"I want to tinker with my Mercedes Sprinter to improve MPG."--friend
 

My friend, who totally exists, but you wouldn't know him, he attends another high school, works in Germany on U.S. military bases, so he gets American fuel prices in Germany.

America!

So, of course I asked "Have you considered covering the grill with Gorilla Tape?! :)" I then linked the 65+ Efficiency Mods and 100+ Hypermiling Tips.

It seems like everyone who tries ethanol-free fuel notices an instant improvement.

Do you guys have any idea what went wrong with his A-B-A testing? Do you have any easy ecomods for the Sprinter (besides driving the Golf when possible)?

What went wrong with his testing? Theoretically there would be a 3% change between E10 and E0. Being that I can’t see a easy way to test fuels back to back to back A-B-A, you would be doing good to have less variation with no changes. Sounds like great testing procedures.

An italian tuneup?

Is your friend seeing the effects of seasonal temperature changes? The average gas mileage of my truck changes 1.0 MPG per 10 deg F temperature change. That's about 0.2 L/100 km.

This is the first thing that came to mind for me too.

my gas milage is better this winter i don't use the heater

but I have heated seats
heated seats is Higher efficiency then using the cars heat to warm the inside

as the heat is directly applied to the person in the seat

I think that even though its easy to quantify the difference in energy between E10 and pure dinosaur based fuel, different engines will get differing results depending on what they do as a result of the higher octane rating that ethanol fuel normally has.

Does California even have winter? :p It's currently 2° F here and windy.

California has multiple micro climates so fuel providers blend for an average and may blend for one area when they load a truck. Where I lived in the mountains they added anti gel D1, which they sold in Mojave and Kernville both much lower elevation. Where he lives, Smell-A, it gets worse smog in the winter, so they may blend an even less BTU fuel.

The trees do experience frosts even in San Diego and tomatoes are an annual.

My question: Is you friend actually using E0 fuel in Germany? A quick google says Germany switch from E5 to E10 as the standard blend in 2011.

Next question: How many tanks of base gas did the friend use. Fuel mileage varies from tank to tank so 1 or 2 tanks is not enough to tell anything unless he is running a dedicated fuel economy testing loop that he does everything the same.

No, he didn't hurt is car by running E10. VW made their cars E10 compatible in 1986.

I also really doubt the US army is shipping gasoline from the USA to Germany for private cars to use. The fuel sold on base is very likely local gas sold without Germany taxes.

What went wrong? Nothing. But his record-keeping probably sucks. If he can't produce a record of every tank of gas, his claim that it "got" 8L/100km intially but somehow "gets" 11L/100km now is dubious.

Even then, it doesn't really tell us anything. If you look at my fuel log, the first summer I had the Prius I had several tanks in a row over 60mpg; since then, 60mpg tanks have been infrequent. The car didn't change; my driving did. That summer I had a 56 mile commute (one way) on a 55 mph highway, ideal conditions for good fuel economy. Now, my daily commute is less than 5 miles and longer trips are almost exclusively interstate at 65+ mph. My driving profile changed, and this had a profound effect on the fuel economy my car returned.

So, before we can diagnose anything we need to ascertain if his claim is legitimate in the first place. And we can't do that without a LOT more information.

Hold on, let me book a flight and supervise him filling up!

I was curious how he knows he is getting E0. Do they have ethanol labeling laws like the USA? I haven't gassed up a car in Germany for about a decade I didn't see any reference to ethanol in more recent trips to southeastern Europe.

American bases have American pumps. I am confident he goes out of his way to avoid filling up off-post.

As noted above, it is hard to believe the military ships fuel from the US for their bases in Germany. Surely it is local fuel that is sold on base.

On the other hand, it is a government bureaucracy in charge and thus there are unlimited taxpayer dollars involved. Perhaps they are using air tankers from the US to fly in gasoline for those soldiers, a legacy from the 1947 Berlin airlift crisis that they never bothered to stop :-)

A unit supply room ordering ballpoints and AAA batteries through the normal supply chain will order by NSN and get them shipped from higher, which eventually gets them from the States. But I'm sure AAFES sources the gas locally.

But because I know what goes into mileage, I always assume that anyone complaining about mileage is talking out his ass.

Better Quality control They just go out of the way so they don't get sabotaged/tampered with fuel duh.. E0 has a longer shelve life as well..


I'm sure they test the fuel as well before putting it in the main fuel tanks as well as a lab test. for water contamination .


or they got onsite inspectors when it gets loaded onto a fuel truck if it's locally sourced...


it mostly comes down to sabotage

You've never been in, have you?