Our local gas stations are going to start having this E-30 gasoline and they have said that any vehicle can use it with no modifacation(sp). They also said that your fuel milage will not change! Also it will be .30-.40 cents a gallon cheaper. Has anybody heard of this?

 

i call bullsh*t. any ethanol blended gasoline will yield lower mileager returns. it has been studied and proven. i seriously doubt that it will be offered any cheaper than gas is now, either.

 

will a 30% ethanol blend really be safe in every vehicle? 10% sucks bad enough. do i really have to start worrying about a higher blend?

no matter how you mix it, ethanol will just not yield the same results. it MIGHT help lower costs a little but in the end i really dont think that it will be worth it.

 

I keep meticulous track of my mpg's and we have to use that BS 15% part of the year 15% ethanol = 12-16% drop in millage depending on which vehicle it is in I can only assume a similar drop in a 30% blend plus the added corrosion of rubber parts they say the ethanol eats

 

damn there watering down our brew even more now. if there gonna thin it out 30% make it 30% cheaper! then you'll break even on the gas mileage cost loss.

 

never happen if you get 30% worse millage but the price only drops 15% they make 15% more profit don't they

 

Here's a report from 1999 on the effects of E30. I wouldn't run it in the winter. Ethanol is going to absorb water out of the air and your oil is going to have to deal with it as not all of it is going to go out the exhaust pipe. The newer GF 5 rated oils will be able to handle it when they come out.
http://www.ethanol.org/pdf/contentmg...nal_Report.pdf

I also wouldn't run it in an older engine or a vehicle not rated as flex fuel. Any sealants, seals, piping, pumps, not rated for ethanol will surely self-destruct over time. The good news, because of the water brought with the fuel, there will be little if any carbon deposits. Worst news, look for corrosion on the inside of the injectors and short injector life.

 

I'd be less worried about Ethanol in winter, even in So Tex.

It's obviously MUCH drier in the winter than it is in the summer around here as the winds are coming from the north, rather than the GofM during the muggier months.

I have seen threads on other sites of vehicle owners mixing upwards of a half tank of E85 with another half tank of gasoline and only managed to have problems getting towards a 50% overall mix.

I would like to think the engineers have a head start on most of us on the outside and the innards of the fuel system are well (or better) suited to running a little higher content on Ethanol in newer vehicles, basically OBD2 to now. Those guys have an idea of what is coming in regards to emissions and keeping up with such stuff way before we do.

I agree with the point that if our gasoline is going to get watered down, water down the cost as well!

 

Having run several engines on E85 going on 50-70,000 miles over the past 4 years, I can say that I have had no problems with seals, pumps, lines being damaged by the extra ethanol content. This includes several older carbed engines, one 93 Tempo, and one 90 Nissan D21. The Tempo really didn't like full E85 because it's ECM doesn't do any calculations on the WOT fuel mixture...just idle and part-throttle. It is fine as long as I don't go pushing it to the limit, then yes it'll ping like crazy. The Nissan...no problems.
I don't get into SD often enough to fill regularly but I carry a small service tank in the back of that Nissan so it stays on E85 full time.
The only problems I've had with it is E85 does make for harder starting when temps get down to the zero mark and I went through quite a few fuel filters on the Tempo when I first started running higher ethanol as the extra ethanol worked all the varnish and whatnot out of the lines and tank. It's fine now though.

I've run both E10 and E20 in my 97 F150 now for a while...not really enough to get any conclusive results but I do know that mileage is down a bit when running any ethanol blend. If the price break is good enough to pan out, I'll run E30 if the engine can run it.

 

Most engine control systems these days can handle E30 without running up against the edge of any parameter range. I think Chester experimented with his F-150 and he could get to 38% ethanol before the CEL tripped with a too lean.