UK to adopt E10
 

According to today's news, the UK government is consulting on the introduction of E10 as the "Standard Fuel" for UK use as of 2021.
When that comes to pass it will drive older cars off the road and make EVs even more desirable.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51731757

I read that earlier too. Is it a good thing or a bad thing? I hear bad press about ethanol, but is it all urban myth and rumour? If it reduces performance, won't people be accelerating harder and using more to counteract it? I know little on this topic, now where's my Peugeot e208 brochure gone...

Everyone I know dislikes the stuff. MPG goes down measurably compared to pure gasoline. I'd like to see it gone.

The US has been using ethanol in gasoline off and on since the 1970's. Unless there was an appreciable cost increase for the material, I would think the rubber in old cars is safe with E10. A more likely concern is that ethanol is a decent fuel system cleaner, and the stripping of old gunk in the tank will clog things.

Some people see a difference between in fuel economy between E0 and E10, some don't. The actual energy difference is about 3%, which is also about the difference between summer and winter blends here. Then ethanol is higher octane, so ignition timing of the car can advance. It comes down to the specifics of the car and driver.

The only set drawback of ethanol is to not use it in fiberglass tanks, as it dissolves the resin, and deposits it in the engine. You also need to take better care of power equipment in terms of regular maintenance.

We have been using E5 here in the UK for some time now. You cannot buy anything else. Because we have the climate we do (the only way you can tell summer from winter is to look at a calendar) UK fuel is the same all the year-round.

With going from E5 to E10, I don't think many will notice a difference.

The biggest difference for me is the gasoline I store for several months to use in lawn mowers. The E10 gas seems to go bad faster and damage the little carburetors on small equipment. As a result, I either have to use some StaBil fuel treatment or buy straight undiluted gas. This seems to avoid the problems.

In my cars, I don't have gas sitting around for months before usage, so the E10 works OK. I do think the mileage is lower on E10, but since it's the cheapest available around here, it works out to be the best buy for me and my cars.

The solution I used was to dump the lawnmower gas into the car tank at the end of the season. Even the stuff mixed with oil. The half gallon or so I could have left got diluted with at least ten gallons in the car tank.

As for the equipment itself, I drained the tanks, and then ran them dry. Start of next season, I'd add some 91% rubbing alcohol or acetone to the first tank to clear out any water or gunk that might be in the carb bowl.

All my equipment is over 10 years old, with a well likely needed in that statement. Couldn't tell if any wear on the fuel system is from the ethanol or just age.

Any ideas how ethanol affect premium fuel then? I only use premium as both my cars use performance engines, but even the 98 stuff I use has E5 stickers on it now. Have noticed the GTi popping and banging alot more on gear changes, and the exhaust seems noisier too. Perhaps just a coincidence or "placebo" or maybe it's just me, either way I'm loving the extra character.

Ethanol's effective octane is over 100. In E10, it raises the petrol octane around 2.

Awesome, so our premium would jump to 100 or more, I say bring it on, I would rather better performance that fuel economy, especially if it helps reduce emissions too. Got to be a win win in my eyes.

Except it won't, as the fuel companies will reduce the octane modifiers currently added to get the figure back to 98 RON. The more ethanol in fuel the poorer the engine performance is the experience of motorists in countries that use E10.

Can't say if the performance is worse with E10, as E0 is hard to come by where I live, but some performance enthusiasts go with E85.

Yeah, the refineries will likely drop the octane of the base petrol. There could still be a performance boost as the ethanol, and water with it, can provide better cylinder cooling.

As I said before though, if all your gas is E5 already, I don't think people will see much difference with E10.

If you have a car engine with an exceptionally high compression ratio and a fuelling system that can deliver sufficient fuel to the engine, then you can get performance out of the engine.
If however the car is using standard compression ratio and a fuel system designed for petrol and you try to run E85 then each litre of fuel will have a compromised amount of energy and performance will suffer.
Early racing engines used 10% acetone in water but you could not run a standard road car on that.

Yes, the case I was thinking of was the Sonic/Aveo 1.4L turbo. The engine was designed for the world's relatively higher octanes, and the software included the fuel tables for E85. In the US, GM just labeled it as regular octane, and let the knock sensors do their thing. It just needed the E85 fuel tables unlocked and an alcohol sensor to become flexfuel. Some opted to just have the fuel table switched to run just E85.

I've seen comments from other model owners running E85 that they got more power. It may not actually be so, but the higher octane of the ethanol would allow more advanced timing of the ignition. Even without a performance improvement from that, the engine was probably running smoother.

Then I understand modding cars are easier here than there.

There were multiple problems in the way the US went about E85. The engines the manufacturers chose to use was one of them. They went regular compression engines. An engine with a higher compression would have been able to take better advantage of the ethanol for performance and efficiency.

Theres a trick to avoid the ethanol when filling up,press the trigger about halfway and you get pure gas. why? because the ethanol is on top of the gas and when you press the trigger all the way it gets mixed in the tanks because the pumps are generating a powerful suction.

When E10 was introduced in Finland ,swedish news reported that some people were filling up slowly to avoid it and thus creating queues,so dont be that guy,if you want pure gas fill up a little at a time in a jerry can each time you fill up or fill up your car late at night when no ones waiting in line.

In Sweden we have 5% ethanol in all gas. I haven tried it yet,but i have heard that it can take like 30 min to fill up a 60 liter tank.

The article,use google translate. https://svenska.yle.fi/artikel/2011/...i-e10-bensinen

This thread appears to have ended up an orphan after spam has been removed.

Keeps showing up as a new topic, seems to be a common glitch. Hopefully resolved now after a couple of fresh posts...