E85 is not hard to find in my town. Now there are stations selling e15 and e30 also. Maybe 10 total. I think the e15 price is 10 cents less than e10. Not sure if e15 and it’s slightly lower fuel mileage is a good trade off for a 10 cent price drop. But, there is an online coupon deal where you get $20 of e15 for $10. So the drop in fuel economy of e15 vs e10 is probably not a huge deal, but getting the fuel for 1/2 price must make it worthwhile? You can buy 5 coupons for $10 each so u get $100 of e15 for $50. Seems ok to me.
I can only say that my cars, outboards, lawn mower and power hand tools like trimmers and hedge cutters are all certified for e10. It says nothing about anything higher. Not that a little increase would matter to nearly all motors, but at least under warranty, e15 would be a hard sell for me. It’s either e10 or get a flex fuel vehicle so you can digest most all of the different Concentrations
My car is flex fuel. All gas is e10. My local station is not selling e0 during the winter. But it is 30% more money than e10 and is a special use fuel besides. Will my cars mileage suffer any using e10 vs e15? Maybe 2-3%. Is 10 cents less per gal vs e10 worth it? Heck some stations sell e85 for same price as e10. True they DO stock it but price wise it bites. My point was, I can use the coupon for e15 and get the gas for 1/2 price. I have not been to the stations that sell e15 so I don’t know the price. I expect it to be $2.20 which sucks but that’s mpls for you. Price gouging. So, the coupon price of e15 should be $1.10 or so? Come on, you gotta admit e15 for $1.10 is a good price.
If you’re flex-fuel, it doesn’t hurt to try.
Try it, and report back with your findings, for the benefit of the collective knowledge of CT! (Just don’t put any in your mower, snowblower, or ANY carb’d engine.)
car runs ok on e10. i am pretty sharp. dont see any lights or bells ringing when i drive. i would take a wild ass guess it will be ok with e15.
I’ll second that wild ass guess.
I get coupon alerts thru our local online newspaper. I have never seen 1 that caught my attention. But. Getting e15 for 1/2 the price of e10 seems ok to me.
If you own an outboard, you don’t have to guess about the loss of power through the use of ethanol laced gasoline. When I make the switch over and run Trufuel without ethanol through them, they immediately run smoother and at higher rpm at the same throttle setting. With no computer to hide differences at normal light throttle driving, outboards expose the weakness of this “crap for fuel”. It’s just not worth using it in small engines and cars if performance is importent to you.
It’s fine for flex fuel vehicles, but several auto manufacturers caution against using E15, and said using it will void your warranty for non-flex fuel cars.
One consideration is that not many people use E15, so you’d be using gas that sat around in the underground tank for a while instead of gas that turns over quickly.
If your car is flex-fuel certified, great.
If not, you’re risking a car that you spent thousands on to save a few lousy bucks.
You decide.
There was article in business section few months ago about some stations selling e15 and e30 in addition to e10 and e85. I do not recall how the mixing is done. Do they have e85 and mix in more/less gas to achieve the different ratios at the pump? If so, than they are using fresh e85 and adding fresh e10 to achieve the proper ratio. So no stale gas is involved. But now the folks that don’t use e85 can chime in with a big “who the bleep cares”.
With gas prices plummeting, why mess around with alcohol blends at all?
A station in OK City hit 1.96 the other day. About 2.29 here. Save the corn for people and livestock.
It’s interesting to note that in the state of Iowa, in the middle of corn country, alcohol free gasoline is readily available. It is not easy to find the reason for this on the internet but the last I could find was that older farm equipment that uses gasoline does not store well with alcohol-gasoline. I always fill up when in Iowa with non-alcohol gasoline; fuel mileage is better to make it worth my while if the price difference is 10 cents per gallon or less.
I’ve got to get gas and noticed its at $2.49 today for regular. I think it is mixed at the refinery when the tanker picks it up. A year or so ago, So MN and Iowa I believe had quite a problem with some stations that had been supplied a heavier mix of ethanol than was expected. Something like 30% and lots of damage done. But it came from the tankers not mixed at the stations.
Nonstandard blends are made by metering gas from just a few tanks. Sunoco has been doing this for years. They have 2 or 3 tanks. With the lowest, highest, and maybe a mid-grade octane level.
Do we all agree that the price of gas is dropping and will never go up again.
If cars are like Triedaq, the less alcohol they consume the better they perform. I bought Triedaq a case of 50 to 1 liter bottles of ethanol free fuel for his Christmas present. The neighbors and I are tired of him turning the air blue when he tries to start the rototiller or snowblower.
Mrs. Triedaq
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Oh, yes, @dagosa, and to $0.35… That’s the ticket!