Premium fuel + E85?

Well, time to chill out. Putting "premium fuel" in a Prius, while a waste of money, won't harm anything. Also, you can, according to the owners manual (why doesn't anyone actually READ it? - not you OP, just in general) put in ethanol containing "up to 15% ethyl alcohol". So that would cover the proposed E15 the US is considering. Current fuel, regular, mid, or premium, can contain up to 10% ethyl alcohol, and is ok according to the manual.

What, exactly, would be harmed by E85, is not yet clear. Nobody who uses it has reported a problem, other than an occasional CEL. But most of us don't want to find out the hard way what may fail. Hence the warnings I and others have issued to this topic.

 

*sigh* just....*sigh*

 

There is probably some advantage to using "Top Tier" gas, I think it's more than a marketing gimmick. But, 87 octane Top Tier is good enough.

Top Tier Gasoline

 

In Japan, GAIAX alcohol fuel was sold 1999-2003.
Alcohol fuel - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"The fire accident from the vehicle where GAIAX was refueled began to be reported in around 2000 when the tax evasion discussion ended almost. The car industry in Japan criticized GAIAX , saying that "A fire broke out because high density alcohol had made them corrode the fuel pipe"".

In 2003, Japanese government issued the law revision that grounds not to be able to sell the fuel alcohol more than the E3 fuel in Japan.

Ken@Japan

 

Are Australian Prius' different to US models? Because in Australia we only have 91/E10, 95 and 98 unleaded, and my Prius' owners manual says it can use any of these fuels with no problems?

 

E85 here in Aus is on the way. Holdens current commodores are compatible with it. They have some agreement with CALTEX service stations from what i remember. If you google Holden and E85 you should find the info.
Prius is e10 compatible i filled up with the stuff today to see if there is any difference in this tank.
I wouldnt risk going e85 unless toyota says its ok but i doubt they would.
Regards

 

Oz uses the Euro octane rating system. 91 Euro is nominally the same as 87 US, so it's doubtful the Prii are different.

 

The Flex-fuel commodore is a great idea, I used to fill my Prius with E10, I find it makes my fuel use go up by about 0.2l/100km, maybe even worse in winter compared to normal 91 fuel. I'm currently using 4c/l discount vouchers to get 98premium, I've found my economy is about 0.2l/100km lower than 91, so I don't really mind using premium...

 

Wow really? Whats the point in two?

 

The Aus Prius enjoyed 104g/km of C02 on the combined cycle (same as euro), I don't know what the top speed is? I think it might be 185km/h ?

 

He might avoid doing it because the "bladder" in the gen 2 might dry out. I don't know what kind of plastic they used. I'm sure it's something resistant to being broken down by petroleum products, but alcohol is like a very dry anti-petroleum product.

So, I saw a few people ask why. I've been criticized on this myself when I did it on my gen 3. First of all, I recently decided to remove the e85 mod, that only modified ignition timing, but for other reasons. I did it because my efficiency was terribly low and power output was way down.

I actually ran the car on e85 for 30,000 miles. I had no problems at all whatsoever. In Illinois, in my community I paid an average of $0.30 less per gallon for the fuel. Half of my income originated in the sales of corn at the grain elevator.

When people get all holy and concerned over my car because I wanted to run e85 in it and start to call me stupid, I ignore them because it's that stupid corn that paid for the car in the first place. The car is extremely clean, the temperatures all ran about the same, and there has been no sign of any extra wear to any of the plastic parts.

I've had it looked over by two different shops, and they say they wouldn't recommend it because of everything they've been "told" but couldn't find a darned thing wrong or that looked like it was wrong, or even could become wrong. It's a modern day myth, and unless some car company decides to use really old out of date crappy plastics then it's going to be fine. Yeah, IF something goes wrong then if Toyota can PROVE it was the fuel that did it, your screwed. Same goes for any aftermarket mod.

 

Pearl has one cat. converter. I suspect the US one is the same. It has two O2 sensors though.

I can't comment on what exactly happens to a Prius running E85. All I can say about that is Toyota says "don't do it".

I -can- comment on the difference between a GM car with E85 rating and without. The entire fuel system is different. There is an extra module that senses what the alcohol ratio is in the fuel being used and adjusts the ECM accordingly. The fuel injectors are different. The fuel pump is different. Even the fuel manifold is different.

Finally, I can tell you that if E10 fuel was $2.50 / US gallon and E85 fuel was $2.20 / US gallon, you'd be loosing money fast running on E85 in a GM car designed for it. The mileage figures I've seen (real world) are atrocious. For example, a full size GM pickup ran around 15-20 MPG on E10 and 8-10 MPG on E85 (from Motorweek).

 

If I were running a GM car, I would. I don't know why but the Prius even though there is a higher number to loose, it didn't suffer too badly from an efficiency standpoint. HOWEVER, the power output was much less. I decided like you, it wasn't worth it in the end. I spend so little on fuel the way it is, I decided to remove the mod. However, everything is perfectly fine car wise.

The main mods on a GM car, are fuel pump size, sometimes the lines and filter will be upgraded for more flow. My observations reveal the Prius isn't particularly undersized fuel pump-line-filter wise, so since it uses less fuel and has less fuel flow even under full load, it's perfectly capable without any upgrade in that area. The mod that I used would fool the car into thinking the gas was lower octane, so that it would be capable of adjusting for various high octane fuels. Apparently the car can adjust down pretty easily for crappy lower octane fuels which can happen in station tanks. The car isn't capable of adjusting for really high octane fuels though. So this sort of levels the playing field somehow. Personally, I think the car would have operated on e85 without that mod too. Anyways in the end, I'm just deciding no. The lower output just isn't worth it to me.

I can't wait until I can go full electric. That will fix all of my problems.

Oh, I missed the "fuel manifold" comment, is it really different? I believe you I just find it interesting. hmm. Perhaps optimized somehow for the fuel. I think I had good luck with the e85 in the 3rd gen Prius because of the higher compression ratio the atkinson cycle uses.

Thanks for your input. It seems that overall, we have both reached the same conclusion. If I was REALLY into corn as a fuel I would go for it anyway, but the savings were negligible when everything was taken into account.