"100% Gas Sold Here" Do you believe it?!

[LightKnife]

Ever since the gas prices have been dropping during the past month i have noticed one thing. More and more gas stations are posting the sign of "100% gas sold here" or "no ethanol". These are gas stations are usually charging a higher price than Wal-Mart gas which is what i pour into my gas tank. Not only that they i've watch several do an overnight "conversion" of their gas in some stations

Personally i don't believe them because they can't keep up with the competition so they post this sign to justify their high gas prices. I don't buy into the extra mileage with 100% gas. I usually make 33mpgs regardless of what gas i use. I always do about 80 miles commute daily and have tried anything to increase my MPG. But i don't think 100% gas helps or they are just not being honest.

A friend of mine who is a gas station owner told me that ALL gas (conoco, 711, shell...) comes from the same pipeline and that all companies use the same pipeline. They put 10 million in Texas end and they can take out in New York the same quantity without waiting for the 2 day it takes to reach there. Just like you deposit $100 and then have your friend take out the money in another state. So that is the reason i buy the Wal-Mart gas because the gas is "fresher" with less contaminants because they have more customers than anyone else.
Well my question is are they really selling 100% gas? if so how could you tell?

 

[BVH]

IIRC, Ethanol contains 15% to 20% less BTU's (heat content) than gasoline so there will be less power produced and there will be the associated need to use more throttle to drive the same vehicle down the same road the same amount of miles.

But remember, the amount of Ethanol in gasoline is somewhere around 15% (IIRC) so overall, there is not a great deal of difference.

 

[PhantomPhoton]

Sounds like a great sign to put up at a Taco Bell.


It's just marketing BS imho. Define "gas" :thinking:
Most of us drive vehicles that won't have any difference in performance even if it was true.

 

[orbital]

+

Where I'm from they call gas with ethanol 'formulated'.

Few things with ethanol:
~ you get less mpg (5~10%)
~ gas has a tendency to break down much faster (becomes unstable)
~ increased possibility of carbon build up

We can get BP Premium gas that has no ethanol,
some could argue its worth the .2$/gal. for the motor and increased mpg.

 

[Manzerick]

I agree the mix is less ..chemical and should def return slightly less milege. Also, cold weather starting seems slugish with a high compression engine. Start time is delayed a bit for sure and I know when it's -2 out I cringe when my engine goes "Rrrrrr rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr VROOOOOOOMM"




Kinda like fingernails on the chalk board

 

[EngrPaul]

Given the choice, I would go for 0% Ethanol, both from economic/social reasons, and from mileage achieved between tankfulls.

Does the government have a right to tell me to put corn in my tank? Evidently so.

 

[Brock]

My brother in law works at a fuel distribution center. He said you can order regular gas with no Ethanol in it and it does cost a bit more. He said 90% of the regular gas they sell is E5 or 5% Ethanol. While it is true that Ethanol does have about 15% less energy, it does have a higher octane rating. In a small amount like 5% it would be hard to notices any difference between the two, remember your taking 15% of 5% or under 1% less energy in E5 compared to 100% gas. The added benefit is you should never have fuel line freeze ups, unless you dump water in you tank. I am not arguing for or against adding it, just passing along what I know.

The higher octane rating is why you can't run E85 or better in most vehicles, the timing will be to "slow" for E85, which would hurt fuel mileage on top of the reduced energy. On flex fuel (funny term since it's only two) the engine senses if the fuel is exploding quickly or going unburned and adjust timing to match. Ethanol has an octane of 115 or so.

 

[BIGIRON]

Good info. Thanks. Here's my recent experience.

In south Texas. we rarely see any pumps advising ethanol content, so I assume we get pretty much 100% gas.

We recently took a long pickup/camper trip (3/4t Dodge Hemi w/ Alaskan Camper) r/t STexas to NMinnesota. Our first fillup north of Oklahoma resulted in noticibly reduced performance (no other significant modifying factors like temperature, wind direction/speed, etc). Almost all subsequent gas stops were with pumps advising "Ethanol Added" and "Super Unleaded" - 85% ethanol. MPG fell and engine ran rough. Error code "irregular miss - all cyls" was generated several times (very well maintained 50K mile engine, new plugs, recent injector service, etc). This continued for entire trip. Rough engine stopped and MPG went back to normal after getting home, running down the gas tank and running Techron and mid grade gas for a tank.

Another interesting thing - I'm pretty sure some of the stations were selling 85% eth at gasoline prices and not posting it. Truck performance seemed to indicate that.

Of one thing I'm sure. My truck does not like ethanol.

I also have a Dodge with a flex-fuel engine. I've not used eth in it, but the owners manual cautions to expect decreased performance and mpg when using eth. Also recommends not using eth for more that two successive tanks. (this info from memory - too tired to get the manual out of truck)

 

[jzmtl]

The higher octane rating is why you can't run E85 or better in most vehicles, the timing will be to "slow" for E85, which would hurt fuel mileage on top of the reduced energy. On flex fuel (funny term since it's only two) the engine senses if the fuel is exploding quickly or going unburned and adjust timing to match. Ethanol has an octane of 115 or so.

Not really, you can't run E85 on most vehicles is because ethanol will eat the seal and hose in fuel line not designed for it.

Another interesting thing - I'm pretty sure some of the stations were selling 85% eth at gasoline prices and not posting it. Truck performance seemed to indicate that.

If they don't advertise it it's probably 15% tops, which is what normal engine can tolerate. Anything higher will result in big repair bills later on for abovementioned reasons.

 

[Brock]

Not really, you can't run E85 on most vehicles is because ethanol will eat the seal and hose in fuel line not designed for it.

Yes, you are correct, and that as well. Although most newer engines (I think it was 2002) started using hose's / fuel lines that wouldn't disintegrate, just to cover themselves knowing some people will try it.

 

[Coop]

This is something that we don't have to worry about here in the Netherlands... If a station sells anything else than 100% gas, the government will be all over them. Why? Simple, ethanol is taxed differently, so adding it to gas is considered tax evasion.

 

[jzmtl]

Lol, around here it's mandatory to add corn juice to gasoline in winter for emission reasons. And pretty much everybody hate the "winter gas".

 

[Diesel_Bomber]

10% ethanol will dissolve hoses and seals just as surely as 85%, it'll just take longer. The main reason most cars won't run on high concentrations of ethanol is injector size and ECU programming; the air/fuel ratio goes lean. I'm pretty tired so this may not be very coherent, but here goes.......

A specific oxygen(air)/fuel ratio has to be maintained for an engine to run properly(what this specific ratio *is* varies wildly during operation, but that's another matter). Ethanol has ~15% less BTU's/lb than gasoline. Simply inject 15% more fuel to make up for it? This would be great, but ethanol is also an oxygenate, so you are not only reducing BTU's going in, but you're adding oxygen too. Goes pretty lean in a hurry. Maintaining the proper oxygen/fuel mixture requires ~40% more fuel when you're using 100% ethanol compared to gasoline, and this is where the big mileage dump occurs. Most fuel injection systems and programming have enough flexibility to handle 10% ethanol, but much past that and your cold starts(as well as any time you're ECU isn't getting O2 sensor input) will suffer as your fuel injection system is using a preprogrammed fuel map which is counting on a fuel of X density being in your tank, and you don't have that. Once your O2 sensor heats up and starts giving the ECU feedback, the computer can adjust the air/fuel ratio until it's programming or the injectors are maxed out, but you don't get much past 10% that way either. Flexfuel vehicles use a sensor to detect the amount of ethanol in the fuel, fuel injectors capable of delivering enough fuel, and ECU programming to support these items. Some non-flexfuel vehicles have enough flexibility to run fairly high amounts of ethanol with no modification.

In theory, a driver would gain slightly more power using ethanol mixed gasoline. More oxygen = more fuel can be burned = bigger boom = more power. If I had an E85 pump around here I'd switch both of my turbo charged cars to it and take full advantage of 104 octane pump gas; to hell with gas mileage.

Been a long week and long Saturday. I'll try and clean this up a bit tomorrow. :buddies:

 

[LightKnife]

Thx to all who have contributed to this thread, it sure has brought me a lot of interesting and useful information. :twothumbs

 

[Superdave]

I ran my race prepped V6 on E10 for a while this year, ended up pulling it apart after 30 passes on the strip...there was alot of carbon buildup. I tune with a $500 wideband so it's not like it was pig rich or anything. my WOT AFR's were in the mid 12's.

I currently run regular 93 in it, picked up about .2 in the 1/4 mile and my AFR's evened out alot. I used to pick up occasioinal knock counts under load.. not anymore. :twothumbs

I still run E10 in my truck, it dosen't care and for less than $2 a gallon i don't either.

 

[h_nu]

The ethanol industry managed to get the law changed in Virginia so that if there is 10% or less ethanol in the gas they no longer have to post a sign informing you. Seems many drivers avoided the ethanol tainted gas when the stations charged the same price as neighboring stations selling the real deal.

 

[HarryN]

Some of the results you obtain depend on the engine design. I had a 93 bmw 525 with a variable position cam (not just spark fire, the cam timing changed). It could adjust to take advantage of the various octane ratings, and the mileage did follow the octane ratings to an extent.

If you really want a vehicle to perform well with more than 10 % eth, it should ideally have a variable cam.

I get kind of a kick out of all of the fuss over 10 % eth in gas - we used that in IA in the 70s all of the time. While I question the corn vs sugar beets vs sugar cane as the ideal source material for alc, the trade deficit problem pretty much trumps all in my book.

 

[Fizz753]

For some reason I keep reading the post title as
"100% Gas Solid Here" Do you believe it?!"
And I go NO I don't believe it! Then I remember what the post title really is.

As for ethanol I am still out on that one, although I do think we should find a better source than corn for it.