Gas with 10% Ethanol good or bad?

[FlyingPenguin]

Back in the early 80's when we still had carburetors (and I walked 50 miles to school, yada, yada, yada) Gasohol (as we called it then) was a bad thing. It would rust your carburetor. I have this same problem with my model plane engines which run on Alcohol - alcohol is hydroscopic and if you don't flush the motor with after-run oil at the end of the day, you'll have a big lump of rust in it's place in a few weeks.

Lot's of horror stories about how gasohol ruined carbs back then. I stayed the hell away from it.

Well several of the gas stations here now sell gas with 10% Ethanol (Race Trac & Hess just changed over) and with the price of oil and government regulations I suspect most gas will be sold with Ethanol soon.

So the question for you car mechanics here, is Gas with Ethanol safe to use on a modern car? We don't have carbs anymore where the fuel can pool and I would ASSUME that modern Ethanol gas probably has additives to protect your engine.

So what's the opinion? There are some small towns around here where you don't have much of a choice as Race trac and Hess are two of the big gas retailers around here.

[Justlookin]

Back in the 80's with carburated cars the alcohol would dry up the seals and gaskets in the carb. Also due to the fact it wasn't petroleum based it lost some of it's lubricating qualities. It was bad back then for carbs and still is for cars, etc. that don't have the updated rubber and gasket parts that can handle it. It does effect fuel mileage and performance though no matter what they say.
Most cars today are fuel injected and designed to run a certain amount of ethanol in the fuel, but most are still not designed to run with more than a 10% mixture.

[EvilHorace]

Here, we've had 10% ethanol in our gas for years and there are no problems. Whatever the problems were in the 80's, they're gone now.

[wvjohn]

haven't seen a lot of difference when using the 10% in cars, but it's murder in lots of 4 stroke motors like outboards, etc. You have to add gas dryer to the mix.

from a "green" point of view it is turning into a disaster worldwide.

1) it is utilizing food crops (and raising their prices so really poor nations are getting screwed)

2) 3rd world nations are burning down forests and draining peat bogs (which are the most powerful carbon sinks on the planet) to raise crops to make ethanol. Of c ourse they are doing this rather than growing food because they can get hard currency. I have seen estimates that will take as much as 500 years to balance the effect of destroying the natural carbon sinks to make ethanol. And of course, when you drain a peat bog you get an almost immediate release of centuries of carbon into the atmosphere.

check http://www.newscientist.com and other pubs - there's lots of info out there on tis

[Lmandrake]

It does no harm to modern fuel injected cars. In what seems counterintuitive, you get a cleaner burn but less energy content. The result is a decrease in driving range that you would be hard pressed to notice.

Ethanol has been increasing in gasoline for some time, particularly since an oxygenate known as MTBE - which was required in fuel sold in high smog areas - was found to be harmful and extremely permeable in ground water and banned.

I would say that any car built after 95-98 could run on this stuff without any ill effects whatsoever.