Removing Ethanol from Gasoline

[Nerys]

yes after waking up my goldwing this winter I will never put Ethanol fuel in it every again. Same with my power tools. No more E10. Period.

If they want to sell E10 I am fine with that but make it a CHOICE. 2 pumps E0 and E10 so we can CHOOSE based on the car and equipment we have. Thats all I want.

I think they want to BAN E0 because they don't want people to be able to SEE the dramatic difference in cost via lower FE that you get on E10 especially in older cars ie pre 2004.

[ShadeTreeMech]

The 2 tanks I used E85 I was traveling out of town, once in October 09 and the other time it was Thanksgiving of 09. E85 isn't available within 100 miles of here, so I cannot claim much consistency. And to be quite honest I topped off with E85 more than the two tankfuls, but in all fairness, there was still plenty of E0 in there.

In both instances I'm claiming 95% E85 in the tank, it was on the second refill of the stuff. There was a lot of mixed driving, and a lot of highway driving, with some aggressive driving thrown in (I get a bit impatient sometimes.) Both times I came home with at least 3/4 a tank left, and ran the tank low both times with our normal driving.

IIRC, the E85 was $2.01 a gallon, and regular gas was $2.35. I get an average of 20-21 mpg fairly regularly, so I figured the percentage of difference in price and used that percentage to figure my minimum MPG needed to break even. I came up with low 17 mpg, and ended up actually getting like 17.5 mpg. So yeah, it was cheaper to run the E85, but not by much. On the second tank I think the amount of "free" miles was even lower, but then again I broke even. I wish I had written the numbers down, but I didn't, so this is from memory, and my wife assures me I'm pretty close to accurate as best she can remember.

The EPA averages are (city-highway-combined)
(old) 17-23-20
(new)16-21-18

I suspect there is a bit of error in my figuring, but then again I've been figuring my MPG since 1999 so I've a bit of practice. My favorite car, an 83 Nissan Sentra, got about 37 MPG, whcih turned up to be about 100 miles per quarter tank. On an exceptional tank I was on mile 450 before filling up and was just under 40 mpg. Of course, I did love using the AC in that car!

The only thing I can think of that may have helped boost my economy a bit with the E85 is my engine is always on the brink of wanting to octane knock. The first engine I had was really bad about it, and the newer one does it on occasion. Since E85 has a higher octane rating, maybe removing the chance of octane knock helped.

[Nerys]

So your normal highway is 23. the new 21mpg is your E10 highway. 17.5 is your E85 recorded.

$2.01 for E85 and $2.35 for E10 (this is not a valid comparison mind you since you were NOT geographically in the same place the only way to make this valid is for you to tell me what E10 cost around where you got the E85 for $2.01

For example I can not fairly compare NJ and PA gas because gas is a lot CHEAPER in NJ than it is in PA for the exact same gas only 6 miles apart from each other over the burlington bristol bridge about 30 cents difference.

On E10 you get 20.5 (I split the difference between 20 and 21)

On E10 your cost is 11.46 cents per mile 11.19 cents per mile if you get 21mpg
On E85 your cost is 11.48 cents per mile

You save nothing. its break even at 20.5 mpg you lose half a cent a mile at 21mpg but had to drive 100 miles to get it :-) and probably did some harm to your fuel system in the process (but just a tank or 2 on a relatively modern vehicle probably won't kill it)

Its interesting that you only lost 23.91% of your fuel economy on E85 compared to your normal 23mpg on E0 - mathematically thats not possible I would be curious as to whats going on inside your engine OR maybe you did not get E85 maybe it was lower E like E60 which would give you about what you got. (E85 means "upto" 85% ethanol it can be lower just like E10 means "upto" 10% ethanol wawa gives me 6-8% which is why I go their :-) Its also possible the E10 already in your tank mixed with the added E85 to average it out at about E60 (which would get you about the 24% loss the numbers show) but you say your second tank was ALSO E85 and yet got the same 17.5mpg. Very strange indeed.

Either way I am curious how you came up with the figures you did. all of mine say you lose on E85 no matter what MPG figures I use for your vehicle.

BTW your break even mpg using 2.01 for E85 and 2.35 for E10 is 17.54 mpg and this still ignored geographical price differences. I can take advantage of the cheaper NJ gas because "I WORK" in NJ so I always pass the cheaper NJ gas. it would not be worth going to NJ for gas if I did not work their because I would have to pay the $2 bridge toll which would each up the cost savings of the 30cents a gallon cheaper gas plus the gas to DRIVE their and get it.

Lets not forget about the indirect costs of using corn for car fuel such as arable land and food prices and subsidies that are paid back via increased taxation etc..

[Nerys]

BTW your lowest gas prices in Arkansas today is 2.54 (ranges between 2.52 and 2.56)

your lowest E85 prices whatever they are will be OVER or much closer to 2.54 a gallon because gasoline is currently trading at lower prices per unit than ethanol is at least it was a few months ago. Could be different now.

There are 14 E85 stations in Arkansas let me know what the price is TODAY for E85 and what your local station you use charges for the E10 your putting in your tank.

[ShadeTreeMech]

There aren't any E85 stations anywhere near here, so i rarely have a chance to use it. And the prices I quoted were from the same station. The regular may very well have had E10, idk. But where I live, you can't harldy find gas with ethanol in it, much less E85. In fact, some stations advertise ethanol free gas.

It is possible, even likely, that the price difference has changed and i just haven't a clue about it. It seems you came up with a very similar figure as i did, however, I generally go by 20 mpg when figuring mileage simply because that had been my running average since replacing the engine. And it may have been a lot of highway miles, but in Arkansas, it is difficult to get highway economy due to the hills and corners. Now that the engine is "broke in" I think it is getting better economy, but haven't been able to check lately.

Nect time I get a chance I'll get E85 and take better notes. I've been wracking my brain for all the details the past couple days, but i'm plumb out. I do remember needing to get 17 mpg and just barely exceeding the goal.

I know the old girl had a bit more get up and go on the E85, which is why I liked it.

[rmay635703]

Ethanol does not always negate fuel economy. My dodge and buick in the winter running a 50/50 mix (or a little better on e85) were always able to get the same FE that I could expect from the normal Kwiq trip garbage.

In fact on the dodge I was up a MPG compared to normal but the effect does not seem to run into summer. Although my FE was almost within the margin of error lower on both vehicles. Given its $0.60-$1 less around here it is generally worthwhile since my FE is indistinguishable.

Winter gas must suck.

[comptiger5000]

It definitely depends on the engine, its compression ratio, timing and other tuning factors. Some will be a more ethanol-friendly tune than others.

[Nerys]

in theory your engine should be irrelevant. You can not extract more energy than what is available. E85 has at least 35% less ENERGY thank Regular Gas does so it "must" give you at least 35% less fuel economy. (unless an E85 specific engine can be more efficient than a gas engine???) maybe thats possible I really don't know. but I do know that in a designed for gas engine you SHOULD see a 30-35% drop in FE with E85 unless they are not running TRUE E85. would be interesting to get a test kit and measure the Ethanol content of the E85.

Yeah what you saw was the reduced efficiency of the winter blend gas. You did not see the same drop in the E85 because IT IS winterized so to speak. IE they don't have to do anything special to E85 in the winter so you get the same FE. This is why the equal FE does not hold into summer. Once your on summer blend then your getting the "right" FE.

I would love to see if you get the 23 rated mpg by getting the ethanol free gas for a few weeks. Would make for some good data for sure!

I have a feeling your data is distorted a little. IE your doing more Highway miles on the E85 and more CITY miles on the E10 which would cloud the difference.

I say this because you mentioned that the E85 was over 100 miles away from you which tends to mean you were doing "highway miles" when you used it.

[ac6404]

Completely aside from performance issues, I really just don't like E-85 and the likes, it's just an excuse to continue subsidizing corn and building up ridiculous surpluses while cause enourmous topsoil degredation and pollution due to agricultural runoff. Corn takes a LOT of nitrogen fertilizer to grow.

Thats just my ethanol rant....

[comptiger5000]

Nerys - E85 tuned engines can be more efficient (although not enough to fully make up the economy difference). Being that E85 has higher octane, they can have significantly higher compression (which makes them more efficient), as well as aggressive timing advance. That also lets them make more power.