Can any car use E85?
Don't try this! We mean it. DO NOT TRY THIS! The American Coalition for Ethanol ran a 2000 Chevy Tahoe, not a flex-fuel vehicle, exclusively on E85 for 100,000 miles. Then they stripped down the engine and took a look. Everything looked fine. Fuel lines, fuel pumps, etc. In fact, they say a few things looked better than normal. The video includes a look at the parts of the engine from that Tahoe.
Again, DO NOT TRY THIS but car companies know they must comply with small percentage blends of ethanol. So most cars made since the early '90s can handle ethanol. The only problem is that non flex-fuel vehicles don't have the sensors necessary to detect ethanol content. They also don't have the control software to manage the air fuel mixture properly. So your car might run on E85, it just won't run well. It could also cause major damage and using E85 usually voids your warranty. So that's why you should not try it.
This leads to an interesting potential. What if a private or public group went to car manufacturers or did tests on their own to find out which cars could withstand E85? Then this was made available to the public. This would be great for the ethanol market. Many people think ethanol is bad because it's more polluting and less efficient. The creation of a mild or soft flex fuel standard won't make them happy.
(fellow AutoblogGreen blogger Sam Abuelsamid contributed to this article)
[Source: Youtube]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
C. O. Hoff 11:05PM (4/20/2008)
I have a 2005 Chevrolet Express Cargo Van. Can that run on E85?? At the local station, gas is $3.45/gal and the E85 is $2.80/gal. Is their a value point that is makes sense if I can even run on it??
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Donovan 9:41PM (5/28/2008)
the point of ethanol and alternative fuels, people, is not for better gas mileage; the point is to reduce our dependency on foreign oil and fossil fuels entirely. and with gas approaching an incomprehensible FIVE dollars a gallon, how expensive will ethanol be by comparison? get real and get smart.
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Dennis 4:21PM (6/23/2008)
I've been experimenting with a 1995 ford escort and E85. It runs just fine and I've been doing it for about a year now. If I run a mix of at least two gallons of regular gas to 10 gallons of E85 no probs. However, when I try to run pure E85, the engine light comes on once in a while when I come to stop, but it goes off when I return to cruizing. No ill effects on the performance either way. I've been saving about $6 per fill up, and that is significant when it takes about $40 to fill up today.
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George 5:47PM (5/12/2009)
We rented a Chevy impala 07 and drove it from CA to KS and used the e85 and the car ran great. We had no problems with the power and we got great gas mi not knowing even what the e85 was.
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MikeB 8:57PM (8/07/2007)
I've heard that a Subaru WRX (which is what I drive) can handle E85 with minimal problems. The ECU has a pretty flexible program, so it manages to compensate and run well. Some drivers like to put in larger fuel injectors and re-program the ECU parameters for better performance, but it's supposed to be quite drivable stock.
I'd be trying it myself if there was an E85 pump anywhere near me.
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Killer 9:10PM (8/07/2007)
Ethanol (E85) isn't all it's crack up to be....
It's not as powerful as gasoline. So it gives you worse gas mileage than normal gas. It's not cheaper then gas. 30 cents isn't getting it to the gas quality. It needs to be about a dollar cheaper than gas for it to be "worth" buying. It has 33% less power. Plus it's heavily subsidies...But what isn't nowadays? Until, they fix these minor problems with ethanol, tell me. I'm not going to put E85 in my flex-fuel 03' Tahoe till those are resolved.
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Carney 3:52PM (7/26/2008)
Alcohol fuel has a higher octane rating and gives you more horsepower.
bolhuijo 9:11PM (8/07/2007)
Not a single mention of how the thing runs? Did it lack power? Did it start poorly? Was it still smooth and driveable? These are all important questions that weren't answered. Instead we learned about the color of the plastic on the fuel sending unit!
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Tam 9:25PM (8/07/2007)
Before people get too excited about ethanol, what about the ethics of siphoning grains away from uses for food and toward uses for our energy habit? This was a topic considered and debated in an editorial on CarDevotion.com, and it's an important point.
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Tam 9:28PM (8/07/2007)
here's the link if anyone one's to read it
http://editor.cardevotion.com/
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TX CHL Instructor 9:40PM (8/07/2007)
"Many people think ethanol is bad because it's more polluting and less efficient."
Maybe that's because it **IS** more polluting and less efficient.
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Hank 9:51PM (8/07/2007)
Tam, in my state ethanol comes from switchgrass & willow branches. I don't think that's going to effect food crops much.
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AlexP 10:24PM (8/07/2007)
Although I find ethanol to be attractive as a green fuel, E10 practically killed my MPG, I had to fill up twice over the week rather than once.
If it hurts my wallet on the short run and isn't giving me any advantages on the long run, there's simply no point for me in using it, even if it's 4 cents cheaper than a litre of unleaded. :\
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Jack 10:56PM (8/07/2007)
Tam, what about the ethics of overweight Americans shoving down 2-3 times the food they need, when we have troops dieing for oil?
Maybe it would be more ethical for big fat America to go on a diet so we can spare farmland to grow fuel and bring the troops home.
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Steve 10:24AM (7/23/2008)
Jack said:
Maybe it would be more ethical for big fat America to go on a diet so we can spare farmland to grow fuel and bring the troops home
You really have no clue. FIrst they are not dieing for oil. What oil advantage have we gotten from Iraq or Afghanistan?
Second obesity is not always a result of over eating. Your broad comments show you have thought little about either of those situations.
Kardax 11:07PM (8/07/2007)
We're eventually not going to have enough farmland to feed Earth's population, anyway. E85 just speeds up the process :)
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MikeW 11:42PM (8/07/2007)
Isn't winter in a place like South Dakota E70?
How about blender pumps for picking the AKI (BMW has a footnote that says its gasoline engines are meant to run on 98 RON gasoline, and are adaptable down to 95 or 91RON-except for the N54 which should have at minimum 95 RON)
Ethanol has a lower volumetric energy density, but it is compensated via the different air:fuel ratio (it just happens to balance out).
Since the engine is an air pump, the air is the limiting factor and power is basically a wash (maybe actually slight edge for ethanol because it has to inject so much more mass-up to 40%, there is more evaporative cooling, so a slight gain in air density)
But most ethanol fueled vehicles are not programming to have default spark timing for premium gasoline, so there is an unrealized potential gain from ethanol. Maybe in the future the 'virtual sensor' that calculates the % ethanol, can be 'smart' enough to set the spark timing to take advantage of the higher AKI. (or the spark plugs that act as knock sensors)
E10 is usually up to ~3.3% off the mileage that straight gasoline would provide, so ~6.7 & ~10% for E20,30? Interesting that E20 is 92 AKI, and E30 is 95AKI.
So in the real world you lose ~25% mileage on E85 (so commensurately the range is also shortened, affecting your drive cycle) So it would need to be priced accordingly, say 1/4 to 1/3 off the price of gasoline.
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Jimmy 12:02AM (8/08/2007)
bolhuijo - In my experiments with higher concentrations of fuel ethanol in non-flex fuel vehicles, there was no observable effect. The engine starts and runs smoothly with no lack of power. This is of course the classic case of "your mileage may vary". It will all depend on the programming for your particular vehicle. Based on my observations and direct reports of others, every modern fuel injected vehicle should run on E30 with no impact to performance or emissions.
This video helps to disprove the FUD around ethanol usage.. much of which is traceable to the petroleum industry.
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Azrael4h 7:17AM (8/08/2007)
17-19mpg in a Taurus? How the bloody heck do you drive that thing? I had to drive my '89 GMC 1/2 ton hard to drop below 20mpg with a 5.7l V8. It usually ran an even 24mpg, unloaded. Never ran it loaded enough to find out an accurate mileage for that. I find it hard to believe that a Ford Taurus of any vintage would get sub-20mpg. 22-24 is somewhat low sounding to me.
With that car, it sounds like pulling your foot off the throttle would do more to save gas than putting in magical potions. Of course, that goes for all vehicles. I personally have never managed to get a car to have as poor fuel economy as the EPA estimates. There's a reason they're called estimates. I don't skid to a stop, floor it off the line, stick to the posted speed limit, and accelerate smoothly. I also keep my vehicles tuned up. It pays off quite well.
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