E10 - Biofuel -Coming Soon...

[Ethanedwards]

May I take it that my 62 plate Yaris HSD is OK using this new biofuel?

[timberwolf]

Possibly poorer mpg. It is difficult to be sure, because the Americans have had 10% Ethanol for a while, I think added during the winter months. As you know, the mpg can suffer when the ambient temperature goes down. So is drop in mpg related to the temperature, or the Ethanol, and if it is the Ethanol presumably it is because the engines were not originally designed to run on that mix?

The Ethanol at 10% probably doesn't physically harm the engine too much more.

Erm, probably increases food cost as land is switched away from food production.

[johalareewi]

Have a rummage around Prius Chat. It would seem that Toyota hybrids are not fond of E10 fuel.

Ethanol has a lower mpg than unleaded so adding it to petrol will reduce the mpg for everybody.

This means more trips to the pumps to fill up = more tax money for the gov.

Toyota hybrids have an atkinson cycle engine and are able to burn more of the fuel to get more energy out (normal engines exhaust more unburnt fuel) hence the higher mpg.

While a few mpgs drop for normal engines isn't a huge problem, for a Toyota hybrid, there might not be enough oomphf in the E10 fuel. This might also be a problem for other eco-petrol engines.

[Opifex]

E10 started to appear in France about four years ago and normal unleaded (marked SP95) has now disappeared from a lot of filling stations including many on the autoroute. I generally avoid E10 as it seems to reduce the mpg by about 5-10% and also gives a small power reduction. On the plus side the cost is about 2% less than SP95 but this is small compensation.

On the safety front, the pumps have a notice saying it is safe to use in all cars manufactured after (IIRC) 2002.

[valmiki]

Reduces MPG by 5-10%, and costs 2% less.

Well, that figures. No wonder the country's going to pot.

[wass]

Perhaps I am getting a little confused but here goes: On the subject of biofuel, I had heard that biofuel had a shelf life and that since it contained a biologically derived and somehow less refined content, that it was possible for bateria to grow within it and encourage the fuel lines to become congested and eventually blocked over a period of time.

Apparently the way to avoid this from happening is to ensure that one uses the fuel rather than allowing it to remain unused in the tank for months. So should plug in owners avoid biofuel at all costs?

Has anyone else seen any information which supports this rumour?

[Cyker]

The issue is that ethanol absorbs water which does bad things to injectors and also allows bacteria to grow.

Diesel has a similar problem as water can get into the tank and floats on top and you get a load of bacterial scum floating on top after a while; You don't notice until you run the tank too low one day and all the scum gets sucked into the fuel filter

We get around this by filling the tank to the brim so there's no space for water to get in while the tank's open.

That doesn't occur with bioethanol as the water will be mixed in with the fuel but is still bad; The longer bioethanol hangs around the more water it absorbs.