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been doing pen and paper MPG for 35 years. Gotta Civic HX as a puttputt, has a VTEC-E lean burn engine, used to get 41 to 43 MPG over tens of thousands of miles, same job, same home. With the switch to 10% ethanol I'm at about 36 MPG... that is a massive drop. My other cars have also dropped by say 3% to 5%, they are newer cars BTW. The Civic goes into lean burn when a set of conditions are met and the A/F is closely watched via 5 wire wide band 02s. My thinking is the engine never goes into lean burn anymore cause it is already running lean. The VTEC goes from 12 valve lean burn to 16 valve power mode and that still works, all the normal things have been checked over and over like pumping compression, timing, fuel pressure, EGR ports, back pressure in the exhaust. I can only conclude my economy car really does not function well on 10% booze. I do. I should note the power is down too. This is a high geared small engine and the drop in power is noticeable, it is almost like running the A/C all the time.
My Challenger is down about 3% in MPG, and my Volvo is down about 3% also, my turbo Volvo seems to like 10% booze, but it is chipped and has other performance mods so it maybe using the extra octane. dunno.
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