Comments on: Ethanol in petrol

By: Cavedine

Cavedine — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 02:56:40 +0000

E10 is a great fuel for your car and is comparatively environmental friendly. Only in Australia do you find the car clubs in bed with the oil industry trying to bad mouth it. Just look at the world picture and you will see the truth. Brazil, Europe, USA and even New Zealand use it and their cars are still on the road and running fine. Brazil even uses E85 and in some cases 100% ethanol. You don’t hear them winging and going on like the backward looking Australian mob. Ethanol definitely burns cleaner and will disperse water and not attract it as some have stated here. In the past before E10 was available it was recommended to use methylated spirits in your fuel tank if you suspected water in the fuel line to disperse it. Guess what? Methylated spirits is Ethanol. Go Green, Go Ethanol. E10 foever!!!

By: Rae

Rae — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 00:21:33 +0000

I feel extremely outraged that I won’t be given the option of which fuel I will use in my vehicle. I have a friend who is a mechanic and he has seen many vehicles succumbing to the serious and expensive side effects of using E10 petrol, he tells me emphatically not to use it as it just is not worth it to use this rubbish in your car. I want the right to choose!

By: Phil. Myers

Phil. Myers — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 12:20:47 +0000

I havn’t used E10 yet because I don’t think it’s the right way to go. Reasons (a) the energy in ethanol (29.7kJ per gram) is significantly less than that in petrol (47.9 kJ per gram) (b) ethanol absorbs water and (c) it uses almost as much energy to make it as it contains so where’s the environmental value?

By: Andrew

Andrew — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 10:32:39 +0000

I only started using E10 recently and have noticed a significant difference in my fuel consumption (BMW r1100gs motorcycle) it dropped from a regular 320km per tank to less than 280km/ tank…The engine seems to idle a lot more erratically as well.

I’m not sold….A Current Affair used to chase down petrol station owners who added ethanol to petrol stocks like they were thieves in the night, and now the government is mandating it’s use.

As for it being better for the environment, well what it saves in lowered total carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, sulfur emissions, and particulate matter – we make up for with increased formaldehyde and acetaldehyde emissions.

Some will tell you it’s cheaper to produce, but those figures are usually based on only part of the production costs.

It’s certainly not better for your engine…and because ethanol attracts water particles from the air, I can only imagine the state of most petrol tanks after a few years of use.

So the only real winners are big business and the government who are making a fortune while they have us believe that it’s all better for the environment and our pockets…..not bloody likely.

By: Peter

Peter — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 04:01:34 +0000

I have reqularily used E10 and regular unleaded in my 2007 Nissan Xtrail. My car has recently become hard to start. Nissan claims because I have used E10 fuel in my car! They told me to use Premium fuel to clean all the E10 out of the car. The car is now fine from using Premium for about a month! So don’t use E10 it will damage your car!

By: Carlo Brugnatti

Carlo Brugnatti — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 04:01:24 +0000

Can I use ethanol mixed fuel in my Vt Commodore

By: Michael Armidale

Michael Armidale — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 02:04:07 +0000

Havent tried the E10 yet as I’ve done the maths and it hasn’t been worth it yet, some of the comments on the 96VS commodore’s make me think it may be a good idea though in my 93 VR wagon. I’ve got LPG in my commodore and get 11-12lt/100km out of it and the unleaded/E10 is only a back up in case I run out of LPG. Recently drove from Armidale Northern NSW to Luddenham Sydney on 1 tank of LPG downhill most of the way (55 Lts), then from Pennant hills rd where the M2 meets it to the Armidale Airport on 57lts (Uphill). Why spend $1.36/lt on Petrol for 10lt/100km when .72c/lt LPG gets me 1 to 2lt /100km less economy. And I wasn’t kind on the hills either. Have heard that while less volumetrically efficient in filling the engine LPG can go up to 120 octane, never a problem running it and no difference on the highway, 381000kms on the engine and still going strong! Switch to LPG folks

By: Vic Hughes

Vic Hughes — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 12:24:46 +0000

There are several problems with forcing people to use ethanol in fuel. The first is that land and water currently used to produce food for humans will be increasingly converted to produce these biofuels. Not such a problem for the affluent and overfed developed nations, but definitely one for the poorer nations because fuel companies will make ethanol where it is the cheapest – which means in developing nations where land and labor is cheap. Think this will help the developing nations? Think again – they don’t own the fuel companies….

Next, it will not be usable in older vehicles – meaning that perfectly good vehicles will become unusable. The problem here is that CO2 and other emissions are much higher in the year that a vehicle is produced, distributed and sold than in any other year of the vehicle’s life. This means that every new vehicle made to replace a perfectly good but no longer usable one contributes a whole bunch more of CO2 to the atmosphere (which could have been put off until the old vehicle had finally worn out). Even worse, the average vehicle sold today is larger, heavier and use more resources to build than those of 20 and 30 years ago. So, by forcing people to junk perfectly good older cars and but new ones we are making the environmental problem worse.

Wake up folks, keep your old car as long as you can, and write to your local Federal member demanding that this stupid law phasing out non-ethanol petrol be repealed.

By: Dallas Nyberg

Dallas Nyberg — Mon, 31 May 2010 04:51:45 +0000

I own a 1989 Pajero and it’s a ripper… well looked after and runs like a clock.
Now I am distressed to be informed that I will not be able to use E10 fuel when the old unleaded is stopped in mid 2011….
What do I do?… just scrap a perfectly roadworthy vehicle?
What can I do to it to allow me to use E10 fuel? I have been told that there is no conversion kit to achieve this…. anybody know?

By: Alan

Alan — Thu, 20 May 2010 06:34:00 +0000

I have just learned from a letter in the latest NRMA magazine that there will be no more plain unleaded petrol from 1 July 2011, only E10 unleaded. Having a 1999 Ford Laser, I contacted Ford for their opinion, and they replied that E10 would be unsuitable for my particular model.
So, what do I do? The car is still in very good nick and I don’t really want to shell out $10,000 + for a replacement car.
I have been told by a friend (not by Ford – yet) that it “might be ok” to use premium petrol. If so, even paying the higher price per litre would be cheaper than buying another car, as I only do about 10,000 km per year.
If not, does anyone have any suggestions?