Flex fuel = poor mileage?

Question

I have a 4x4 drive ford ranger '00, it's flex fuel. I would love to use the option of Ethonal (sp?) but it seems that the mileage I get is horrible about 12 mpg compare to reg. 87 gas I get about 17-18 mpg, is it cuase it's an older truck or is this the norm?

Answer 1

I've got a 1998 Plymouth Voyager. We've used the flex fuel a couple of times too, wooed by the much lower prices. I think it's pretty much a wash...low cost off-set by much worse mileage. I'm not sure I like the idea of flex fuel...the energy expended to produce it makes it nearly NOT a good thing. Should we burn corn, or send it to some country where people are starving?? I'm not even sure that ethanol is better for our atmosphere, because we're still burning and creating co2.

Answer 2

normal for ethanol

that is part of the scam

sell a  garbage fuel at a high price per mile. make even more money. plus you pay more for grain products now. so they get everyone to pay even if you do not use a ethanol fuel.

you should have get a diesel truck.

Answer 3

Ethanol has a lower energy density than gasoline, so lower gas mileage is expected. I don't know if your 30% reduction is the norm or not.

Answer 4

It's the norm ethanol is 27% less efficient.

Answer 5

Ethanol has a lower energy density (34%) lower than gasoline, so a 30% decrease in fuel mileage would be expected, add that to the face that your engine isn’t tuned for ethanol could make it even worse. When I use 10% ethanol blend I lose about 5% of my fuel mileage, and I pay the same for the blended fuel as I do for unblended gasoline.

Ethanol is NOT the answer to our fuel need, but the lobbyist for the corn growers make sure they get the lion’s share of the funding. But you did ask that, sorry.

Edit

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Energy Density is the amount of energy you can get out of a fixed amount of fuel, it doesn’t matter if you use the fuel to heat air or drive a piston, and there is only so much energy stored in the fuel. Octane can’t change that, the higher octane will allow for a higher compression ratio, which would allow you get use more of the energy into moving the car, but you still will have lower fuel mileage compared to a gasoline no matter what you do.

Good luck getting the sugar beets farmer to grow more sugar beets, they have a lock, thanks to the federal government, to sugar production in the US. Why do you think we pay more for sugar than almost anyplace in the WORLD, I would have said every place in the world but someplace might have a high sugar price then we do. Just about every year the sugar beet farmers cry to congress, we need to save the farms and farm jobs, and congress folds under the weight of money to keep sugar production down and prices high. So much for the free markets.

“Henry Ford Built all of his cars to run on ethanol until 1919” That statement is just wrong, The model T had a 10 gallon fuel tank was mounted to the frame beneath the front seat(early models); one variant had the carburetor (a Holley Model G) modified to run on ethyl alcohol, to be made at home by the self-reliant farmer. But it was a variant, that is a special order. You could order the model T that way but you had to ask for it.

Answer 6

energy Density? nice wording for to make BS sound good, ethanol has higher octane than gas ,gas is 87 Ethanol 101 but since cars are built in this country to run on gas they have a lower compression ratio, True corn is a poor producer of ethanol at 200 gal. per acre but sugar beets and other crops can get up to 2000 per acre. and if we build cars better we can get mileage increase off of ethanol, it runs cooler so cars last longer, Detroit hates that. the 30% that people are throwing arround is the heating value...gas burns at about 1300 and Ethanol at about 1000 to 1100  but cars do not run on heat....that is a waste by product of combustion. Henry Ford Built all of his cars to run on ethanol until 1919, the scam is big oil saying that we can't use ethanol to support auto's we can but changes need to be made, ethanol is clean burning, about 90% better than gas. Cost will drop if cars start being built to run on ethanol, and the cost of ethanol will drop as more gets available the answer for next twenty or more years will be ethanol...oil has peaked and will continue to rise in cost. as well as wars etc.

Answer 7

It's the norm I have an 06 4x4 Durango and my car gets terrible gas mileage on Ethanol and I get much better mileage on regular gasoline. Ethanol is not worth the time or the $ to use. It's something they came out with to make the tree huggers of the nation shut up. I will use gasoline until someone says I can no longer use it and they no longer sell it.