It's that, or don't fill up at all. Like the sugar myth that inspired it, this myth is based more on urban-legend. ‘Long, Cylindrical’ UFO Spotted Over New Mexico, The Inmate Solving the World's Hardest Equations, The Best Generators To Keep Your Home Running, U.S. Army Building Most Powerful Laser Weapon Ever, The U.S. Navy Hovercraft That Fought in Vietnam, This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. But even if ethanol was harmless to a car, it falls short in other areas. The Truth About Ethanol FuelsRelated: Is Premium Gas Worth It? Moisture-laden air inside the gas tank will pass water into the fuel’s ethanol, and so any car you see on the road today already has some water coursing through its fuel lines. Your vehicle's fuel intake components can be damaged. Ethanol, E85, Flex Fuel ... What Does it All Mean? It’s a car culture legend, passed down from generation to generation, that an angry person with a bag of sugar can leave your car dead on its axles. It addresses ethanol-related problems and helps keep your small engines … Boatyards and marine engine dealers warn that gas blended with ethanol can cause motors to stop working, ruin rubber components in the engine’s fuel system and damage engine parts. There are other kinds of biofuels besides ethanol; and as I mentioned, there are also other types of ethanol besides those derived from corn. It's taken the place of cane sugar in most of our prepared and packaged foods. (Jan. 22, 2013) http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/09/24/corn-ethanol-biofuel-or-biofraud/. Let's assume that most of the time the fuel's environmental conditions aren't seriously compromised, its ethanol stays in suspension, and the gasoline is properly reaching its destination. But when the EPA designates a fuel blend as "legal," they're really enabling themselves to saturate the market with this diluted gasoline, since the agency can ultimately control what's available to consumers. A 2012 study by Auto Alliance showed that some cars (model years 2001 to 2009) showed internal engine damage as the result of using an ethanol fuel blend. It's as sweet as candy, and features just as much nutritional value, which is probably why it's so often processed and used for confectionary purposes. To some extent, however, ethanol does succeed at diluting our petroleum-based gasoline to help stretch our supply. When blended, at a 10 percent ratio, ethanol is said to increase the octane rating of the fuel as much as three points. But older small engines can suffer from fuel system problems to complete engine failure. Sept. 24, 2007. The new blend was expected to make its mass-market debut near the end of 2012; but even now, the infrastructure improvements needed to distribute and sell E15 aren't yet in place. (We should also note that there's an ethanol-gas blend known as E85 -- which contains 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline -- but that's only acceptable for use in specially engineered vehicles marketed with a "Flex Fuel" designation.). This would lend credence to the theory that ethanol burns cleaner than gasoline with one hitch… E85 fuel does not contain detergents that you find in gasoline. People posit that dumping water into a gas tank would cause the kind of damage that sugar can’t, because engines need their fuel to combust and water prevents that. As explained above, 2 stroke vs 4 stroke engines don’t offer the same level of precision when it comes to spark plug firing and air/fuel ratio mixture. We may earn commission if you buy from a link. But consumers cannot control those conditions, and they have no way of knowing if the fuel they're buying has been contaminated. After the VW diesel scandal, many are asking the same question: “Where does diesel go from here?” Find out if diesel will endure at HowStuffWorks Now. The problem? Most gasolines available in the US contain about 10% ethanol. "Automaker tests show damage to older car engines from running on E15 ethanol." The Lazareth LM847 Is an Oversized Sports Bike with a Sports Car's Engine, Can Ethanol Damage Your Engine? There really isn’t a clear answer to this. It’s just not enough to cause damage. Other sources, like sugar and hemp, give much better statistics (upwards of a 50 percent reduction in greenhouse emissions). July 7, 2011. There are other popular gasoline-ethanol mixes at pumps, too, such as E15 and E85 that are, respectively, 15 percent and 85 percent ethanol. While a car not designed to run on E10 will likely not suffer engine damage, the ethanol can damage fuel lines and other parts of the fuel system, leading to longer term problems. When the United States first embarked on this strategy, only a small percentage of ethanol was added to the mix -- generally, most engines didn't even notice and kept running as usual. In addition, ethanol can cause damage to the fuel pump in your vehicle. After Volkswagen: Where Does Diesel Go From Here? You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io, Mazda’s CX-30 Turbo Delivers Power and Value, Why Thieves Want Your Catalytic Converter. Quickshot was tested in fuel containing 10 percent ethanol. Shirley Smith on August 13, 2013 at 3:38 pm Thanks for this article! Gasoline and ethanol can oxidize similar to the process of iron rusting. (Check your owner's manual for fuel recommendations). Gear-obsessed editors choose every product we review. How much damage can be caused by that extra 5 percent? Gasoline companies sometimes even market specific blends as having "engine cleaning" properties, but if the alcohol in the fuel cleans old deposits from engine components, those deposits won't simply dissolve -- they'll probably just get carried along until they're stuck elsewhere. E-10 is also inconvenient because the shelf life is only about 2-3 months in ideal environmental conditions. Ethanol can cause several types of damage to the engine in your vehicle. You may as well test the fuel pump, to be safe, and if its flow rate doesn’t match the factory specifications, you’d replace it. A strange phenomenon is that while E10 fuel produces double the intake deposits of pure gasoline, the level of E85 intake deposits approaches or goes lower than gasoline deposits. How we test gear. Fuel might actually be a more noble objective than food, in theory. Not only that, but it's increasingly sneaking into our gasoline, too, in the form of ethanol. What Is Ethanol Fuel . Reply to this Comment. Conventional wisdom tells us that an inexpensive, domestically produced substitute for fuel would be a good thing; unfortunately, it's not that simple. Even adding water outright to a gas tank—cue our angry pitcher-toting vandal—would cause no harm, says Louis, as long as it doesn’t dilute it so much that there isn’t enough fuel left to combust and power the engine. This makes E85 a fuel with 85-percent ethanol and 15-percent gasoline. Is it better to use E10 or premium unleaded? Do you want to know the truth? "Can Ethanol Really Damage Your Engine?" Particles denser than fuel settle in pockets and corners of low-velocity flow, and there are many low-velocity pockets between the gas tank and the engine. But that fuel can also permanently damage those small engines without the proper treatment. Do you want to know the truth? Can You Feel OK About Filling Up With Ethanol? Corn ethanol hardly reduces a car's toxic emissions at all -- in fact, 3 percent is about the best that can be expected [source: Garrett]. I love popcorn and buttery, salty grilled cobs as much as the next girl -- but at least I admitted to myself, long ago, that corn is not actually a vegetable. It’d just displace some of the liquid fuel in the air/fuel mixture in the engine’s combustion chambers, but oxygen sensors and on-board computers would automatically compensate for the leaner mixture and the engine would run fine without injuring itself. E10, a fuel mixture of 10% anhydrous ethanol and 90% gasoline sometimes called gasohol, can be used in the internal combustion engines of most modern automobiles and light-duty vehicles without need for any modification on the engine or fuel system. The greater the concentration of ethanol the greater the ability to ‘hold’ water. If you add it to gasoline, it stays in granular form. Many boaters who trailer their boats (about 90% of recreational boat owners in the U.S.) fill their boat’s gas tank and/or gasoline can when they fill up their tow vehicle. While this can happen mostly to older vehicles that are not compatible with E10, there have been cases where even modern cars are affected. A new study released today by the Coordinating Research Council says that E15 gasoline, which contains 15 percent ethanol, could damage the engines of certain high-volume car and truck models. But even though ethanol is increasingly pumped into our gasoline supply for purely political reasons, we can hope that reasonable alternatives might be considered ... eventually. But about 40 percent of the 2012 domestic corn crop was designated for fuel production [source: Bowman]. It has been thoroughly tested for safety and efficiency. Not only that, but it's increasingly sneaking into our gasoline, too, in the form of ethanol. Avoiding Ethanol Fuel Issues In 2 Cycle Engines - Video Summary One of the biggest threats to the long-term performance of a 2 cycle engine is ethanol, which is blended into most fuels. The evidence is compelling enough that in 2011, several automakers said that owners of older cars running E15 were in danger of voiding their warranties. The coating is more of a rust inhibitor –not an actual layer that would “ruin” any part of an engine. Physics haven’t changed. Fuel oxidation creates water, peroxides, and acids causing corrosion of any metal parts in a small spark engine. A sugar crystal is about 200 microns, a measure of size for small particles. Because ethanol attracts water it can create rust and seal breakage over time, and if E85 is left in the fuel tank for long periods it can attract more water vapor and potentially cause engine damage. One of the 16 cars in the Auto Alliance study failed emissions compliance standards, which means it emitted more pollution than allowed by the EPA. You’ve seen E10 on gas pumps, and it means that 10 percent of every gallon you pump is ethanol, a corn-based alcohol fuel that appeared on the American market in 1990. That is one of the reasons why Minnesota made available non-oxygenated (no ethanol… We're used to E10, after all -- and presumably, our cars are, too. Ethanol burns up the inside of the engines, making them almost impossible to repair. "Corn Ethanol: Biofuel or Biofraud?" And it can happen at any stage of the transport, storage and usage process -- even getting worse as it goes along. In late 2012, AAA released a study that found 95 percent of drivers still don't know what E15 is, and of course, have no idea how or why it could harm their cars. Yup. Popular Mechanics. It's unclear (at least to me) if other types of ethanol have the same engine-clogging properties as corn. Some organizations are trying to delay the launch of E15 until the public understands how the change will affect them. Damage to the valves and valve seats was evident in some of the cars tested. Along these same lines, E0 would indicate no ethanol is added to the gasoline. E-10 Ethanol Gas dissolves varnish in the fuel system and can gum up lines and passages, clogs jets Phase separation leaves a layer of water and alcohol at the bottom and degraded gasoline at the top,both can ruin an engine degraded gasoline loses octane (about 3) Some engines are not designed for use of gasahol, and even following all precautions will cause damage. May 17, 2012. "AAA calls on US government to suspend E15 gasoline sales." (Jan. 17, 2013) http://news.consumerreports.org/cars/2011/07/warranties-void-on-cars-burning-e15-say-automakers.html, Garrett, Jerry. It's taken the place of cane sugar in most of our prepared and packaged foods. No, not if your car is designed to run on it. Thanks for sharing. Let’s examine the root of the problem, which, often times, is the result of bad gasoline. Should You Warm Up Your Car When It's Cold? Is ethanol really more eco-friendly than gas? E15 won't be delayed forever -- the agricultural industry lobby is a powerful force -- so perhaps there's still enough time to educate consumers. How to Pick the Right Motor Oil for Your Car, The Ford Bronco Makes Its Glorious Return, AMG Is Putting an Electric Turbo Into Production. Many older fuel system components weren't designed to resist alcohol's corrosive properties, and as ethanol travels through the system it can cause considerable damage. Instead of rust flakes entering the fuel system you will get gum and varnish. The race teams quickly learned that the ethanol in the fuel systems created problems with the carburetors and fuel pumps. E10 Alcohol Fuel Blends Can Cause Damage to Engines The primary reason E-10 ethanol gas is harmful is because of alcohol's solvent and water-absorbing qualities. Adding ethanol to fuel changes the chemical properties of gasoline. We have more corn than we know what to do with -- and corn is cheap. So E10 would contain 10-percent ethanol, E30 is 30-percent ethanol by volume and so on. In 2011, NASCAR changed its fuel to 15-percent ethanol (E15). The New York Times. Most automobiles since 1982 were designed to be compatible for use with up to 10% ethanol (E10), and since the year 2000 most marine engines are now compatible with E10 use. After all, ever since E10 was mandated in North America, there’s been water in every gallon of fuel you put in your tank, says Fatouraie. At its most basic a… So if you shouldn’t be worried about sugar, what should you worry about being added to your tank? But how will your car's engine tolerate even 15 percent ethanol? Even in a carbureted engine, which doesn’t have fuel injectors or their individual filters, there’s a low chance that sugar would ever make it that far into the engine after all the other filters in the system. Allen, Mike. Dec. 4, 2012. But some studies have found in certain cars (particularly older models) the ethanol can cause damage to the fuel system. So what's the big deal? How much of a difference can there be between E10 fuel, which is in widespread use (although not warmly embraced) and E15 fuel? You consent to our cookies if you continue to use our website. STA-BIL 360 Marine does not have any negative affect or would damage any part of the fuel system, components and sensors. 5 Ways Responsibly Produced Biofuels Benefit Everyone, 10 Alternative Fuel Ideas That Never Made it Out of the Lab. Early mentions of sugaring someone’s gas tank to get even with them date from the 1950s. Unfortunately, sugar cane ethanol comes from Brazil and is saddled with high import tariffs, and it's still illegal to raise hemp in the United States (even the industrial-grade stuff that doesn't have any psychoactive benefit or pleasurable nefarious purpose). Can Ethanol Damage Car Engines? Autoblog.com. So what's the big deal? Technically its ethyl alcohol made from renewable biological sources. Although it must be said that most cars older than the Environmental Protection Agency's 2001 model year cutoff were unlikely to still have valid, unexpired warranties, anyway [source: Evarts].
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