Ethanol scam going on in Virginia?
The Virginia State Agriculture Department is investigating gas stations that might be selling people bad gas. In this case, "bad" means too much ethanol. While the maximum percentage of ethanol that can be blended with unleaded fuel in that state is 10 percent, some people claim that some stations are selling fuel with excess corn in it. The Department discovered a wide range of ethanol blends in different samples, with one reaching 50 percent. As regular readers know, it's a bad idea to pump that much ethanol in your car if it's not ready for it (emergencies aside), as it can damage the entire fuel line. Ethanol is more corrosive than unleaded. Virginia authorities have yet to find out whether the overblending was intentional (ethanol is cheaper than gas) or simply a mistake. Watch the video after the jump.[Source: WAVY]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
win39 1:23PM (6/19/2009)
I think this is more common that realized and probably needs to be investigated anywhere ethanol is mixed into gasoline. The reason I think so is that a 10 percent mixture should only have a small effect on the range of miles on a tank of fuel. I have had my tank range reduced by as much as a quarter when fueling with an ethanol mixture. Once I was very lucky to find an open station some time after the reserve light came on or I could have frozen to death in the Montana winter about 75 miles short of my planned refueling stop.
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GoodCheer 4:33PM (6/19/2009)
Good grief... I'm sorry to hear that.
That's the range anxiety that GM hasn't been mentioning.
Brnie 2:12PM (6/23/2009)
I bought a 30% blend of ethanol in Iowa a couple of weeks ago and it increased my milage over 1 mile per gal on the car computer I have an 2009 impala and was getting 30 miles per gallon prior to my fill that was bought at the Flying J in Oak Creek Wi 10% blend, I was needing gas at Galva Ia and I filled up with E30 and got increase to 32 by the time I got home in Nebraska
ale 11:24AM (6/22/2009)
well from living in this area, i can tell you this has been an issue for a while and probably explains bad gas reports from the beginning of the year. The thing that sucks the most is in terms of marine applications, where ethanol can not be used, otherwise, warranties are voided and owners left 10s of 1000s of dollars in repairs...
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