Posted on 12/03/2012 12:08:34 AM PST by neverdem
The recently approved use of E15 fuel made from blending gasoline and ethanol could damage vehicles and void warranties says the American Automobile Association (AAA), which is urging the federal government to ban it from the market.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approved the fuel earlier this summer, but AAA says only five percent of vehicles on the road are approved by the manufacturers to use the special blend they say causes significant problems such as accelerated engine wear and failure, fuel-system damage and false “check engine” warning lights.
The auto club conducted a recent survey it says identifies confusion among consumers as to which vehicles can use the fuel — 95 percent of those surveyed had never heard of E15, which contains 15 percent ethanol.
“It is clear that millions of Americans are unfamiliar with E15, which means there is a strong possibility that many motorists may improperly fill up using this gasoline and damage their vehicle,” said Robert Darbelnet, AAA president. “Bringing E15 to the market without adequate safeguards does not responsibly meet the needs of consumers.”
Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), former chairman of the House Science Committee, said the findings confirm concerns on Capitol Hill that the fuel can damage cars.
Gasoline blended with 10 percent ethanol is readily available at most gas stations nationwide, but E15 is only sold at a few stations in Kansas, Iowa and Nebraska.
“Concerns about E15 are not diminishing, they are increasing. That is telling,” Sensenbrenner said. “When an organization like AAA, a nationally trusted source for motorists, calls out the EPA, you would think the administration would listen.”
The EPA has not yet responded to the AAA’s request.
Several manufactures including BMW, Chrysler, Nissan, Toyota and Volkswagon are refusing to cover vehicle warranties for damage caused by E15. More are signaling they will follow suit, including General Motors, Ford, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Mazda, Mercedes-Benz and Volvo, according to AAA.
The only vehicles currently approved by automakers to use E15 are flex-fuel models manufactured in 2001 and after, including some Porsches, General Motors and Ford. The use of E15 is expressly prohibited in heavy-duty vehicles including boats, motorcycles, power equipment, lawn mowers and off-road vehicles.
“The sale and use of E15 should be suspended until additional gas pump labeling and consumer education efforts are implemented to mitigate problems for motorists and their vehicles,” Darbelnet said. ”Consumers should carefully read pump labels and know their auto manufacturer’s recommendations to help prevent any problems from E15.”
Mandated use of a substance that solves a non-existant problem, and does so in the least efficient and most damaging way possible.
F#%^ing brilliant.
And because the heat content per gallon in ethanol is lower than that of gasoline, your mileage goes down in direct proportion to the amount of Ethanol in the blend. Then there is also the problem with ethanol attacking plastic and rubber parts in the fuel system and the fact that alcohols are miscible in water so you can have problems with fuel system corrosion. Other than that, ethanol is a great fuel and using it drives up the prices on all the foods you eat that contain corn.
They don’t care, I contacted them and I have to go haul empty plastic jugs to get my gas now for all my small engines and old cars.
These people really do have their blinders on “Forward”.
You should see what *all* ethanol does to the guts of a Harley.
why would the enemy of liberty care about what method they use to destroy that liberty
their response to AAA would be "good we can see its working, thank you, now go away before we tell the IRS or insurance czar to shut you down"
Only Congress could arrive at such a construct.
The warranty on my 2008 Nissan outboard "recommends not using fuel that contains more than 10% ethanol or 5% methanol". The warranty further states that "using fuel containing ANY alcohol may void the warranty".
The Ethanol Industry has spent a ton of money on lobbying, advertising and public relations for E-10, now they are pushing E-15.
NASCAR is sponsored by Ethanol and their cars use E-15. E-15 for races is not stored in underground tanks as fuel was for decades. If you look you will see 18 wheel tankers parked behind the pits at races. Of course NASCAR does not like to about the reasons this is done.
BTW we are now importing Ethanol!
The chimpanzee in White House and his idiot followers could’nt care less about our cars. They hate oil. So they push ethanol made from corn. Ethanol is still hydrocarbon burning, generating as much CO2 as gasoline.
Which is one reason I like one of the local gas chains, the “Liberty” stations. Pure gas. ZERO Ethanol. No idea how they get away with it, but they do. . .
You might look at the web site: Pure-Gas.org.
They list stations by state and city that sell gasoline with no ethanol.
I do a moderate amount of fixings on older snowmachines in Alaska and I see occasionally cases where the pick up hose in the fuel tank splits because of certain fuels coming from Anchorage years ago, they tried adding something to the fuel years ago to create less clouding in arctic temps, well it immediately screwed up several thousand cars and the oxygen sensors.
I bought an older Honda CX 500 some years ago, had some ethanol type of gas in it and was in storage, ate all the rubber diaphragms apart. Fortunately where I am in Wasilla we do NOT have to be forced to buy ethanol added fuel here, no two hose pumps with vapor bellows or febrile pumps that just trickle the gas in to reduce vapors escaping while fueling.
Ethanol is good for race cars and engines designed to run off it, you cannot even use that gas in older boats with fiberglass fuel tanks, eats the resin up.
Not true.
Oxygenated fuel is required only within metro areas with persistent air quality problems (which, in fact, amounts to just about every metro area in the country...according to the EPA).
However, rural areas beyond the bounds of the metro areas are not required to use oxygenated fuels. If those rural areas draw their gasoline from terminals located within the metro area, they may or may not receive ethanol in their gasoline -- depending upon the distributor's policy.
However, if they draw from terminals outside the metro area, there will be no ethanol added.
For example, whenever I drive from the small town in Texas where I live (in the DFW metro area), thru Western Oklahoma up to Western Kansas to visit family, the gasoline I buy in Clinton, OK (e.g.) and Hays, KS will not contain ethanol.
And I will get 15% better gas mileage from those tanks...
Try Pure-Gas.org by state and city, you might want to revise that statement.
Fairbanks and Anchorage were the cities that tried using oxygenated fuels back around 1993, caused way too many problems back then. It can be absolutely terrible when you have hundreds of idling cars in th edead of winter running, even at stoplights it creates a mass of moisture laden fog in sub zero temps.
They think 02 enriched fuel will solve that, only made for people having their engines die in minus 40 temps and they themselves dying. That happened some years ago, a whole family froze to death, because of bad fuel.
Right on. The AAA has committed the sin of Wrong Thinking. There will be consequences and pressure will be brought to bear to assure that the Regime's diktats are not questioned.
They were talking about mileage and she suggested he use regular gas, not E-85. He lives in the St Louis area and I assume he can only buy oxygenated fuel.
He started using regular gasoline and got 25% higher mileage. I ask her to repeat that number and she said 25% is what he told me.
I ask the local GM service manager about that big increase in mileage. He told me that "GM says 30% better mileage for a Flex Fuel (E-85) vehicles when the owner switches to regular gas".
okie01: I live in a rural area, my mileage increased 11% when I stopped using gasoline that contains 10% ethanol (E-10) and went to gasoline that does not contain any ethanol. Same highway, same driving style.
okie01: I live in a rural area, my mileage increased 11% when I stopped using gasoline that contains 10% ethanol (E-10) and went to gasoline that does not contain any ethanol. Same highway, same driving style.
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When I visit IOWA all the gas stations there give you a choice of 87 octane regular (no alcohol) or 89/90 octane mid-grade (with alcohol) , the “with alcohol” is always about $0.10 cheaper per gallon but as all here have noted it costs you a lot of mileage... The corn farmers aren’t stupid ,, I saw very few people choosing the corn pump...
I know 2 homebuilt aircraft pilots running auto gas who's fiberglass tanks did just that. One landed on a highway, the other limped along, called a percautionary landing and this was during the test flight phase. He has since had to do a major redue to remove the tank and put an all aluminum one in.
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