My local news just had a segment on the federal mandate for fuels to have 10% ethanol now. They stated that ethanol backers state that it will not hurt your vehicle but some mechanics say it can eat away at rubber parts (seals, valves) , damage fuel lines, and such. I think that they stated it will not affect newer vehicles but I don't know if I heard it right. What do you think?

PS. Don't bash my thread, it seems to be happening a lot lately. I am not saying 10% Ethanol is a bad thing. Don't read into the post and try to start a fight. I think it is good because it is cleaner burning but that is my view.

 

I had read something, but can't remember the link, that asserted shortly after the 80's ethanol debacle, the car makers started building their vehicles to run on ethanol. I think it's a drop in the bucket, but if you subscribe to the "every little bit counts theory" then it's a good thing.

 

Ethanol is fine for anything produced in the last 10 years or so. What is not ok is Methanol, which will destroy rubber parts.

However, that will be changing shortly, as some manufacturers are now starting to produce vehicles designed for the 85% blend of methanol ( M85 ).

 

Fact: I average 1800 miles per week of driving in all sorts of weather, all kinds of roads from long interstate stretches to big city traffic jams.

Fact: The area where I do this driving is the center of the Ethanol Universe; Minnesota, Iowa, So. Dakota, and Nebraska.

Fact: I have been burning ethanol exclusively for the last 25 years...as long as it's been readily available.

Fact: I've never had a fuel related problem.

'nuff said. However, in researching to refdute some claims made on another board, I came across this site, and thought it was pretty good:

http://www.iowacorn.org/ethanol/ethanol_3a.html

 

Ethanol, like bio-diesel is a natural solvent and will [U]slowly[U]eat away at real natural rubber over time but as of 1994 all motors built and sold in U.S. must have senthetic rubber seals throughout so it will not be a problem. Just be more careful not to spill any on your paint when fueling up or it will eat up your clear coat over time.

 

ethanol wont hurt anything

we used to run straight methanol in the dragster..

lets see..the rubber line out of the fuel cell to the hard line..
the seals in the belt drivin fuel pump....
the gaskets and o-rings in a very expensive barry grant carburator..
the return line to the fuel cell...

nope no "eating" of the rubber or anything....

so.... no..methanol will not hurt things either

acetone on the other hand

...zap!

 

Wrong.

But why argue with you. It does no good.

 

what do you think fuel line anti-freeze is?

and when is the last time you ran methanol in anything?

experence my boy..
it never ate anything
thats proof that it does not
so...what proof do you have that it does?

...zap!

 

Won't hurt anything except for mileage!

 

It depends on what type of rubber you are dealing with. Ethanol is generally pretty tame as far as solvents go. I don't have my handy rubber/solvent compatiblity chart here but at 10% it should hurt almost nothing.

Addressing the biodiesel comment, the biodiesel itself shouldn't hurt anything. However, the process required to esterify the cooking oil uses lye and or sodium hydroxide along with methanol (usually). If you don't take your time and let it separate the aqueous base, glycerin, etc. from the oil then those things can be hard on components. If the stuff is processed correctly it is no more harmful than standard dino diesel.

WV your friendly neighborhood chemist.

 

There has been a gass station chain called Mohawk in Canada that has been selling ethanol in all there fuels for the last 25 year plus. They seem to be doing well. Nice new stations.

 

Like I said, why argue?

But... here is a snip from an M85 website.

Advantages
Alcohol fuels like M85 are perhaps the most "transparent" alternative fuels to the user, i.e., they are the least distinguishable from gasoline in how you buy and use them, which should ease acceptance. The fuel system of a car or truck only needs to be slightly changed (somewhat different materials, bigger fuel injectors, and a fuel composition sensor) in order for it to run on M85, and recently automakers have been offering M85 vehicles at no extra cost over their gasoline counterparts (or even for slightly less money), though at present automakers seem to be more interested in ethanol (E85). At least in California, the fuel costs about the same per mile as mid-grade gasoline (that is, you need about 1.7 gallons of M85 to get the same driving range as one gallon of gasoline, but price of a gallon of gasoline is about 1.7 times the price of a gallon of M85, so it balances out). And perhaps best of all, modern M85 vehicles are flex-fuel vehicles, which means that any mixture of M85 and gasoline in the fuel tank can be used by the engine; a fuel-composition sensor tells the engine computer what percentage of methanol is in the fuel, and it adjusts the injectors and ignition accordingly. Thus an M85 vehicle is a gasoline vehicle if M85 is not available, but you can top it off with M85 whenever you get back into an area where it can be found, and you don't have to carry (and pay for!) two separate fuel systems to do this.

Disadvantages
Methanol is more corrosive than gasoline (though it is less toxic, and not carcinogenic); this is why an automaker needs to change some of the materials in the fuel-handling systems of both the vehicle and the refueling station to materials that can withstand attack by the fuel. Special oil additives are necessary in order to protect the engine. Also, because the mixture of air to fuel is much richer than gasoline (about 8 to 1 by weight, compared to about 14 to 1 for gasoline), there is more liquid fuel available to wash oil off of cylinder walls during a cold start. Some early methanol users experienced durability problems, but development work has been making steady progress.

The richer fuel/air mixture needed by methanol also means that a given volume of gasoline will take you about 70% farther than the same tank full of M85; most automakers have at least partially compensated for this by putting a larger fuel tank in their M85 vehicles. And the reason that methanol is most commonly used in a mixture with 15% gasoline is to correct for two disadvantages of pure methanol. One is that a methanol flame is colorless, so gasoline is added to give the flame some color so rescuers can tell if a fire is present should an M85 vehicle get into a crash. The other is that methanol, being a pure chemical compound, has a single boiling point, so that it can cause cold-start problems in cold weather, or vapor lock in hot. Gasoline, being a mixture of compounds with different boiling points, always has some components that want to stay liquid and some that want to vaporize at a given temperature, so adding it to methanol confers this flexibility on the M85 mixture. Indeed, some manufacturers recommend mixing additional gasoline with M85 in very cold weather.


Goody for you that you used it for racing. Big difference from your weekend racers to having the stuff run through your engine constantly in every day driving. On top of that, for those of you with gas engines in your recent Ford truck, unless it's a flex fuel motor, you are warned right in the manual not to use Methanol.

 

Most cars and trucks built now are designed to withstand the ethonal.

The problem come when the vehical sits for extended periods. This allows the ethonal to eat away at the rubber parts.

I use to be a small engine and marine mechanic. This is where you want to watch these fuels and their effects since fuel tends to sit in these engines for longer periods. I have personally seem fuel lines reduced to a black glob of melted rubber from sitting in enthonal and methonal based fuels. I have seen orings swollen to twice their size. It will and does effect some rubbers.
Most rubber parts are made today to withstand these fuel additives, but I still would not let them sit for extended periods in my vehicals or equipment.

Sled...