Is 10% ethonal in petrol ok for our cars?

Question

Is 10% ethonal in petrol ok for our cars?

Answer 1

It depends upon your car.  Any car built after 1980 should be able to burn it just fine.  It does burn slightly hotter, so some older cars, particualrly with alluminum engine blocks, may not work as well with it.

It is typically cheaper, but you get lower miles per gallon, so it's kind of a wash.  But you are using less oil, which is good.

Answer 2

i think it is ok too.

Answer 3

Certainly.

I use it myself for my car and have found i get better fuel milage than from using standard fuel.

Answer 4

Yes.

Answer 5

Check E10 on yahoo search and it will tell you the older cars that should not use it. (rubber seals and gaskets etc). I use it in my Kia and it runs as well as unleaded petrol.It's higher octane (93 instead of 91).

Answer 6

there' s always problems when new fuels/mixes are introduced-take a wait and see attitude--me,i'll use it in a year or two,not before-let them iron out the problems first

Answer 7

some models especially older ones may have problems

Answer 8

If it the car is less than 20 years old, should be no problem.

10% ethanol has been in all gasoline sold in Minnesota for more than 25 years.

You may need to replace your fuel filter almost immediately because ethanol is an effective solvent and will clean the crud out of your fuel tank and fuel lines, much of which will get trapped in your fuel filter, potentially clogging it.

Answer 9

After having just helped to prepare a study on Flex Fuel Vehicles which are capable of using blends of up to 85% ethanol (E85), I can tell you a couple of facts.

Yes, even the flex fuel cars get lower gas mileages on the E85 typically it's in the range or 3-8 miles per hour less then if you put gasoline in the same vehicle. Typically in the range of 20%.  Of course these are cars designed to run on ethanol, but the only major differences between them and the non flex fuel version of the car is the computer that identifies the fuel being used and a few smaller upgrades to protect the vehicle from the possible corrosiveness of the alcohol in the E85. They are basically designed to be most fuel efficient with gasoline.

So the 10% ethanol will cause you to lose a couple mpg because of it's structure, but none of the studies I read while working on the report indicated anything that showed a pattern of problems in the performance or maintenance of vehicles run on ethanol. In fact ethanol has a higher octane rating than the equivalent gas so you actually get more horsepower on ethanol especailly as the concentration increases.

So I guess my conclusion would be that it might very well cause some lost efficiency, but probably won't damage your vehicle in any way. It's also helping you to decrease greenhouse gas emissions slightly, so if you are in to helping the environment, lesser gas mileage is the trade-off for improving the earth. Fortunately the ethanol mixed gas even at 10% is less in cost than a 100% gas version, so as expensive as fuel is, it could be even higher without the ethanol