I live in the most liberal & environmentally conscious state in the union: California. Even worse, I live in the hub of environmental activism: San Francisco. "The Left Coast" probably has the strictest emissions standards next to Hawaii.

Admittedly, I think about the environmental impact of me driving a huge truck by myself. As I shopped for my truck a few months ago, I thought about a diesel. I could convert it to bio-diesel. Then it dawned upon me that the F150 does not come with diesel, and that a Super Duty was just too big and not efficient for me to cruise for the ladies. But the F150 does offer an E85. I thought, "Cool!! More hippy chicks for me!!" I love tree-hugging babes who don't use deodorant or shave under their arms. I could show them how much I loved the environment by driving an ethanol fuel vehicle, and really impress them when I pull up to the protests and anti-establishment rallies. I could even get a beret or something to effect the revolutionary image.

A quick thinking (and honest) car dealer brought me back down to earth. I'm sure that placing a special order and charging me the extra couple of thousand dollars would have made his day. He says to me, "Boy, where you gonna get your gas?"

I was floored. I felt like "Iron" Mike Tyson in Tokyo when he got whipped by James "Buster" Douglas. I was so discombobulated, I was ready to bite an ear off. I would have bought George Foreman's grill as a dealer installed option.

Why can't I buy bio-friendly fuels in San Francisco, California? All this talk of wanting to free ourselves from oil dependency, and not one gas station in the most liberal part of the country offers bio-friendly fuel.

What is it like everywhere else? You know? The rest of the country? Where people with common sense who elected George Bush live? E85 owners: how easy or hard is it for you to actually find E85 fuel, and does it cost more or less than gasoline?

So now I'm just a regular boy, wearing Levi's & Pendletons, driving a big old pick-em-up truck, in a small city, with narrow streets & no parking. I'm still stuck with the kind of girls who show off their breast implants & lower back tattoos, with bare midriff tank tops & low cut jeans, and think that dancing on a speaker box at a nightclub can lead to bigger things in life - like being picked to dance in the cage suspended over the dance floor. I can only hope for and dream about those rich girls from Marin, who live on a trust fund, and want to save the world from hunger, war, malaria in third world countries, and the Republicans.

Can you feel my pain?

 

You need to move somewhere in the South, where women appreciate a big truck and still treat males like a "MAN"

 

You mean the land of Waffle Houses & sweet tea?



Yeah, I still reminisce about the good old days on The Redneck Riviera every time I hear an Alan Jackson song on the radio. And yes, we do have country music radio stations. Well, just one country music station.

Then I think about all the reasons why I don't live there anymore. Fat chicks. Depressed economy. Fat chicks. The Klan. Fat chicks. Waffle House. Fat chicks. Racist cops. Fat chicks. Hurricanes. Fat chicks. Billy Ray Cyrus & his mullet. Fat chicks. Mullets. Fat chicks. Kentucky Fried Chicken. Fat chicks. Confederate flags. Fat chicks. No Kosher delis. Fat chicks. No sushi. Fat chicks. People who say "hey y'all & yee haw". Fat chicks.


And did I mention Billy Ray Cyrus & fat chicks?

 

HAHA, you have some valid points, i guess another option is to kidnap a good southern girl and bring her to this upscale utopia people call "California"

 

Mmmmmm....southern girls! VERY NICE!

 

.........and those Southern Girls,
with the way they talk,
they knock me out when I'm down there,

 

E85 is about 60 cents cheaper than gas down here in Houston. And I can get it all over the city. But it is only at a couple pumps.

 

Fat chicks, Billy Ray Cyrus, Waffle House, I feel your pain........

 

A flex fuel vehicle runs fine on regular gas, you probably would not be able to tell the difference between it and one with the same regular gas engine. When you do find and run E85, you will lose anywhere from 7 to 30% gas mileage due to the richer mixture and it may perform slightly better than it does on regular gas due to the higher octane rating - the knock sensor will allow for more timing advance.

There is VERY little E85 around here (I'd have to get out into farm country), but the stations that had it up in the Chicago area when I lived there only had it at about 30 cents less than 87. Last I looked, there were only about 1200 stations in the entire country that offered E85.

 

Here on the east coast. E85 is the same price as 87reg and holds 30% less energy.
By the time alternative fuels are everywhere your truck will be carrying vintage tags!
So get what you want and be done with the picking. If they make a hybrid F150 the cost differance will make it a waste of time.
Where's my diesel f150??? Lets go ford

 

If they price E85 at the same as regular 87, what incentive is there to use the stuff? I bet even hardcore tree huggers will reject that.

 

Correct in that E85 only has about 75% of the heat energy of regular unleaded.

Consider that the ethanol subsidy is, er, I think $0.51 per gallon. For E85, 85% ethanol on average, looking at a federally subsidized cost of about $0.43 per gallon. How confident is one that the subsidy will continue for the life of the vehicle?

It was mentioned earlier, that the higher octane offers greater performance through retarded timing settings for those setups smart enough to take advantage of it. This performance and efficiency could be even more if the engine were set up to run only on E85 - could raise the compression ratio, perhaps into the 10 or 11 range.

Diesel has only about 20% more heat per gallon than gas, but certainly gets more than 20% better mileage for equivalent vehicles, which I suggest is due to the increased efficiencies of higher compression.

As it is, whatever percentage mileage drop is experienced with E85, the cost should be an equivalent percentage less per gallon than regular unleaded, in order to obtain the same fuel cost per mile. Don't think that's gonna happen in this area - E85 is only about $0.20 less than the $3 per gallon gas.

Suggest that E85 should be selling in the neighborhood of 75%-80% of the cost of straight gas to be a favorable fuel, or for this area - $2.25-$2.40.

 

Higher octane allows more timing advance, not retard.

 

glc - right. I got myself confused there - just what I get for thinking! Advanced (increasing BTDC degrees). Thanks for straightening things up. :-)

 

I don't know about your neck of the woods, however DIESEL here is $3.69 Per Gallon, you can keep your Diesel F-150... I just filled up for $2.99 unleaded!...I'll keep my gasser F-150!.........