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So recently I’ve run into a lot of people saying that the gasohol mix in the pumps today are harmful to engines, but i cant really follow the logic on that. The only way i can think of that alcohol could be harmful is by drying out rubber in seals, but unless you have high blow-by, i cant see that being a problem.
So it would be great if someone could explain how engines take damage from alcohol so i can stop thinking about it!
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First off it is not alcohol it is ethanol there is a difference ethanol eats the rubber/plastic and aluminum of a engine/fuel system. It also burns hotter and attracts moisture, also ethanol and gasoline do not stay mixed they will separate. AAA doesn’t even want it there were reports of them having to replace entire fuel systems on cars less than a year old and in one case had to replace an engine. Avoid ethanol blended fuels like the plague, your vehicle will thank you for not using it by giving you better mileage and run better with more power.
popular science says:
Other Alcohol Issues
Alcohol is corrosive and can degrade plastic, rubber or even metal parts in the fuel system that weren’t engineered to use alcohol-bearing fuel. Consequently, that antique Evinrude outboard or ’60s lawn tractor you bought at the swap meet might need some upgrading to stay together on today’s gas. That means corrosion-resistant tanks, alcohol-tolerant rubber lines, seals and fuel-pump diaphragms, and plastic fuel-system parts that won’t swell up in the presence of alcohol. Vintage boats with internal fiberglass tanks often have issues with the coating inside the tank failing, sometimes requiring massive structural modifications. Highly tuned two-stroke engines will run leaner (and consequently hotter) on the lower Btu/gallon alcohol mix, potentially leading to melted pistons and scuffed cylinder walls. Alcohol will also scour varnish and deposits out of the fuel system that have remained in place for years, which will eventually wind up in the filter or main jet, choking off the engine’s fuel supply. Worse yet, the alcohol itself oxidizes in the tank and produces a tenacious brown glop that’s far more damaging to fuel systems than the varnish we’re used to seeing in pure petroleum fuels. In warmer weather, you can see varnish starting to form within a month of dispensing fresh fuel into a vehicle tank or storage can.
Advice
The common question I get: Where can I buy alcohol-free gasoline? You probably can’t, except at a very few stations, and odds are it’s very expensive high-octane racing fuel that’s not legal for road use.
To avoid phase separation, avoid long-term fuel storage. Trash that old 5-gallon can with the rag stuffed into the filler neck and trade up to a 2-gallon can with a decent, vented cap. I used to recommend storing outdoor power equipment, boats, ATVs and motorcycles with full tanks to prevent rusting. Now I recommend draining the tank, running the engine till it quits and then fogging the inside of the tank and the cylinder with oil to prevent corrosion. No E10 in the tank equals no water absorption and no phase separation.
We’ve always recommended using fuel-stabilizer products for gas-powered vehicles or tools that aren’t regularly used. E10 makes that advice even more compelling. We’ve tried products formulated for blended gasoline from Star Tron, Eastwood and Sta-Bil. There are others. Beware of products that claim to prevent phase separation: It’s unlikely that they can eliminate the phenomenon, although some products do claim to delay it.
Read more: E15 and Engines – Can Ethanol Damage my Engine – Popular Mechanics
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That 90:10 mixture of gasoline and alcohol is referred to as E10, while a different blend of 15 percent gas and 85 percent alcohol is sold regionally as E85. On this scale, straight petroleum-based gasoline is referred to as E0. Most gasoline dispensed from pumps in this country is as much as 10 percent ethanol, distilled from corn grown in the Midwest. This alcoholic cocktail was originally mandated by the EPA as a replacement for MTBE (methyl tertiary butyl ether), an oxygen-bearing petroleum-sourced chemical that was added to pump gasoline starting in 1979 to reduce carbon monoxide emissions in some regions that had problems meeting government air-quality standards. The oxygen in the MTBE (and ethanol) molecules can substantially reduce CO emissions in vehicles without modern closed-loop fuel-injection systems, which were introduced starting in the ’80s.
Soon after, MTBE started turning up in groundwater, affecting the taste and smell of drinking water, so ethanol was substituted. (Shockingly, MTBE isn’t considered toxic or even carcinogenic in the concentrations found in groundwater, but still.)
However: If the beneficial effects of oxygenated fuel have largely been bypassed by modern feedback-loop injection systems, which control the air-to-fuel ratio much more closely, why is ethanol still in your fuel? Because the second President Bush made a decision to offset some of our dependence on foreign oil with domestically produced alcohol, and the Corn Belt senators agreed. Ethanol plants have mushroomed, ramping up U.S. production from 1.77 billion gallons in 2001 to 10.75 billion gallons in 2009. Politics aside, odds are near 100 percent that there’s as much as 10 percent alcohol in the gasoline you’re pumping into your car and that 5-gallon can you use to fuel all your other gas engines.
Read more: E15 and Engines – Can Ethanol Damage my Engine – Popular Mechanics
Follow us: @PopMech on Twitter | popularmechanics on Facebook
Visit us at PopularMechanics.com
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