E15 fuel may harm your vehicle's engine...
 

https://www.consumeraffairs.com/news...es-engine.html

The (EPA) recently approved the use of E15 gasoline -- a blend of 15 percent ethanol in a gallon of gasoline. While that may be good news for the nation's farmers, AAA warns that could be bad news for your vehicle's engine.

The auto club went public with its concern because of a survey showing 95 percent of consumers have not heard of the new fuel blend. At the same time, only five percent of cars on U.S. highways have been approved by their manufacturers to use the fuel.

...

The problem is that only about 12 million out of the more than 240 million light-duty vehicles on the roads today are approved by manufacturers to use E15 gasoline, based on a survey conducted by AAA of auto manufacturers. AAA automotive engineering experts also have reviewed the available research and believe that sustained use of E15 in both newer and older vehicles could result in significant problems such as accelerated engine wear and failure, fuel-system damage and false “check engine” lights for any vehicle not approved by its manufacturer to use E15.

Currently almost all gasoline sold at service stations contains 10 percent ethanol. Congress passed the law mandating the additive as a means to stretch the nation's gasoline supplies. But many automobile engines don't run as well on the fuel.

In addition, marine engines have trouble with the fuel blend. Many marinas now sell more expensive gasoline that does not contain the additive.

Dirty little secret is this, the powers that be think only they should drive, way too many older cars on the road, thanks to fuel injection engines last twice as long as they used to, ethanol is a stop gap way to eliminate them earlier,

Bwah ha ha.

I'd run it in my '59 Chevy and I wager nothing bad would come of it.

That is if you can even find a gas station selling E15. I haven't seen one yet.

Most all stations here in MN have e10 87 octane as the base fuel and its been that way for many years here. I haven't seen any e15 pumps yet but we have a few e85 pumps here in the metro area.

The thing that gets me is if you want completely ethanol free fuel, which I prefer to run in my marine engine, lawnmower, etc, we have only a few select gas stations here that sell non-oxy fuel and last summer I paid almost a dollar extra per gallon for it over the base e10 87 octane. Its popular with hot rodders, boaters, etc that know the trouble ethanol laced fuel can be when run in older carburated machinery.

As kind of a poor mans experiment, my uncle filled a clear mason jar filled with e10 87 octane and let it sit for several weeks. At about the 4th week it started to break down and looked to turn to varnish. Don't imagine older fuel systems can run very effieciently on this sludge.

Not cool to have your boat motor start running badly or quit altogether out on the water on a nice sunny weekend day because you ran crappy ethanol laced fuel in it-hint speaking from personal experience.

All I ask is give the consumer a CHOICE. I don't mind if they offer %100 ethanol fuel for those that want it, but please leave us that want, the choice to get regular ethanol free fuel without a large mark-up in price.

Small engines are a problem, always have been as far as I know. They're finicky since the carbs have such small orifices. Fuel injected engines don't have those problems as far as I know.

Stabil makes a ethanol additive that works pretty well from what I hear. The father in law just pours in some seafoam in with his gas into the lawn mower and says he hasn't had any hiccups since he started doing so (vs previous he did have issues). So, IMO its not a big deal, you just have to know how to deal with it.

I drove 60 miles to get E0 fuel when I first got the Fiesta. Cost about 60 cents a gallon more than regular E10. Closest station of two in the next county. I could not justify the expense with the savings, not even close. The Fiesta fuel log shows when I stopped using E0 and my 41 year old Honda CB350 runs fine on E10, but I do use mid range in the bike. The bike started running rough until I replaced the original 41 year old points and condenser. Now it runs great on E10. I use stabilizer and every couple months drain the bikes and put it in the truck to get rid of hte gas before it gets too old. I have a 5 gallon plastic gas can with stabilized gas to put in the bikes when I ride them.

regards
Mech

Isn't that what we have? :confused:

Just saw article in local paper
 

Good grief. Does it still take more energy to make ethanol than it provides?

Luckily in Detroit there are lots of choices of non-Ethanol fuel. The entire gas station will either have all pumps with a sticker about E-10, or no sticker, hence no ethanol.

Same Price. Sometimes, E10 is pricier at Sunoco than E0 at Speedway across the street. Go figure. Less energy per gallon and pricier? Speedway is always busier of the 2 of them.

Unless they start making different shape nozzles to work with different cars, I see zero good of this, except for corn lobbies.

It is hard enough to get people to inflate tires or add washer fluid. Now the non-attention paying American can blindly go and put stuff in that may void their warranty without realizing it.

What a country... start making ethanol off of waste grasses and products, that provide more energy than they consume during production, then efforts such as E-15 may be worth it for consumers and manufacturers. But foisting this, afte the E-85 did not gain traction like corn states hoped, is just a second attempt at the same bad idea IMHO. Corn should be food first. Does more good. Our cars don't eat ethanol very well yet.

Off of soap box...

drainoil check out TCW3, i think you will be amazing by what people are saying.
i haven't tried it out yet but I am very close.
i will also post a new thread on this soon, as it has been around a while but not talked about much here in regards to mpg, and ethanol effects.

Frank,
Yes we still do but maybe I should have said maintain the availabilty, even though its on a limited basis in my area.

Prophecy99,
I will check out the TCW3, hopefully it will work on older carbureated fuel systems to.

I don't have time to hunt for it now, but I recall once seeing a comparison showing how much less efficient and more pollutants emitted ethanol based fuel is compared to ethanol free fuel.

The simple FACT that the auto manufacturers will NOT cover WARRANTY damages caused by using E15 sorta stands & speaks for itself, regardless of why.

Last I heard, all vehicles post 2001 (I believe) are fine and covered by warranties. Anything pre 2001 may not be.

ethanol will burn hotter than gasoline so in older engines using valves made with certain metals, it can burn the valves. i would wager that most engines designed in the last 15-20 years would be fine running e15.

most in the last 20 yrs can run e85 if you are aware of the caveats.

i'm not aware of any plan to replace e10 with e15. but who knows, maybe its being considered...?

...a secret gooberment covert plan to incrementally "inch" us into E85 or Etanol like Brazil?

Manufacturers on the record against it
 

"Five manufacturers (BMW,Chrysler, Nissan, Toyota and Volkswagen) are on record saying their warranties will not cover fuel-related claims caused by the use of E15. Seven additional automakers (Ford, Honda,Hyundai, Kia, Mazda, Mercedes-Benz and Volvo) have stated that the use of E15 does not comply with the fuel requirements specified in their owner’s manuals and may void warranty coverage.

The only vehicles currently approved by automakers to use E15 are flex-fuel models, 2001 modelyear and newer Porsches, 2012 model-year and newer GM vehicles and 2013 model-year Ford vehicles."

:(

Here is the short article:

http://www.springerpublishing.com/ar.../12-03/t-4.pdf

This is from the local paper I am talking about. Called Tech Center News. The GM Tech Center in Warren is just a few miles away, so this newspaper is at all local establishments.

http://techcenternews.com/

I am taking this articles word for it BTW in terms of the manufacturers stance, I have not looked them up independently.

I guess AAA and the corn lobby run in 2 different circles in Washington.

...and, those 2 different circles be: cornpone and corn-whiskey :p

Not farmers, Monsanto.

not likely.

Ethanol Labeling Laws - State by State Guide.

Michigan requires absolutely no labeling when there is ethanol present and it sucks. almost a 100% certainty that you're getting between 5 and 10% ethanol-laden fuel from those stations as well, especially with no difference in price.

that stinks
 

So either:

1. Sunoco losing business by having old stickers (perhaps from previous law?)

or

2. They have stickers because they may be HIGHER THAN 10%, but LESS THAN 15% (would that require labels in MI?)

I guess I am going to join Prophecy99's test fleet for TC-W 3 synthetic 2 stroke oil (1 oz. per 5 gallons) sooner rather than later:

http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...tml#post343402

until very recently, the EPA had never approved blends above 10% with the exception of E85, so i doubt this is the case.

most major cities actually have their own subset of fuel laws as well that effect the types of fuel you can access. i know Chicago does, the fuel i've gotten there has always been quite disappointing.

I just can't believe that the change of 10 to 15% can really affect anything in the fuel system, I think the manufacturers are just looking for a way out of any fuel related warranty claims.

I have no problems with E10 in small engines, just don't store long term (months) with fuel in carbs without Stabil.

That may be so.

Got me thinking of an analogy (if this even makes sense:D) in the very noticeable difference between say an American light beer thats around say 4% alcohol content and an Ice beer that is 6% or close to 7% alcohol content, there is a pretty noticeable affect it has on the human body:D So a 5% increase in alcohol content in fuel I would say is a considerable increase, and if the fuel system was not designed to handle it???

well..... it is a 50% increase from the current levels of ethanol in gasoline...

There are some who say that E10 or E15 are actually worse than E5 and E20.

I've had to replace fuel pumps because of E10. Stupid rubber gasket dissolving stuff that stays in my tank too long because I don't drive as much as I should. :rolleyes: Unfortunately, thanks to government mandate, 90% of the fuels on the market here are E10.

Talked to the manager of one of the big Euro brands around here. He hates the stuff. Tells his customers to stick to high octane boutique fuels without E10, because he gets too many cars coming in due to varnish in the fuel systems.

If you only drive your car occassionally, E10 can be a very costly mistake.

Oh Lord, don't start... :D

Shortly after ethanol was first used in fuel here years ago, a friend in the petroleum industry said that the ag corporations involved in the ethanol plan soon bypassed the midwestern corn farmer and purchased cheaper corn from South American farmers instead so they could pocket the difference. That move put the hurt on the midwest corn farmers as the public advertising campaign touted using ethanol in gasoline as a move to be "green" and would help the local farmer and thus the local economy.

Monsanto is very very big corporate powerhouse that has powerful and connected lobbyists that could put them as the driving force behind this push for more corn fuel. Its all about money.

It never did,* and it still doesn't.

Every one who makes the "energy-negative" argument is referencing a study by Prof. Pimental, of Cornell U. Some years ago, he put out a deeply-flawed study that said ethanol production was, indeed, energy negative.

Subsequent follow-up studies failed to reach the same conclusion, and closer examination of the data shows several issues, the most glaring of which was no accounting was made for the post-fermentation "distiller's grain" that passed along the majority of the food energy to its original purpose of livestock feed. (Apparently Pimental assumed a hole was dug, and...)

His original paper was co-authored by some others at UCBerkely, who later *had their names removed* from the paper due to the severity of the flaws. Yes, it was THAT bad!

*(Given the first two laws of thermodynamics, it follows that 1) energy cannot be created or destroyed and 2) all real-world energy conversion is <100% efficient at producing the desired result...so ALL energy conversion is "energy-negative." What the argument here is, effectively, "Well, the sun was gonna shine anyways...so we'll spot you the solar input...and it's STILL energy-negative!" All studies (save one notable exception) finds that--discounting solar input--ethanol production is modestly energy-positive.)

Untill recently trying to maximum MPG, I've used E10 excusively (some E85 in FFV cars) for the last 25 years, I've replaced one fuel pump (Malibu at about 200,000 miles, now 250,000) Stratus 230,000 and others to almost 200,000 no other fuel pumps or fuel related problems.

I have had to clean a few motorcycle carbs that where dirty when I bought them, but never had to mess with again running E10.

E15 has about 2% less energy than E10, I doubt many carb's are tuned that close that 2% less with make them run lean.

tried the tc w 3 in the inboard boat and the Ranger and seems to smooth it out a bit , I've tried it before but just wondering how it might effect the o2 which of course would hurt mileage if it goes out of range

Thanks for energy input info, I take your word for it.
 

I appreciate the correction. I should do more research, but I was under the impression that was the case. Tell a lie long enough and people will believe it is true I suppose.

Just goes to show that even the most OCD of us in researching "why we believe what we believe" can fall into the page one trap of 'big headlines, repeated often', then miss the correction the on page 2 in small font...

I still wish the labeling laws were better in Michigan; I ate crow on that one yesterday. It turns out I have been avoiding a particular gas station since they have labels stating they have E10. I probably have had E5 to E10 all along at all the other stations I frequent, probably for years.

Maybe all states stop at E10, nothing higher, and call it a day, we blindly go about our business as American consumers? No harm, no foul to most cars.

Anything beyond that (E15 etc), and Monsanto and others interested in the ethanol market better have a long term phase in plan with the OEM's and states, and as consumers, we ought to know where our fuel is coming from, and, how it affects our cars perfomance and longevity.


Now a bit off topic, but maybe you know answers or have researched about these questions...

I will start a new thread, if needed, but I want facts to support that Ethanol is a good long term thing, for cars, the environment, for farmers, for food prices, for our land quality, etc. If not, then, well, if it bothers me that much, maybe I will be proactive in the democratic processes of our country...

Here is my belief: My belief is that corn should be food, then feed, and then fuel. Am I misinformed on that? Seriousy, I think that makes sense, but I am willing to stand corrected... Is corn much more complicated in its uses and process by-products than this simplification?

Does ethanol negatively impact availablity, price, and quality of our nations food supply and the soil on where it is grown?

Not being rhetorical, I just know that some people state Monsanto is evil, and that the ethanol push has more to do with what they want, vs. what is best for our crops, food prices, and land quality?

In other words, even if Ethanol is produced as efficient as it can be from food source type foods (barring cellulosic processes), is it still the 'the right thing to do' for the 'greater good' of our country and future generations, assuming my weighting of food first, feed second, fuel last?

That is off topic for ecomodder etc, but if I am going to alter my thinking, and not dissmiss Ethanol as a legitimate fuel source, worthy of our consumption, then those are the questions I might ask...

Petroleum use is not ideal either, neither is coal, CNG, etc. But we do not EAT those things, at least not directly. Right now, my opinion of Ethanol, in its use as a fuel, is using more water and resources that can be used for better, more direct purposes, such as for food and drinking, and let the petroleum do what it does best, burn and create heat in engines...

As the great daox once stated to someone on this very topic, as an ecomodder, we deal with what we have avaialble. So as an ecomodder, I deal with E10.

Just can't help but wonder if we know as a nation what we have gotten ourselves into, that's all... more for a philosophy class I guess than for ecomodder...

the questions you raise have been debated and dissected pretty thoroughly before on the forum.

TC-W 3: The LS1 forum and BITOG threads answer this question
 

From what I have read, on the Bob Is The Oil Guy, and thread from 2008 on the LS1 site, the important aspect is that the fact it is an ashless TC-W3 is what makes it OK in modern cars

Along with the 640:1 mix ratio, which means very insignificant amount of heavy metals that can contaminate an O2 or CAT.

NOTE: The ASH type, (TC or similiar), 2 stroke oil is NOT what you want to use.

The KEY is "TC-W 3" oil. By any manufacturer, it is ashless, with lubricants and solvents to do the job that the other forums have researched and tested to be correct and useful.

But, I am just repeating what I have read so far, as its job as an Upper Cylinder Lubricant, and to help (hopefully) negate any ethanol related issues, even if E10 is OK and not seeming to have issues with your car.

Yeah I know, but...
 

Hi Frank, the one I read yesterday was shut down by daox earlier this year, since it was getting between a flame battle between a couple of guys...

daox wanted to keep people focused on ecomodding, not the bigger questions of our time, which is fair for this forum...

But I threw my questions out there because I never saw a conclusion. It was one guy saying, deal with it, buy a newer used car that can handle E-10, and the other guy saying, why should I have to... ethanol is bad for X, Y and Z reasons beyond his older cars.

But there was no rebuttal that was disproving the big picture concerns. Then thread was locked.

So, I am dealing with it, of course. But curious, none the less, about the bigger picture that remains unanswered as to WHY ethanol is a fuel that makes sense vs petroleum, if the cost is somewhat reduced food supply (if that is even true; I don't know, hence my curiosity).


Back on topic now.
Gonna make sure I stay informed if E15 becomes avaialble, to steer people clear of it unless their car manufacturer says it is OK for their year & model.

That's what happens when Gasoline is left exposed to the atmosphere. You didn't know that? :confused: The fuel systems on new cars are sealed (with a vent for pressure buildup) to prevent the fuel being contaminated. Even Gasoline cans are sealed now.

Now if enough water gets into the fuel the Ethanol will separate. This is more of a problem for lower blends though.

There is a lot to cover. Best way to learn IMHO is to keep up on the scientific news, DOE, and even USDA reports. Even just looking at the GREET model helps. Notice there is a huge energy cost for Corn Ethanol but it takes far less Fossil fuels per mile and even less petroleum than straight Gasoline.

Due to Corn prices in the past E85 used to be attractive when there was excess supply but due to the demand for Ethanol for E10, E85 is now less than 1/10th the demand for Ethanol for E10. And they want to push for E15? :rolleyes: It is about the money.

The money is the biggest thing here, If you have a normal plastic jerry jug around notice how the outside turns black with mildew or mold in a short time, well that is the alcohol going through the plastic degrading back into a sugar and being used by the plants growing on your tank, also check around your gas filler pipe on your car, it's all black covered in plants, almost no plastic or rubber will contain this fuel , the coast guard even has a spec for how many grams of fuel can leak through a specified amount of rubber hose. I work on a fuel dock for boats and where the rubber hose lays on the wooden deck is all black for around 12 inches either side of the hose, where the diesel hose lays there is only clean wood, so the fumes that leak through the hose are feeding the black plants growing in the grain of the wood, but only on the gasoline side of the deck, very visible and only bleach will remove it. so what this stuff does to your fuel pump etc as it sits in your car is an issue for most .

Water intrainment in alcohol is *one* of the reasons that gasoline distribution hubs do NOT put the alcohol into the tank until the very last moment, ie: as they're pumping it into the truck-tanks before the start their delivery rounds to their gas station buyers.

I read where guys who run alcohol mixes in Go carts were adding 5 percent water to cool the combustion, may be some cash savings here for the daring !

Mix in too much water it binds with the E and settles to the bottom, that's how to measure amount of E in gas. How much is too much I have no idea. I've wondered how much H20 I could add to a tank and increase MPG. But the engineer in me think's in btu's so it wouldn't work, would it?