My 2011 F150 is my first flex-fuel vehicle and I have mixed feelings on whether or not to use E85 in it. Mostly, it comes down to the effects it may have on the engine life. I also know that gas mileage is not as good and there are other environmental reasons that E85 is not all that some crack it up to be...

Who here has opinions on this? Gas prices are making E85 look like an option that is worth considering, but is E85 just not a good option?

 

Just search "e85" and you'll be here for days reading about it.

 

Tried it in mine, lost about 6mpg average. Didn't feel any performance gain on my buttmeter. Not worth it unless you use it in place of race gas.

 

Someone just enlightened me to the fact that burning a tank of it every now and then acts as a cleaning agent for your engine... so that is how I plan to use it... once or twice between oil changes or so.

 

First time I've heard of this. Ford recommends one tank of non E85 (regular gas) at every oil change if you run E85 gas on a regular basis. I'm not sure if 30 cents less a gallon is worth it.

 

Yeah - I never thought about it before either... but if you consider ethanol to be close to pure grain alcohol, then it makes sense that it can clean out deposit buildup in the engine. It simply burns much cleaner and leaves little behind. Sounds good to me as a once in a while safe cleaning method.

It's 75 cents lower here in MN. 30 cents is definitely not worth it as far as economy goes.

 

Wow, at 75 cents it may be worth it, here in Maryland it's the same price as regular gas (where you can find it) which makes it a complete waste of money! BTW if your curious or planing a long trip there is a E85 Price watch site: e85prices.com which lists the price delta by State. Not Surprising Iowa has the greatest difference, E85 is showing > 21% price difference over regular gas.

 

MPG break even point is approximately 33%.

 

I remember hearing that E85 cost about 30% less but gave you about 30% less on mileage.

 

It's closer to 33%. Don't forget the increased maintenance costs.

 

It has to cost 30% less in order for it to be worth using it, unfortunately it's usually only 15% less in price.

 

No - it has to cost at least 33% less just to break even on MPG. If you add in the increased maintenance costs, the required differential gets even larger.

 

What increased maintenance costs?

 

Only one place near me to get E85 and it is $3.27 a gallon! 87 oct is $3.42 so the price break (if using 33% rule) would then be $2.29 hahahahah that is just not going to happen in Va. Why is it Virginia has what looks to be the least amount of E85 stations anywhere?

 

Yeah! What he said!