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Ethanol another tax
I bought a new truck in January and, until recently, it has been getting about 21 mpg. In the last two months the mileage dropped to about 18. We always buy Chevron gas so I emailed them to ask if they reformulated their gasoline and, if so, when. Sure enough, starting this year in our area they add 10% ethanol November through February. That seems to explain why my mileage dropped. So in addition to $3/gallon gas we're now hit with another 10-15% hike due to "feel good" legislation. It's not like we have a big air quality problem here. Instead of chipping slash maybe I should start burning it to offset the good I'm doing by burning ethanol in my tank.
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Ethanol another tax
Ken, it's a real barn burner to have to spend money to get what you bargained for in the first place, but.....
I've noticed a lot of people up here recently buying those reprogrammers for their trucks to be able to tweak the computer in order to maintain performance even though their burning ethanol blends.
If it helps any, in most areas the premium fuel is still not an ethanol blend, it's usually a straight gas still. If you experiment a bit you might be surprised, my Rover is actually cheaper (in $ per mile) to drive on premium than on regular since it goes further on the good stuff, sufficiently further per tank to more than negate the extra cost of the fuel.
BTW, ethanol is becoming a HUGE problem in certain parts of the aviation industry too, a lot of the Ultra-light aircraft and the new Light Sport category aircraft are powered by large 2 or 4 stroke Rotax engines that burn regular gas not the 100LL AvGas that we do. Apparently the ethanol does nasty things to those engines.
Since it's tough to pull over and get out on a cloud when there's a mechanical problem, it's causing a lot of people a lot of grief.
Makes me glad I have a 'real' airplane!!
Best of luck.
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Ethanol another tax
Back in November I drove my 2008 Ford F-250 from home in CT to my wife's parents place in Roanoke, VA. Funny with the first tank of gas bought in CT I was averaging ~13 miles/ gallon. When I filled up in VA I was averaging 15 miles/ gallon,(per the trucks computer), I too thought it was related to the fuel formulation. I have noticed a drop in MPG in CT when they started going with the "oxygenated & ethanol" formula.
When I filled up in VA I did not see a sticker on the pump indicating "up to 10% ethanol" as it is on all the pumps here in CT.
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Ethanol another tax
Have had the same experience with ethanol in my vehicles. Hurts even more because I do a lot of my traveling selling flagpoles from January to April.
BTW K.W.S. what kind of truck did you end up getting?
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Ethanol another tax
It's a Toyota Tacoma. It's been very reliable and has great performance but the build quality and ruggedness are lacking. They were probably much better when they were designed and built in Japan, but I have no real regrets. Still, when the 2009 VW TDI Jetta comes out may buy one of those as a daily driver and get an old beater truck to replace the Tacoma. Did you see the Popular Mechanics article on the VW? They claim 75mpg.
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Ethanol another tax
Ken, I can understand how your mileage would drop. Ethanol has approximately 2/3 the energy value of the typical gasoline only forumula. The more ethanol blended into gasoline, the more mileage will suffer.
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Ethanol another tax
I almost forgot to ask about the TDI Jetta. From what you read, does the VW TDI engine still have that dadgum timing belt that must be replace every 80,000 miles and last I hear the exhaust gas recirculation feature to reduce NOX emitions was making a huge mess in the intake manifolds. I almost bought one but was put off by the expensive maintenance requirements. I'll have to read up on the 2009 and see what if anything is new.
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Ethanol another tax
Here in NY, E-10 has created issues in both the auto and marine industry. I won't get into the marine end of it except to say that now I drain my fuel tanks at the end of the season due to the possibility of phase separation.
The wife has a 2006 Outback and noticed a fuel economy drop of a mile or two. Normally she knocks off 29-30 MPG even with the corn fuel.
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Ethanol another tax
Murf- refering to your point about getting more milage out of the good stuff, another way of looking at it would be this: If ethenol gets a driver 10% fewer miles per gallon, than instead of costing $3.00/gallon to go 25 miles, it now costs $3.30. (Which is probably a few cents more than the premium.)
This seems like it would make a pretty good story in Time or Newsweek- these magizines that are so good at informing the public of important things they need to know. They could run another story about the downsides of the new energy saving lightbulbs... but you guys know how I feel about that.
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Ethanol another tax
It has not hit stations here that I am aware of but those I have seen it at have been about 30 or so cents per gallon less. Has that changed or was it never lower in other areas?
On the premium mileage to lower rated gas, my wife's care does not get any better mileage with premium. Shocked me. So as I think Murf said, TEST it.
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