In my 2010 Toyota Corolla Le, is it worth the extra cost to use non-ethanol gas(87 octane) to prevent any damage or is it just a waste of money?
It is a waste of money. Cars have been designed for E10 for about 20 years now. You could run ethanol free and the car would be happy and get a little better MPG’s. Check you local laws, it might not be legal to use in road vehicles because it is not taxed for road use. It is usually sold for boats, generators, lawn equipment and other off-road uses…
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If ethanol free gas is not taxed for road use why is it higher priced?
At least here in Oklahoma its about the same price as or even higher than “premium” gas which we all know doesn’t provide any benefits to normal cars.
Probably two reasons it’s more expensive:
- Alcohol is cheaper than gasoline, or
B. They know you’ll pay more.
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Supply and demand, maybe?
I’d guess its priced that way because they don’t sell as much and requires a separate tank and pump. Or they price it because the way they do because people will pay for that. Most on-road stations that sell it, charge far less than the marinas. Trailered boats fill up on they way to the put-in.
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We’ve been running our vehicles on E-10 for decades with hundreds of thousands of miles with no problems what-so-ever.
What damage? Your car was designed and built to run on E-10.
If you’re going to store your car for a long period, I would consider ethanol-free gas worth the extra price. If you own a vehicle that was designed for ethanol-free gasoline, that would be another reason. Otherwise, I can’t think of a good reason to use it in a 2010 vehicle.
It’s all about supply and demand. People are willing to pay more for it, and suppliers are willing to manufacture it at a specific price.
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Depends on what you call “normal”. Many “normal” cars are designed to run on premium. Not a 2010 Corolla but many others like a Buick Regal, Smart Fortwo, Fiat 500, Jeep Renegade, or Nissan Juke.
@guthixguy2010 What caused you to ask this question? Did someone tell you this or did you find it on the internet ?
both but multiple people in person have told me they have had problems with e10 gas
E-10 causes problems with small engines especially 2 strokes and older cars and trucks with carburators. For everyone else it’s an unnoticed 10% tax on their fuel bill.
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I would bet that anyone who has attributed problems to E10 gas was using it in equipment other than a modern car. Otherwise, they might be misdiagnosing the cause of their problems.
Ethanol-free fuel is the best thing to use in boat engines and lawnmower engines, and I used to use it in my 2003 Honda Nighthawk 750 motorcycle until I sold it (because its carbs were designed in the late 1980s), but the only way E10 causes problems on a car as new as yours is if it sits unused for long periods of time, and the ethanol is allowed to collect moisture.
I use ethanol-free fuel in my lawn equipment, but only because it often sits for months at a time unused. I only buy gas for my lawn equipment once or twice a year, so it’s worth the extra cost when you’re not burning large amounts everyday.
However, but in a car that’s a daily driver, and gets fresh fuel at least once every 2-3 weeks, it’s not worth the extra cost.
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It might be more about supply. Ethanol is blended with gasoline at the distribution center into the tank truck. Since most tank trucks deliver E10, any deviation from that proactive adds cost. Will the station selling straight gasoline use the whole load? If not, then there is more than one delivery involved. What products are used instead of ethanol to increase octane and oxygenate the gas? They might be more expensive than ethanol, too.
There is no doubt supply is a major factor, but another factor is the relative in-elasticity of demand for this product (represented by a high slope in the demand curve). The people who buy ethanol free fuel are buying it for reasons other than the cost (or more accurately, in spite of the cost), so you could sell it for $3.50-4.00 per gallon and those who buy it would still buy about the same amount.
It’s like demand for the EpiPen; there are cheaper off-brand substitutes on the market that do the same job, but those who are willing to spend extra for the product are not usually sensitive to price fluctuations in their buying behavior. They’ll buy the ethanol-free fuel (or the brand name EpiPen), because it makes them feel better, even if E10 (or an off-brand Epinephrine injection product) does the job for less.
I get slightly better gas mileage in both my cars with non-ethanol gas. But… if you sit down and do the math for the higher price per gallon… it’s almost not enough to worry about, especially if you have to go way out of your way to get non-ethanol gas. In my neck of the woods, you have to drive out into the country to fill up.
Now small engines are a different story. I run only non-ethanol in my lawnmowers, etc. Better safe than sorry, there.
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Non ethanol fuel is taxed the same here if it is sold in gas stations. It is 91 octane and available at less than 10% of the stations and runs about a dollar a gallon more. I buy it for my lawn equipment because it is all…well, old. Makes my old string trimmer run better than new. Mine is a Homelight but I know my church’s is a Stihl and it requires 81 octane.
It’s only sold at a couple stations here, not including the marina’s. One is a local company that you need their card to use the pumps, you do get a bill pretty quick if our experience from the 80’s is till the same. Haven’t used them since we replaced our VW Diesel in 1990
You know what’s funny? It might be my imagination, or some error in calculation, but I think my motorcycle, a 2015 Honda Shadow Aero, gets better fuel economy with E10 than it gets with ethanol free fuel.
When I owned the Nighthawk 750 I mentioned above, I used to use ethanol free fuel in both motorcycles because one would often sit while I rode the other one or drove my car. Since I sold the Nighthawk, I’ve been using the Shadow as my primary vehicle. In fact, I’m driving the car less and less, so I’ve stopped using ethanol free fuel for anything other than my lawn equipment.
Now, I acknowledge a lot has changed since I was using ethanol free fuel in the Shadow, including my riding habits and routes traveled, so I have no reason to chalk this up to the type of fuel I’m using, but with ethanol free fuel I was getting between 40 and 42 MPG. With E10, I’m getting 48-50 MPG.
Could it be that this fuel injected motorcycle, which is designed to run on E10, is actually more efficient with E10?
I’m betting other factors are at work, and the difference in fuel economy between E10 and ethanol free gas is so much less pronounced on a 750 cc motorcycle than a car that it’s mere coincidence. However, I know I won’t go back to spending extra money to run ethanol free fuel in the Shadow. It just isn’t worth the price.