Hello,
I have a 2000 1 ton Dodge camper van. I just saw this link to a story (http://video.foxbusiness.com/v/2000862202001) about the dangers to your engine of using E15 gasoline, which is 15% ethanol. So if E15 is bad for your engine, what about E10, which almost all gas stations now sell? So I'm curious what others are doing about this? Are you avoiding any gas with ethanol, or are you using a gas additive, or just not worrying about it? It seems to me that when I put an E10 gasoline in my van, I have engine knocking, where I don't if I use gasoline without any ethanol.

 

All gas has at least 5% Ethanol (burnable way to water down gas even more to make more profit for gas companys). E15 is too high for most cars, the higher the E rate the more air your vehicle needs to burn it and the faster your vehicle will burn threw it. Just look at the flex fuel vehicles (avg MPG between gas and E85), it will take twice if not more the amount of E85 to go as far as you can with 1 tank of just reg 87 gas.

With todays fuels, I run a fuel system cleaner threw it more often. I thought building them to fall apart and/or fail within 5 years was bad enough, now they have a better way to make job security for mechanics and stealerships/dealerships.
They figure that the avg person (who is in the top 20%) changes vehicles every 3 years, top 40% every 5 years (and they don't care about anyone below the top 40% income rate) so most vehicles are built to fail within the 5 year time.

If they still built them like they did in the 30's and 40's (tanks that could with stand the test of time), then most auto makers would be out of business by now due to lack of new car sales.

So stick with 87 rate gas as much as you can, as they are not ment to burn the higher Ethanol rated fuels that are out there. The PCM/ECM is not programmed to handle it and your motor will fail.

Also food for thought, some people want to save a few cents per gal when they add fuel. Sadly it takes 10 gals or more to make any savings. 87 oct $2.78 / 91 oct $2.88 dif $0.10 per gal x's 10 gal = $1.00 difference ... 87 oct $2.78 / E15 $2.58 x's 10 gal = $2.00 difference (but using E15 ends up costing you the motor over time using E15 ... New motor $2,600 plus labor .... so no real savings at all)

 

Yeah, well, I don't know about all of that stuff above but I can tell you this...

The engine in your van was designed to run on pure gasoline without the addition of ethyl alcohol. With E10 most cars don't behave too badly but they will exhibit slightly diminished fuel economy. I would recommend you stay away from E15 and certainly NEVER use E85.

Cars that can use E85 (FLEX Fuel and FFV) have systems designed for ethanol and as far as I know they do run fine, but fuel economy is definitely diminished in these vehicles versus running pure gasoline.

You may wish to check to see if you are due for a tune-up, and also use pure gasoline without the addition of ethanol. You will pay more at the pump for pure gasoline, tho.

 

Pure Gas is there such a thing any more? I don't know of any station that has PURE GAS any more, with all the additives and chems they add to gas now, pure gas when out long long long time ago.

 

In the context of my post "Pure Gas" means gasoline without added ethanol since I was, in fact, discussing E10, E15 and E85.

 

I noticed something that was pointed out in the video ethanol actually lowers the octane rating. That is not good for our engines need 87 octane and are only getting 84, no wonder we are having the pinging in our engines.

I wish there were stations around me that sold straight 87 octane gasoline instead of the E-10 garbage being pushed upon us.

 

If the pump advertises 87 octane then it MUST deliver 87 octane fuel by law. I'm not sure I agree that ethanol lowers the rating -- E85 is rated at 105 Octane. Maybe something strange happens to the alcohol when it is mixed with gasoline? I don't know. I do know that water contamination and/or phase separation will lower the octane of E10 by 3 to 4 points so maybe your video was about contaminated or expired fuel. I have read that ethanol fuel blends expire after 90 days and may expire even sooner after exposure to moisture.

Where is a chemist when you need one?