Damage from ethanol

Makes little difference in my Prius, in fact I had my best tank ever on E10 at 4.0L/100km

 

Well, I am be willing to conceed the possibility that is was not the ethanol, but I don't have to worry about that where I live. None of the stations I use have ethanol in their gasoline. This means that I can avoid it with no troubles. However, should I need to fuel up at a station that DOES have ethanol I may give it a try again.

The drop in MPGs is NOT as expected due to the laws of physics though. I said that my average MPGs for the entire trip dropped from 52 mpg to 50 mpg. I had 2000+ miles into my trip at that point. So take 2000 miles, divide by 52 (miles per gallon), and you get a result of about 38.5 gallons of fuel having been used at that point. I fueled up with 10 gallons of fuel. So add 10.5 to 38.5 and we get a total of 48.5 gallons used at the next stop. The next time I HAD to fuel (at two pips) was in 342 miles. So we now add the mileage to the overall mileage. We have 2342 miles (I know this is simlified but bear with me). We also have 48.5 gallons used. What is the overall mile per gallon? 48.2 mpgs by the math. That one tank of gas did that. The question was what was the mpgs for that tank of gas. I don't know, but I know how averages work and that tells me it wasn't good. I understand the physics enough to understand that much, I just don't have enough information to say with any certainty what the mpgs were for that single tank of gas. My supposition from the information I have (the amount I put in: 10 gal. at the first stop and the amount I put in at the second stop : 10 gal. plus the miles driven in between stops: 342) is that I got about 35 miles to the gallon.

What can I think but that it was bad gasoline? Is it the ethanol, maybe and maybe not. Was it a bad tank of gas, yes. Is it still affecting my gas mileage, it seems to be, but we shall see the next time I drive more than ten miles.

As for the ideas that the system was dirty, the system is brand new. It has less than 5000 miles on it and has had gasoline from the same place until my trip north. I had GREAT gas mileage through the entire trip, traveling more than 450 miles with every fill-up before I felt like I needed to get some gasoline soon until that tank of gas I got in Virginia on the ride home. I don't think it did anything to the car itself, I think the cas simply burned up faster than all the other gasoline I had purchased since I bought my vehicle on October 6. It is also the only gas that I KNOW had ethanol in it. It isn't incontrovertible evidence, but it is enough to cause one to ask questions.

BTW, the farther away from that bad gasoline I get, the better my gas mileage gets. If it wouldn't cost too much, I would have the gas all pumped out and start from scratch.

 

Yeah. The price of gas here rises each day. If I could just do something about it. I am planning to shift using ethanol

 

I live in Upstate NY and ALL there is available is "E10". I still average from 45 to 48 and on hwy to NYC I can get 51-52. So, as far as I can see Ethenol does no harm. Soomeone else from my area (Kingston) wrote a letter to the newspaper about getting less mileage with her Prius after the station she goes to changed to ethenol but I have never noticed it.

 

OK, it was a tank of bad gas. I'll bet it was Brand Z gas and/or some podunk station that gets restocked once a month and thus was full of water. It's behind you now. Don't go there again :_>

 

No worries there. The station was in Virginia and more than 300 miles away from me. What surprises me is that it was Shell brand. I don't know the cause, but my mileage still hasn't recovered.

 

You might want to have your vehicle checked, because in places in VA at one time, they mixed too much ethanol in the gas. There were a bunch of damages noted, so many in fact that the media got involved, (it's out there on the web in several newspaper articles) and reported the problem, some had up to 57% ethanol!

I live here in VA, have been disgusted when they forced stations to sell E10 gas, and have recently found a station that has rebelled, and sells non-ethanol gas. I love it, so does all my lawn equipment, especially my two-stroke engines, and it returned Sparky to the 53.4+ mpgs I was getting before the change. I know this won't last forever, but as long as I can get pure gas, I'll use it! I don't want the problems associated with the alcohol! When they force everyone to go to the junk, I think I might have to invest in a test kit to see how much ethanol is in the gas before I fill up with it in case it has over 10%.

Road & Track just reported in their August 2009 issue that "Even the California Air Resources Board has said corn ethanol's overall emissions are worse than gasoline's". Amazing that Toyota said that long, long ago! So all of you ethanol supporters can forget railing me about not wanting to protect the environment. Being a diesel fuel injection technician since 1971, I will wager that any vehicle I have had has spewed less emissions in the air than the average vehicle since I kept them operating at peak condition!

NO ETHANOL FOR ME!!!!

 

First time post stirs up a 7-month old thread and is combative in nature.

That isn't suspicious.
.

 

No combative nature here. I am glad there is a choice, and we should be allowed to have that choice. When there is only one choice, and it is one that costs more to make, pays a government subsidy out of tax dollars, then is legislated and/or mandated to make people use it, be afraid, be very afraid. Ethanol works good in Chemistry class in the alcohol burners, but I don't want it in my gas! I am stating my opinion. You are certainly entitled to yours.