E15 is coming!

[JohnnyO]

I should have been more specific in OP. I don't want to discuss if its okay for my car. I want to ask if we will be able to purchase fuel with less than 15% ethanol this summer.

Some stations have ethanol-free but around here it's $5.50 a gallon at the moment.

 

[JohnnyO]

Fortunately, there are plenty of stations with non-ethanol in my area. When I take the lawn equipment cans to get filled, I top off the Ranger with non-ethanol.

Around here all regular gas is 10% ethanol anyway. I usually run E15 88 anyway because its 70 cents less than 89.
For the longest time we didn't have E-free here. Guy at the mower shop told me several years ago when I had carb problems to put Sta-Bil in the gas ALL the time, not just for winter storage. After I did that I didn't have any more problems.
Now I get E-free for the mower and snowblower but I still add Sta-Bil.
Sta-Bil also has an ethanol treatment but that might not be practical to use on a daily driver.

 

[19Walt93]

Around here all regular gas is 10% ethanol anyway. I usually run E15 88 anyway because its 70 cents less than 89.
For the longest time we didn't have E-free here. Guy at the mower shop told me several years ago when I had carb problems to put Sta-Bil in the gas ALL the time, not just for winter storage. After I did that I didn't have any more problems.
Now I get E-free for the mower and snowblower but I still add Sta-Bil.
Sta-Bil also has an ethanol treatment but that might not be practical to use on a daily driver.

I use Stabil's marine formula to treat the alcohol for my lawn equipment, chain saw, wood splitter, and generator, along with the Mustang and Ranger. I tried non ethanol gas in the Mustang and found out 90 octane isn't enough.

 

[alwaysFlOoReD]

My snowblower fuel line leaks. I just put in enough to do the job and the excess drains itself...

 

[19Walt93]

If your serious about migrating North.. do NOT settle in NH lol. No sales tax.. yeah.. but property taxes are absolutely 100% batshit insane. I have a buddy who lives in Sandown.. under an acre lot.. 900sq ft house.. 10,000 dollar tax bill a year.

My mother has 5 acres and a 2k-ish sq ft house about 20 minutes north of Portland and she pays HALF of that. My best friend has 20 acres and a trailer an hour north of Portland and his tax bill is 800 a year.. another buddy has like 40 acres and a log cabin a little east of bangor near the coast and hes only hit for around 2k a year..

I'm not sure how expensive Vermont is to live in... But it's certainly a beautiful state.. and it's pretty even as to how far north it is compared to NH so.. mabey that's your ticket.

I don't understand her taxes. I have a 28x44 ranch on a poured concrete foundation and a 3 car garage
on 2.8 acres and I pay around $6000 per year. My dealership had a bunch of employees from Vt and their property taxes compare with ours- but they have a sales tax and income tax on top of them. Vt taxes social security as income- even though it's money the citizens paid into it over their working lives.
They voted in a bunch of big spenders but they cross into NH to shop so they don't have to pay the taxes that resulted.

 

[19Walt93]

How many shoe horns did you break getting that motor in there?

None. It was a former drag truck and had no heater box so the firewall is flat. I had to replace the rag joint with a universal from Borgeson because it was too close to the left manifold. The worst part was hollowing out the core support to mount the radiator inside it- then finding out later that Explorer and T bird front drives are shorter.

 

[19Walt93]

I expect E15 to reduce the MPG people get. I used to fill up on straight gasoline, drive to Carmel, NY and stop for lunch on the way to my daughter's house in Pa. My 2004 Ranger got 20 mpg on the hills of Vt and Western NY, then I'd fill up with E10 and get 19 mpg on the flat part of the trip. If you drive a carbureted vehicle in the winter, stock up on dynamite because you'll need it to get the engine started in sub zero weather. A local station offered E10"gasahol" in the late 70's so I had to try it. Once.

 

[broncc]

I have been doing a LOT of reading into gasoline. I was up late last night reading papers published by SAE and some other gasoline authorities. For normal people, this change is actually a good thing. Ethanol is the cheapest gas stretcher legal in all 50 states. The loss in fuel economy is less than the savings from buying 10-15% less pure gas. Ethanol also cools the charge in your engine better than straight gas making it more thermally efficient.

I am personally extremely sensitive to fuel vapor pressure which is where ethanol falls short. Other fox body owners should be very familiar with how hot their engine bays get. I also have more than one car so sometimes they sit for a week or two. I do not want to open the hood and run the car with a vise grip on the fuel line every time I park.

The biggest problem with removing ethanol from pump gas is that it contributes a significant amount to the AKI of the fuel. Turning E10 87 to straight gas through washing lowers the AKI by ~3 points. E15 87 to straight gas loses ~6 points. This is another reason why ethanol gas is so cheap. It actually pumps up performance of lower quality gas.



Also unrelated but to blmpkin's point I would rather NH property tax than VT 9% sales tax...

 

[SenorNoob]

Good points. Sucks when you have an engine that really should use 91+ and can't have ethanol. (motorcycle) It get aggravating finding the good stuff. I usually feed it 87 non ethanol. It works ok as long as I don't hold full throttle for extended periods. (Over a few minutes.)

 

[Bill]

Someone wearing a tin foil hat would say this is to destroy all the older vehicles on the road which they’ve already tried to do with the Cash4Clunkers, the push for electric vehicles only, etc.

Someone who thinks this through would come to the conclusion that it is a profit-driven way to use less oil while using one of the least expensive additives to maintain octane. It also reduces fuel economy around 1 to 2 mpg.

 

[cmcolfax]

I’m concerned. The original thing I heard said the E15 will only be for 3-4 weeks, in which case I can float by if I fill up everything beforehand.

The concern is that with the Government it’s never “just a couple weeks” or “only temporary.” If you don’t believe that let’s have a discussion about the “temporary and voluntary” Federal Income Tax.

Someone wearing a tin foil hat would say this is to destroy all the older vehicles on the road which they’ve already tried to do with the Cash4Clunkers, the push for electric vehicles only, etc.

Leave my choice of headwear out of this!

Nothing in Gubbermint is ever "temporary"

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

Someone who thinks this through would come to the conclusion that it is a profit-driven way to use less oil while using one of the least expensive additives to maintain octane. It also reduces fuel economy around 1 to 2 mpg.

And e15 is no good for small equipment and older vehicles. There has been testing done. So greed and destruction in a throw-away society?

I’m not arguing one way or another, I’m just throwing things out there. This move raises questions that I don’t think have been satisfactorily answered. I don’t think we will get full and straight answers either.

 

[cbxer55]

I run 87 octane no corn in my gas tank. But have a bottle under hood chock full of E85. Hose barb on bottom goes to the old EVAP vacuum port. Hose on top goes to the intake tube near the MAF. Needle valve in the vacuum hose near the TB. This allowed me to tune how much E85 it's sucking in. Truck used to ping on 87. Doesn't any longer. So I'm getting some benefit of alcohol in the intake, without it being in the gas tank running through the fuel system. Doesn't hurt my mileage at all. If I drive it to work and back every day for five days, I go through a quart of E85 per week. Go from full to half on my fuel gauge in the same time period.