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Originally Posted by bwilson4web
About four years ago, I tested our Gen-1 and Gen-3 using up to E85. I found that mixing E50 worked without the check engine light. Above this ratio, the error code was a mixture limit (if I remember correctly.) Regardless, the car worked with the spark advanced due to the higher octane rating. I had one start failure on a freezing temperature morning but the second attempt worked fine. Unfortunately, I found it impractical.
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Makes me remind of some media reports about people running straight ethanol in gasoline-powered cars in 2001, before the first flexfuels hit the market in Brazil. My stepmother's older son once inquired me about it in 2008 or 2009, and I explained him the EFI could self-adjust to compensate for the difference in octane rating, but the rougher idling right after a cold start was unavoidable.
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The retail price for E85 was significantly higher than the wholesale price of gasoline at 15% and ethanol at 85% ratio. This made E85 too expensive to use versus E10, the cheapest.
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Ethanol price had been high in Brazil, but it's still usually not higher than gasoline. OTOH it's still not economically viable anymore, as it doesn't offset the lower fuel-efficiency since the difference to gasoline price had been lower than 30%.