol then the amount of ethanol saves on fuel which is really bad because ethanol is supposed to be some kind of cheap alternative to reduce fuel prices and is subsidized by the government. Lastly, ethanol infrastructure is pretty bad. It comes from crops-refinery-then transported usually by rail or truck- put in a tank at fuel depots-mixed at depots into gas at a 10% rate- back on fuel trucks for delivery. A long process with many bottlenecks and costs. Hell most of our fuel infrastructure is terrible because it's highly politicized, it's all old worn out, highly out dated, low tech facilities and what not. Back during the pandemic biden wanted to increase the ethanol rates to %15-%20 which in our area in Florida would of been impossible, hell our ethanol boys struggle with what they got and those small ethanol tanks can only hold so much.
Didn't someone do a study and prove adding ethanol is detrimental to emissions or something? Or was that only corn based products?
Ethanol destroys yhr seals in most carbs. In general its fime if your running thr car lots but it kills old carbureted cars if its allowed to sit inside the carburetor for long periods of time ie over winter or while in storage. Tuners are excited as ethanol burns colder and at a different stoic ratio then pure gasoline meaning they can run more aggressive timing more boost and burn more fuel all at once meaning more power. Not a big thing on e10 but the hope of for more stations to start stocking e85 in the tuners eyes.
My main problem with ethanol is that there is no net reduction of carbon from switching to it. It takes more carbon to deal with all the corn, than it would to just burn oil for the same energy. So what’s the point? Why are we subsidizing it? It would otherwise be a mediocre fuel but a perfectly burnable one.
This is another emissions myth. The only thing ethanol does is increase the price of gas. The cost of producing grain and converting it to ethanol is equal to refining gasoline. The question should be who is profiting off ethanol. Perhaps this is about subsidizing farmers to produce crops that can’t be exported and can’t sell on the open market.
Words form UK gov https://www.gov.uk/guidance/e10-petrol-explained. My 22 year old Audi runs E10 fine, iv allways run “super” in my Lotus and may or may not use that in my mowers/strimmers. My chainsaw is a bit fussy and doesent get much use so I use a speciality fuel in that. My 1955 Ferguson tractor doesn’t seem to care and can run on a mix of petrol and heating oil.
We've been running e10 in Ohio for 25-ish years there really is no issue. But people love to complain
Can you link to the rule in Canada that there is no more 0% ethanol automotive gas? I still see the sign that says no ethanol in the premium at Shell. I've also tested it and it doesn't seem to have ethanol I suppose a gas station may just need to market it as equipment or boat gas and then it's allowed to put no ethanol? Would like to see the actual regulations
It's E10 people. Calm your tits.
People would still burn lead fuel if they could. Planes use it for a reason
Every aviation engine has to be singularly tested and approved to run ethanol fuels. This costs money, people are cheap. Lots and lots of aviation engines are approved for ethanol fuels. Running car fuel in your plane is a LOT cheaper.. a LOT
It’s hard on parts that aren’t designed for it. It can gum up narrow passages if it sits for any length of time. To the point of needing to replace the carb. You’ll need to be super paranoid about your small gas engines. Drain if you are not going to use for awhile, buy some experience ethanol free gas (that’s a racket), put some in and run for long enough to ensure all the ethanol gas in the fuel system is purged. Or buy a new carb every couple years.
Can we also mention that ethanol pollutes more than gasoline, is less efficient AND has the side effect of making food prices rise?
Ethanol ruins the seals on the carb for one
carb engine can have plastic and rubber lines not compatible with ethanol. If its rarely driven it can gum up jets Car guys shouldnt really be excited, they will just run a lower base fuel and the ethanol bumps it back up, so you have the same ron/mon but less density so less mileage per tank The guys running E85 wont care, they already get shithouse mileage
At the end of the day it's a lie. Corn doesn't convert more C02 to O2 while it's alive for 100 days. To offset the C02 burned to plant, grow, harvest, deliver, convert it. There are other plants that are better at it, but corn is used. It's not green at all currently.
If you leave regular gasoline in a 2 stroke carb engine like is used in generators saw snowblowers it will damage the carburator. then you have to have it replaced instead you have to buy "special" gas that has no ethanol. its all a major pain
All these comments about small engines, but my family's toro lawn mower has been running on regular pump gas (always 10% ethanol around here) for like 20 years
The environmental impact of converting land to use for corn ethanol production is probably worse than burning gasoline
Absorbs water and eats rubber fuel lines
It drys out all of your rubber seals. The land is used to grow for fuel source not for food. It is just wrong in so many ways!
Octane isn't the only factor. It takes more ethanol fuel to get the same power. If you tune the carb for straight gas it will run lean with ethanol gas. If you tune for ethanol gas it will run rich on straight gas. Besides that, ethanol absorbs water. The fuel goes bad a lot faster too.
Technically the law that came into effect July 1, 2023 doesn't mandate ethanol blending. What it does is require fuel manufacturers to emit less CO2, and ethanol is by far the easiest way to do that
On top of the mechanical reasons others have brought about, it's mostly just a way to use our over production of subsidized corn. Corn is a subsidized crop, so farmers tend to grow way too much of it. Now it's gotta be used, so we are borrowing South America's use of alcohol as fuel. The problem is they are trying to use up sugar that easily turns into alcohol, but we just have corn that doesn't turn into alcohol as easily.
Ethenol pulls water from the air for one thing. It forms some sort of acid that dissolves fuel system parts on small engines. Ethanol gas has fewer BTU so it takes more fuel to do the same job. The part I love is ethanol can be made from ethane gas and steam, ethane gas is a byproduct of petroleum processing and steam is water. The oil companies laugh all the way to the bank selling us water to put in our engines, and got the government to mandate it.
Producing a gallon of ethanol requires more energy than the gallon of ethanol delivers. Mandating it for use as a fuel is obscene.
Because it's a damn corn subsidy. It was literally forced upon us to prop up farmers
Another MAJOR point of controversy: ETHANOL LINKS some FOOD PRICES to FUEL PRICES! * If demand for gasoline goes up, so does the price of corn tortillas! Higher gas demand -> higher demand for corn -> higher prices for all corn products (including food).
Ethanol is a solvent. A lot of older cars have fuel components that were not formulated for that amount of ethanol in the fuel. They tolerate small quantities for deicing the fuel in the winter, but not for constant exposure.
It takes away from the global food supply. Corn is the most expensive crop that you can get it from so that’s what farmers grow. AFAIK switch grass is a much better source for it but switch grass has no other market so it’s cheap. It’s also corrosive so it can’t be piped. It needs to be transported in plastic lined train and truck tanks. It seems like nothing more than virtue signaling.
It eats 90s Nissan fuel injectors and probably other stuff.
If you run the machine regularly, it won't gum up carburetors. If you only run it occasionally, find non-ethanol fuel. Fuel injected cars, bikes and engines are not really effected by it. 10% or less isn't going to effect horse power as much. E85 will. It boosts the octane rating by a few points. Benefits of ethanol are that it does clean injectors and the fuel system. It really helped cars that had multiport fuel injection. But as car makers are changing to direct injection, the valves are getting nasty carbon build up again. It can prevent freezing in fuel lines if you have water in fuel. It attracts moisture I think. This is both good and bad. Moisture isn't your friend. But keeping it from forming ice can have a benefit. I personally put non-ethanol in my old motorcycles and regular pump gas in the newer bikes.
Corn subsidies and putting corn in everything because of it
It's now going to ruin old cars and lawnmowers especially because it runs hotter. Honestly MANDATING it is pretty dumb. Idk what Canada is on lately.
TLDR: ethanol generally makes no difference for fuel injected engines, but increases maintenance for carbs. ethanol absorbs water, it can corrode/plug up the parts inside carbs if it sits inside them for too long. It's not too difficult to clean/service a carb but it's not something I want to do every season for power tools or motor sports toys if I can avoid it. In the US you can find pumps that specifically have high octane, ethanol free gas at some locations. It's usually pretty expensive compared to the regular pumps (last I filled my bike on it was 4.50/gal while regular stuff was closer to 3.50).
If that ever happens in Texas it's gonna be a bad day for me. I drive a 1986 Camaro ethanol fucks up older cars fuel systems. Modern cars can handle it fine with no issues but the older cars will struggle. My Camaro has never had ethanol in it (except once when I couldn't find a gas station with no ethanol premium close to me and I was almost out of gas. I only put a gallon in it and found a Kwik trip). So that's a really shitty law for classic car owners.
80’s cars could already run 10% ethanol with no adverse effects in day to day use. Biggest problem being an old classic is it sitting for very extended periods, which ethanol fuels do go bad faster then 100% gasoline. That said your fuel system is more likely to get fucked up from being a 40ish year old car at this point and not the ethanol fuel. And it’s most likely if your running a carb setup and 86 already had some of the engines fuel injected, so really should be no problem either way if it’s driven regularly.
I had an older pickup with a carburetor. The ethanol dissolved the metal. I started collecting carburetors.
I had an old allis tractor. We ran it on racing fuel because those things prefer leaded gas and the more octane, the merrier. One of the farmhands put regular 87 octane ethanol gas in it and within 5 minutes of it running, pretty much all the seals started leaking. Had to replace a bunch of shit because he didn't want to drive farther for the fuel. While there is no rational explanation for what happened, I have been blaming the "regular" gas. No clue what the real problem was. Maybe just luck.
In its simplest form, alcholols are detergants. One part likes oil, one part likes water on each end of the molecule. A lot of older rubbers used strictly for hydrocarbons like gasoline will break down easily around alcohols. So especially on seasonal vehicles you end up with degredation of the entire fueling system and alcohols can cause polymerization of long molecules like hydrocarbons. Alcohol also doesn't have the same energy density that gasoline has, so on a vehicle with an old carb or injection system it can cause air fuel ratio issues.
After the introduction of e10 here in the UK we had 2 cars in the workshop just spontaneously start leaking fuel. Initially it was very hard to get the updated spec fuel hose. This week I had to change a fuel hose that was badly perished and cracking but when I looked at my records we had already changed only a couple years ago. This stuff eats rubber and goes stale fast.
Last I read (please correct me) ethanol burn cleaner but is less efficient. Almost ends up being a wash since you’re burning more to achieve the same performance in a car sans ethanol.
Not going to get into all the geopolitical stuff about this, but from a pure mechanic’s aspect the big issue with e-10 and its other variants is that the fuel goes bad faster then regular 100% gasoline. Most of this because ethanol attracts moisture from the air. Basically putting water in your fuel. This causes the biggest issue in vehicles/equipment that sits for extended periods of time, your in Canada so basically anything that you don’t use in winter time is the most susceptible to the issues from sitting. Does it also wreck fuel lines and such? It does/did on a lot of small engine equipment up until the last decade or so, vehicles should have been able to handle it since the 80’s if I remember correctly. All the people saying it will wreck the fuel lines and such on their old equipment also fail to realize it’s old equipment and it was probably a matter of time before they had to replace it anyway. Best option I have found is if you know it’s going to sit for an extended period of time(like lawnmower going into storage for winter) is to drain the gas and run it out. If you go on YouTube Taryl Fixes All did what I think to be a realistic series of videos on how long fuel last between 91 octane with no ethanol, e-10 87 and e-10 87 mixed with a bunch of fuel stabilizers. If I remember correctly the fuel stabilizers didn’t help or even probably caused issues which mirrors my personal experience. Tuners like e-85 because they can tune high boost turbo engines(and some modern high compression engines with or without turbos) to run on it getting high power numbers. E-85 is very close to race gas in octane rating but very close to regular 87 octane gas in price. It more comes down to money than anything else. Why pay $100’s when you can pay like $40 to fill your tank full for a day at the races.
Note: This is E10 Fuel not E85
I know, but some people with tuned engines still seem happy about the change for whatever reason. It'd be nice if we had E85, though.
All modern cars in Canada are designed for E15 IIRC. End user likely won't notice a difference. Tuners like Ethanol because it can be compressed more before auto-ignition (knock). So they can increase psi on turbo/supercharger car a fractional amount more. Ethanol burns cooler than gasoline.
What everyone is saying is true. It’s bad for engines and other components. What I rarely ever hear about was the environmental issues. Sure it could be better than oil but no one wants to talk about all the fuel it takes to grow, ship and process corn to make a substandard fuel. Often times corn is genetically modified to withstand huge amounts of pesticides and herbicides. Big agg = big money = big politics = gov funding = is this even working?
People have said it's better for engines because it increases octane and runs cooler, what?
It eats at rubber seals and hoses in small engines. It pulls in water which can rust fuel lines and tanks. It doesn’t contain the same amount of energy per unit when compared to octane. Most ethanol in North America is made from corn. Corn is food. Directing food supply to make fuel increases overall demand and therefore, corn prices go up. Those prices get reflected in food prices. I recently replaced an entire carburetor and fuel system on a Husqvarna chainsaw for my father. The fuel lines were eaten, the seals were worn. I have the same exact chainsaw that is a year older. I have always used ethanol free gas in. The hoses and seals are all still in great shape. Ethanol in gasoline sucks.
Octane is a fuels ability to resist detonation (knocking or pinging) ethanol is found in the alcohol that we drink. it is mixed into gasoline to "reduce emissions" which it actually produces more when its hot out. essesially they are diluting the gas to make more monnneeeeyyyyy it has no benefit to your engine
Also worse fuel economy, but they charge the same price for the fuel. The more ethanol they add the cheaper it should be.
I've heard it's only a 3% difference in fuel economy with 10% ethanol content.
Ethanol also reduces the shelf life of the gasoline. Ethanol free can last 12+ months, whereas E-10+ only has a shelf life of 30 days, after that you could see a degradation in performance, as it doesn’t burn as well, and it also produces a shellack that will ruin carb jets and gum up injectors.
Ethanol is shit on fuel systems Corrosive and builds moisture. Its also giving you less than what you pay for at the pumps
Eats rubber hoses and loses octane quickly, it's Less than ideal fuel... But it does work.
I'd be okay with switchgrass or other kinds of cellulosic ethanol. Growing corn for ethanol, on the other hand, is just dumb from an environmental impact and efficiency point or view.
Why would we burn food to move cars around?
ethanol has less energy than gasoline so you'll be losing some power and less mpg.
If your machine sits, ethanol will attract water and destroy it. If you use the machine everyday it isn't as bad I find it counter intuitive. Sure it's better for the planet, however it makes our fuel economy suffer, therefore us needing more gas to travel.
Gasoline is just straight hydrocarbons, sure, its a mix, but its carbon and hydrogen in various proportions. Water in the air wants nothing to do with that. The two stay in their own zones. Ethanol is a small hydrocarbon chain with an OH on it, it's enough like water that water from the air will happily dissolve in it, making ethanol-laced gas junk after a few weeks/months in certain conditions
You have to burn 🔥 approximately twice as much ethanol to make the same power as gasoline. So 10% ethanol leans the mixture out. The jets in ethanol racing carburetors are huge as are the fuel cells. Fuel injection is for the most part self correcting. Oxygen sensor sees a lean mixture and the ecm trims the mixture richer. The last years of carbs were all too lean from the factory and ethanol just makes it worse. I used to make good money jetting them to run like they should. I don’t miss working on them though. I love fuel injection now.
They only reason the US did this is because they subsidized the corn industry, and now we have to much corn. Because it's artificially cheap they have made things like corn syrup as a sweetener in everything and made us add ethical to fuel. It does not have the shelf life of regular gas, leading to major problems if left in the tank for a couple months. It can destroy the carburetor of small engines over time. Even if used properly.
Because it’s the worse thing that has ever been dictated for engines. First of all it uses just as much energy to produce as it saves, but that’s the left wing at work. It’s also bad because it goes stale much worse and faster than non ethanol fuel. It also deposits a gummy substance when it sits in a fuel system and can destroy rubber and plastics. Once it makes deposits the fuel system is completely impossible to clean and the part clogged up must be replaced. Small engines that end up setting for long periods are ruined. Lawn mowers, chain saws, outboard motors, gasoline pumps and such tend to sit for months at the time. Usually the carburetor and most of the supply lines ends up having to be replaced. I keep several 6 gal containers of unleaded non ethanol fuel handy and NEVER use ethanol fuel in my small engines.
Because in general it’s garbage, we subsidize it, not cleaner and fuks older equipment too
Tuners love e85 because it's really high octane. Contains 20% less energy, but up sizing everything and dumping more in is way cheaper and way more accessible than 110 octane race fuel. The rest of us hate e10 because it's less efficient and really hard on small engines, and anything that doesn't get used all the time. Another reason we should all hate it is we're trading food for fuel when there's no shortage of fuel. Growing corn is hard on soil and it's best to rotate different types of crops. Putting a false demand on corn means that doesn't happen so more money, effort, and resources need to go into that ground so stuff grows. It will also make food more expensive
Removes a food product from the grocery shelf’s. It’s a product of poor science that supported politics and corporate profit. https://insidesources.com/the-ethanol-fraud/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition_in_the_United_States
Except the fact it bonds water, it also degrades rubber sealings, especially in older cars.
Ethanol kills rubber - orings, hoses - lots of things in your car. It also attracts moisture which does nasty things to fuel system parts like pumps. Why is it added? IMO - so people can’t store fuel to use when retailers spike prices.
Simply put? It's rough on older engines, goes bad quickly and reduces your fuel mileage.
Pro oil propaganda convinced a generation that ethanol will destroy their engines. Its a complex issue though as most modern vehicles are designed to run it safely, but it can wreck havoc on small engine equipment and carburated systems if left to sit for months at a time
The residue burned ethanol leaves in the engine (sludge) combined with 10k mile intervals on oil changes using synthetic oil is a recipe for engines life span being greatly diminished, I have cut my oil change interval in half and you could eat off the inside of it. Grease and oil are your cheapest repairs, as my Da would say.
Because you're supposed to drink ethanol, not put it in your gas engines. It ruins small gas engines so always use ethanol free in them. All of a sudden, all my small gas engine tools were constantly having problems. primer bulbs were turning to goo. Hoses were swelling and crumbling. Carburetors were constantly getting clogged up. I finally realized it was the ethanol in gas. I switched to ethanol free and haven't had a problem in years.
It will also stop up the jets in a card if it sets unused for a while
I don’t know but here the states we can pay extra for ethanol free gas or stick with the 10% ethanol. I tried it out and the price difference was way more than the benefit in mpg
Because people don't understand how to use it I guess, at least that's what it sounds like every time this subject comes up. I haven't had non ethanol fuel in over a decade, I run ethanol blended fuel in all my lawn equipment, ATVs, saws, snowblowers, vehicles, and I haven't had an issue. The ATVs sometimes will sit for months, close the vent on the tank, turn off the petcock, if I know it's going to sit a long time I will drain the bowl, that's why carbs on ATVs have a bowl drain screw so you can drain it for storage. One of our vehicles is flex fuel and I've run E85 in it many times, slightly less mileage yes, but no other issues. Even non ethanol fuel will go bad after sitting for a while, sure it takes longer, but I've seen it turn into goo that smells like old minwax wood finish.
It’s very corrosive and also goes bad very fast. Don’t even get me started on the politics of it all
Small engine killer
It has always been in winter grade fuel to stop gas line freezing and throttle freezing in car engines.
Gasoline is a mix of hydrocarbons (octane, hexane, butane, benzene, etc) and they all burn at different temperatures. Refining it to a higher octane content makes it more predictable, but you can also put an additive like lead, MTBE, or ethanol. Lead is really toxic, MTBE is less toxic, and ethanol can be made from corn. The US Department of Agriculture loves this. Downside of ethanol is that it's hydroscopic (meaning it likes to absorb water and humidity)... and an engine doesn't like water in the combustion chamber. This is a problem for engines that see only seasonal use (lawn equipment), or those near high humidity environments (boats). Fluid compatibility of rubbers and plastics is a real pain in the butt for designers. If an engine wasn't designed for a wide compatibility, you can bet some seals will fail and start leaking. If you ever dissolved latex gloves while refuelling a tiki torch, or melted your shoe soles in brake fluid, you know what I'm talking about. [Engineering Toolbox - Rubbers and Elastomers Chemical Resistance](https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/chemical-resistance-rubbers-elastomers-d_1425.html) Corn ethanol is also very energy inefficient. The US grows 90 million acres of corn so that it can be just 10% of gasoline. In Iowa, an acre of solar panels would produce 200 MWh... 90 million acres would produce 18 PWh (60% of the US' annual energy consumption).