do you really know what you are getting at the pump?

I hear ya, I think I lost a sled motor to bad gas.  Thought I was buying Premium gas, probably wasnt, or it was cut with ethanol.  8 miles later, I was looking for a trailer.  I feel like sending the bill to the station.

One can usually smell the difference between an ethanol blend and straight gasoline though I really can't say at what % the nose no longer "knows".

In my vehicle I run non-blend when there is a choice, 10% when there isn't.  I look harder for non-blended fuel for small engine applications, and of course run a fairly heavy dose of Seafoam as well.

i wonder if there is any way to test it? get a sample and send it off?

google is my friend

Testing fuel for ethanol

The following test can be performed to determine the presence of ethanol in gasoline.

On a test tube or olive bottle, make a permanent line about two inches from the bottom.

Fill with water to this line, then fill the tube to the top with gasoline.

Cover the tube, agitate it then let it stand.

Ethanol mixes with water and the two will separate out together. Therefore, after mixing the water and the gasoline, if the water level appears to have increased, then the fuel contains ethanol and should not be used.

I refuse to run ethanol in any of my vehicles if I have a choice.

I can notice the drop in fuel mileage, especially in my truck when I run the 10% ethanol blend.

I stay away from it if I have a choice.

I think that is total bull that they are misleading customers as to what fuel they are buying.

There are stations that label themselves as selling ethanol free gasoline.

I tend to buy from them and ambiguous gas stations get driven by.

this particular station just changed the label this weekend like i said above. just makes you wonder, how many of these local stations are selling "ethanol free" gas? i think i am going to do a little test one of these days. go buy one gallon from every station in town and do the water test that i posted above. see what happens.

This too is an issue for us diesel burners.  I often wonder what "Winterized" really means.  Some pumps list a specifc degree the fuel is good to, but as said above, do we really know what we're getting.  I once purchased winterized fuel for my tractor and while trying to fill the tank with a funnel that had a filter I found the fuel would barely flow through the screen.  This winterized fuel was already gelled. 

Catmechanic,

Sounds to me like that station would have fallen into my definition of ambiguous and I would have already not bought from them.  To my knowledge all the 89 octane fuel in the state has ethanol.  The pumps I routinely fill up are labeled 87, 89 with 10% ethanol, and too expensive. 

I love the ethonal haters, the excuses they come up with are typically laughable at best, LMAO! I see two already and this thread hasn't harldly began. Old carborated sleds gum up the jets because they have years of garbage build up from running "regular" and typically already of deteriorated fuel lines. The ethonal is simply doing it's job and cleaning cleaning as it's used. If a small mixture of ethonal had been ran from day one that problem would be a nonissue and hence the reason you don't find this issue on more modern engines.

As for the worse mileage with a 10% blend it's nothing more than a myth! My wifes 02' Flexfuel taurus drops about 3 mpg on E85 but we'll call is 4 for conversation sake. So the mileage drops from 26mpg to 22mpg. so 22/26 equals 84.6% so about a 15% reduction in economy on E85.  So assuming the 10% label is correct the loss of running a 10% belnd is gonna be 10% of the approx 15% with E85, That's a total loss of 1.5%. Now assuming your the average truck gets say 15mpg and you get a 1.5% loss that equals about 0.22mpg less than normal, I garrentee you cann't duplicated a two tanks of fuel to get that close due to a number of factors from wind, temp, vehicle load, throttel position through the entire tank, ect ect ect! This is of course theoretical but the fact remains that test after test by independant labs cann't not find more than a neglagible difference between Reg and 10%. I have to wonder why so many continue to argue.

I do notice a drop through the winter months in all of my vehicles regardless of the fuel I run through them, Some of it is due to winter fuel blends, and some due to running paramenter of the ECM of the vehicles for cold temps but a 10% ethonal blend makes no difference. I keep log books in all three of my vehicles and have logged over 250k miles over the last 5 years and have yet to see a difference between reg and 10%. Now, I did get a bad tank of fuel two years ago at a Tesaro that caused my pickup to drop to 4mpg pulling my camper and the damn thing didn't have enough power to get out of it's own way, next tank of fuel and it was back to normal and has never repeated that eppisode, again I made an assumption it was bad fuel although there is the slight possibility it could of been something else.

I do however think it's BS and a Fraud for the station to not properly mark the fuel. Some higher performance vehicles require 91 or 93 to run properly which includes lots of toys that do not have the knock sensors our new vehicles have. Atleast with the newer vehicles the ECM will automatically detect and retard the timing if any predetonation/knock is encountered inturn saving the engine, of course there is a loss of power when this happens but atleast that's all that happens.

ethanol runs leaner that is what hurts the 2 stroke sleds.  that is fact.  guys that run ethanol in race cars have to run differnet jets than guys running gas  because it  runs leaner and they also have to use a gas lubricant addative because it is more abrasive.   i worry more about the moisture in gas from gas stations hurting my sled than anything else. 

in arctic cats in particular, there is a wire that you unplug for the efi when running ethanol. it adds a 3% fuel curve to compensate for it burning leaner.

and as far as the whole ethanol is fine for carbed sleds, i will fight that one til the end. not trying to start shyt with you Yar, but this is something i see on a regular basis. we will get a carbed sled in for a full service. clean carbs, fuel filter, chaincase, etc. i have replaced all fuel lines from the tank to the motor, fuel filter, main jets, pilot jets, soak the carbs. i would say that 7 out of 10 sleds that run ethanol will be back later in the year because they are not running right.

you take a baby food jar, put regular 87 octane in it and put the lid on it. then do the same thing with 89 octane with ethanol. let them sit for a month and see what they look like.

A little off topic but have any of you had problems with gas line freeze when burning regular?    I always burn regular( no ethanol) and have never had a problem with gas line freeze.  

to me, thats about the only reason i would ever put ethanol in my vehicle. even if its 10 cents cheaper i don't run it. however, in the winter i WILL put a couple gallons per tank in to act as an antifreeze. but, heet works too.

Cat, I have to disagree. 

I bought a new cat in 99 which has had E-10 in it from day one and never have had a problem.  I did switch the jetting in the carbs to cats specs and am around 7500 miles.  I did switch fuel lines at five years of use but can't say it was from ethonal.

Yarcraft,

I take it you are referring to me as an "ethanol hater"?

You note the difference in a flexfuel vehicle, ever run ethanol in a non-flex fuel vehicle?

I have and as a matter of fact, I have driven a variety of different vehicles for work over the past several years.  Some are flex fuel, some are not, but the fuel economy difference on all that I have paid attention is greater than the mere differential in BTU's per gallon would suggest.  Many studies done by large fleets of vehicles have documented a somewhat unpredictable response to ethanol in a given vehicle.  I believe it was the state of Wisconsin that collected one of the largest datasets and published the results a few years ago.

But for the sake of discussion, in my old 2002 F150 with the 5.4L engine, I went from 14 mpg down to 12 when running E10 based fuels.  Same thing in the Mountaineer we had at the time, that one went from about 17 down to 14 and now when I have to fuel up in Minnetucky, I note a very similar drop in fuel mileage on our Explorer although I haven't kept the detailed notes required to document the actual difference for that vehicle yet.

So really I am not so much of an ethanol hater as I am a cheap bastard.  Ethanol costs me more per mile driven even with the lower price per gallon. 

I suggest everyone do what I do and test their own vehicles by giving ethanol a chance.  Then after figuring out what works best for your engine, run with it and don't look back.


P.S.  For work I often drive a chevy minivan that we run on E85 when available.  Personally, I think it runs just great on E85.  On long road trips I check the mileage frequently.  The van gets 19.5 - 20.2 running E-85 and 21.5 to 22.5 when running E10.

Never run it on no ethanol gasoline, but the closeness of the E85  to E10 is impressive enough for me on this vehicle to warrant using E85.

I don't notice any mileage difference in my  pickup. Could be a bit, but not noticable, though I don't keep absolute track of it and all that.
We do notice about 2 - 3 mpg in the Prius - from about 47 - 8 down to a bit less than 45 at  'almost speeding' highway speeds.  Actually my wife gets a lot of tickets - I don't! LOL
I only run premium in my airplane and boat as long as I can get it, though definitely couldn't measure any difference there!  All my engines run fine, though, and more and more newer engines are designed around it anyway.  
The only reasons to bun ethanol IMO is to be able to give the middle digit to the AAHHRRABSS, though there might be a good argument that it costs more in energy to produce ethanol than what it might save.  Which liar politician do you believe?  LOL

Off topic, but a company allied with some back east University is producing a substitute for hugely leaded Aveation gas!   Supposedly Not alcohol based, though comes out of cellulosic plants - supposed to smell like dirty feet but might turn out to be a godsend to older aircraft engines! LOL  So far it seems to be working out and the FAA has given their blessing on flight testing just last week. 
  One thing about all the fuel controversy is having everyone focused on mileage and energy DOES produce more good research into what we all will be burning in the future.  Research that probably wouldn't happen otherwise.  

The North Dakota Department of Health collects gas samples every month from gas stations around the state to test the octane and ethenol.  If you suspect there is a problem with the gas you pumped you can call the Department at 701-328-5166.  They will collect a sample and send it to the lab.

I have heard that Cenex puts ethonal in most of their pumps...I have a vehicle with a 91 octane minium requirement (supercharged) and Cenex premium does not measure up, along with some other generic gas stations...so I only get premium from Tesoro. At least I can tell the difference...no pinging, which can really kill a forced induction motor. I do run 10% E in my silverado and it is a flex fuel motor, but I always go for name brand (Tesoro again) when filling gas cans for my small engines & outboard motor (manufacturers do NOT recommend E 10 in those). Someday I hope to build a new motor for the mustang that will be designed for E 85 due to superior octane...I could run more boost and thus have even more unneeded horsepower (and mileage is not a concern when you are running over 500hp anyway).