Are you “E10” ready?

[Terry - Somerset]

A little like taking lead out of petrol.

Additives can slow down the degradation. In the case of lead the solution was to re-machine valve seats. For E10 I suspect there will be a market for E10 compliant kits to fix most older cars and lawnmowers/chainsaws.

Manufacturers have known about this for nearly 2 decades and modified their products accordingly. It's progress - or so we are told. It is somewhat questionable whether land, equipment, herbicides and pesticides used for crop production would be better used for food rather than ethanol.

In 10 years EV will dominate new car sales so does it really matter anyway?

 

[marcros]

For regularly used vehicles, it’s less of a problem as the fuel is used up and replaced. For lawnmowers, strimmers or chainsaws, it’s worth adding fuel stabilisers which will delay the decay of the fuel caused by ethanol content.
The alternative is to buy something like ‘Aspen’ fuels which doesn’t have any ethanol in it.

Aspen gets very expensive though in a lawnmower. I plan to use it in my hedge trimmer because a gallon will last for a long time, but to use it in the mantis tiller or a mower at £20 a gallon is too much. I haven't prices the stihl equivalent but presume it is a similar price.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Er..... what is Aspen??

https://aspenfuel.co.uk/

 

[Just4Fun]

Aspen gets very expensive though in a lawnmower. I plan to use it in my hedge trimmer because a gallon will last for a long time, but to use it in the mantis tiller or a mower at £20 a gallon is too much.

That is a crazy price. I checked the Aspen web site link that Phil provided and found the price for a 25-litre drum of Aspen 2 is £89 and for Aspen 4 it is £84. I chose the 25L drum for comparison with the 25L drums of 102 octane racing fuel we buy. The UK price for the racing fuel is £86.25. To me it makes no sense that fuel for a lawnmower should be the same price as for a full-spec competition car. Especially as (so far as I can see) the Aspen specification does not mention the octane rating.

Why does anyone use Aspen? What noticable/measurable benefit do you really get from it?

 

[marcros]

That is a crazy price. I checked the Aspen web site link that Phil provided and found the price for a 25-litre drum of Aspen 2 is £89 and for Aspen 4 it is £84. I chose the 25L drum for comparison with the 25L drums of 102 octane racing fuel we buy. The UK price for the racing fuel is £86.25. To me it makes no sense that fuel for a lawnmower should be the same price as for a full-spec competition car. Especially as (so far as I can see) the Aspen specification does not mention the octane rating.

Why does anyone use Aspen? What noticable/measurable benefit do you really get from it?

I would use the 2 stroke version to save mixing oil and petrol, and mainly because I use the hedge trimmer once or twice a year and the fuel sits in it for the rest of the time. Aspen is said to burn cleaner and to not go stale for a number of years. The hedge trimmer is the only 2 stroke machine that I currently have.

For anything that gets used regularly I wouldn't be concerned about the fuel going stale so I probably wouldn't bother with the Aspen.

I am sure that there are other benefits or nobody would bother with it.

 

[DrPhill]

Thanks for the 'heads up'. I was completely unaware of this. My car is immune.

 

[NikNak]

I've got a Skoda Fabia 2003....

I know its been tough 'coming out' on a public forum, but... be brave....

Guys.... do you think we should set up a Go-Fund-Me page to help this poor soul out..?

 

[Cozzer]

My local mower repair shop - along with many others, apparently - is currently pushing Aspen as an alternative fuel.
I thought it was a good idea until I saw the price!

 

[Spectric]

In the case of lead the solution was to re-machine valve seats

Can remember the days when lead was phased out, many with classic cars & bikes turned to additives to put the lead back in and others had hardened valve seats fitted and you needed to adjust the ignition timing to compensate for the faster burn rate of unleaded, these days with electronic control unleaded is easily calibrated for. It is only a mater of time before they insist on having full emision equipment on all horticultural and portable machinery whilst other countries continue to build coal fired plants, so like having two people trying to dig a hole whilst ten are trying to fill it.

 

[marcros]

My local mower repair shop - along with many others, apparently - is currently pushing Aspen as an alternative fuel.
I thought it was a good idea until I saw the price!

it is off topic, but I wonder whether a fuel stabiliser such as Mountfield MS1211 Universal Fuel Stabiliser 100ml would achieve the same thing- it would make a gallon of fuel £11ish, so not unreasonable compared with the aspen or stihl stuff. for regularly used equipment it is probably not worth bothering at all.

 

[D_W]

premix fuel has been popular here for a while (E10 has been in place for a very long time now, and E15 is floating around - the initial issues with small engines and one offs were many - especially seals and fuel lines. If you have a small engine with a pre-ethanol fuel line, expect in some time interval, the fuel line will just end up cracked and leaking in some or dozens of places).

I've replaced the fuel lines on my small engines and no further problems, but also have gone to buying the higher octane fuel here (which the oil companies don't bother to mix with that much ethanol).

I don't really know why people go to the trouble of paying for pre-mix here, though - it's something like $6 a quart. I guess laziness. Separately, there are additives (and there will be there) combined with two cycle oil or without two cycle oil that claim to neutralize the effect of ethanol on spoilage of fuel (not sure about whether or not they change the nature of ruining seals and fuel lines).

Non-car engines, or car engines with exotic parts (classic cars with higher quality fuel pumps, etc, like aircraft grade stuff) didn't fare as well. Most of the aircraft grade parts are designed for low lead (not lead free) fuel, and no lead with ethanol just ate them (obscure, I know, but I knew a guy now deceased who was a pilot and who "did up" some older cadillacs that he favored and I suppose he got errant advice about the ethanol content of some fuels and thought he'd steered clear, but didn't).

 

[jrm688]

In Canada we have 3 grades, regular E10, mid grade E5 and hi test or super (92-94 octane) with no alcohol. No one has mentioned the increase fuel consumption with alcohol. A few years ago I was looking up my van in the government issued fuel consumption guide. With average driving it would use 2000 litres a year on alcohol free fuel. With E85 it was 3000 litres a year. A 50% increase! The fuel companies win twice. I believe alcohol is cheaper than petroleum and you use more!

 

[kwigly]

Ethanol fuel rotted out the fuel lines on my chainsaw (and had a swelling effect on the fuel cap?). I now use ethanol-free fuel for all my small engines

 

[D_W]

In Canada we have 3 grades, regular E10, mid grade E5 and hi test or super (92-94 octane) with no alcohol. No one has mentioned the increase fuel consumption with alcohol. A few years ago I was looking up my van in the government issued fuel consumption guide. With average driving it would use 2000 litres a year on alcohol free fuel. With E85 it was 3000 litres a year. A 50% increase! The fuel companies win twice. I believe alcohol is cheaper than petroleum and you use more!

Yes, higher with E85 by an enormous amount. The more stop and go you do, the worse the increased consumption.

For E10, the mileage loss is about 3% or so. Which I guess isn't that big of a deal, but with a car that gets 30 miles per gallon, you lose 1 for no good reason.

 

[Just4Fun]

No one has mentioned the increase fuel consumption with alcohol. A few years ago I was looking up my van in the government issued fuel consumption guide. With average driving it would use 2000 litres a year on alcohol free fuel. With E85 it was 3000 litres a year. A 50% increase!

When we use E85 in a rally car we use 30% more fuel, and that is obviously driving a lot harder than any normal driving. I do agree that fuel usage is worse with ethanol added, but I am rather surprised by the 50% figure. I suppose it might be that our rally cars are specifically tuned for E85 but your van isn't, so you van could be less adapted to that fuel, but that is a really big difference. Do you remember if the guide you mention linked to any studies to support the 50% claim?

The reduced economy from using E10 in the UK will not be as bad as these E85 figures, but it will exist nonetheless. I don't have any figures for that but 10% sounds reasonable.

 

[HamsterJam]

Why does anyone use Aspen? What noticable/measurable benefit do you really get from it?

I use Aspen 4T in my camping stove.
The additives in pump fuel clog the internal workings and the manufacturers proprietary fuel retails at £7 up to £10 per litre depending where you shop.
5L will last me a couple of years so £18 a pop isn’t a show stopper.

I also had to change fuel lines in my strimmer as the pump fuel rotted the OEM parts.

 

[D_W]

When we use E85 in a rally car we use 30% more fuel, and that is obviously driving a lot harder than any normal driving. I do agree that fuel usage is worse with ethanol added, but I am rather surprised by the 50% figure. I suppose it might be that our rally cars are specifically tuned for E85 but your van isn't, so you van could be less adapted to that fuel, but that is a really big difference. Do you remember if the guide you mention linked to any studies to support the 50% claim?

The reduced economy from using E10 in the UK will not be as bad as these E85 figures, but it will exist nonetheless. I don't have any figures for that but 10% sounds reasonable.

3%.

ethanol has about 2/3rds the energy, though if driving at distance, that's not as much of a threat to economy.

change out 10% of gas and lose about 3-4% of the energy in the fuel and you'll get something around that in mileage change.

EONs ago when E85 first came out and fedgov in the US paid ford and GM to make "flex fuel" vehicles that never did run on flex fuel (people just put gas in them - government waste, of course), motor trend did some checking on economy and more or less said with E85, stop and go is worse, and on highway traveling, they didn't see quite as drastic of a loss in mileage.

Since it'll probably only be 1 mpg lost for E10, you may not notice it - but it's there.

 

[pgrbff]

That is a crazy price. I checked the Aspen web site link that Phil provided and found the price for a 25-litre drum of Aspen 2 is £89 and for Aspen 4 it is £84. I chose the 25L drum for comparison with the 25L drums of 102 octane racing fuel we buy. The UK price for the racing fuel is £86.25. To me it makes no sense that fuel for a lawnmower should be the same price as for a full-spec competition car. Especially as (so far as I can see) the Aspen specification does not mention the octane rating.

Why does anyone use Aspen? What noticable/measurable benefit do you really get from it?

I use it because I understand it is less likely to degrade plastic tubes etc in the fuel system and unlike petrol does not go "off" in a couple of months. My snow blower does not need to be drained after the winter and my generator is always ready to be fired up. It is expensive.