What are the potential hazards of using E10 fuel on classic car seals

Now we are all obliged to use E10 grade petrol I have yet read exactly what the potential hazards might be for the owners of classic cars. I find it difficult to understand how such a small increase in bio fuel content from 5 to 10% can present any significant damage to engine seals/gaskets of cars of that period.

Aparently from what I've heard, just use super unleaded and you won't have a problem.

Hope thats useful. Regards, Mike

Its all out there if you look.

I do wonder how well the carbon side has been calculated. Superficially bio-fuels are same carbon in as carbon out but bioethanol is created through fermentation so is the CO2 captured. stored or processed and what about all the yeast grown? - creating more protein rich product that if not used usefully will decompose with environmental impacts. One possible use - a neighbour has found he can buy bio-mass waste as garden compost which in his case is part of a fruit growing business but if heaps of folk start layering this on non-productive gardens...

I think he said he pays £30/tonne, but then there's the added cost of a 16 tonne delivery (and its carbon impact)

pgk

Yet another ploy for garage repairs, added to the dashboard electronic "Watchdog" Wonder if when EVERY vehicle is electric, we will get "Wrong electrical cable insullation" warning.

Regards Ian.

It's also not a good fuel for two stroke machinery, and the environmental benefits are dubious:

https://scooterlab.uk/high-ethanol-content-fuel-will-it-kill-my-scooter-opinion/

Apparently, removing the ethanol (which is easy - but at a cost and with safety implications for the unwary) reduces the octane rating, so buying the 5% ethanol option looks to be necessary if going that route unless the classic has an engine that was built for lower octane fuels.

If removing the ethanol it may come down to a choice of losing 5% from a higher priced fuel or 10% from the more common E-10.

As Mike says Super unleaded is still OK, I've always used it in my Imprezza more for performance than anything else and thats becoming a bit of a classic now particularly as it's a ltd edition, worth almost as much now as what I paid for it'

Not long after the 70's fuel crisis we had a talk at uni by a guy who had been researching the possible effects of adding ethanol to petrol. One concern was the effect of the ethanol on the plastic floats in some carburettors. He said that one thing they had found was that the material in a Jaguar carb float was in fact not even suitable for use with ordinary petrol........

John

I think it depends on where the enery comes from in the fuel. Fuels that are more Hydrogen dense with respect to carbon are lower emitters CO2 wise. Even coal varies in this respect some coals are getting on for pure carbon whilest others have high volatiles and contain a great deal more hydrogen. I suspect the addition of ethenol to petrol increases the energy from hydrogen with respect to carbon and in that sense is a lower CO2 emitter. It would be interesting to see a proper chemical/energy analysis.

regards Martin

When 5% ethanol fuel was introduced I did some consumption tests on my normal commuting route. I found an increase in consumption of around 5%. I wonder if E10 will give an increase in consumption of 10%? With the increased consumption using E5 there seems to be little point in using ethanol in the first place.

As for E5 fuel, it played havoc with my MGB fuel lines After a few months of E5 usage, all the rubber based fuel hoses leaked. I am seriously considering extracting the ethanol from E10 and using an octane booster, for use on the limited mileage that I do in the MGB.

I now have a diesel car, so E10 isn't a problem for me in ordinary driving.

Andrew.

I now have a diesel car, so E10 isn't a problem for me in ordinary driving.

But B7 might be, depending on the age of the diesel car ?

My wife's '86 BMW motorcycle might be problematic, though I fitted supposedly E10 compatible flexible hoses this spring as E5 had rotted out the last set @ only 2 years old. Time will tell if the float needles & floats give problems. My '78 MZ TS250/1 may also give problems but that currently requires work before it sees the road again, so it will be a while before I find out. I think I fitted Viton crank seals at the last major rebuild, so they at least should be OK & I use full synthetic 2T oil all the time.

Nigel B.

If you only do a limited mileage it may be cheaper to use super than buy additive and less faff than extracting the ethanol

Bizarre isn't it , we have to buy nearly 14% of our electrical energy from France/Holland/Norway and yet for the puny difference that E5/1O ethanol difference makes , we can go to all the trouble to harrow/plough/seed/harvest an edible crop, render it suitable to distil and then distribute/add to spoil perfectly good petrol.

Using more 'fossil fuel' to manufacture it than energy released in the finished product.

It might just be worth the extra cost for Aspen fuel for the really old classic that really just gets some concours time?

pgk

Esso Synergy Supreme+ 99 is ethanol free in certain areas of the country, although the pumps are still marked up E5.

More info: Esso Fuels

.

Thanks for sharing that ^^^

Very interesting

MichaelG.

Some interesting points. I found this on Wikipedia. It seems US ethanol isn't a big improvement, in Germany biodiesel gives 2.5 times as much energy as goes in, and Brazil manage 8 times using sugarcane. It seems (a lot of stuff about this on the web) the gold standard is to ferment cellulose-rich plant waste, which can give much greater efficiencies.

† experimental, not in commercial production

†† depending on production method

Wow, taht took some poking around under the hood...

Edited By Neil Wyatt on 02/09/2021 17:45:07

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Edited By Neil Wyatt on 02/09/2021 17:47:10

Edited By Neil Wyatt on 02/09/2021 17:48:00

According to the piece in today's Times newspaper (page 16).........."This is denied by Ethanol Europe, the industry group which said yesterday that E10 caused no damage to older vehicles, pointing out that it is the only form of petrol used in the USA and most of Europe". How one wonders then do the owners of older cars cope in the US?

Is it wise to grow crops for fuel when a lot of the world is malnourished?

This was asked at work 15 years ago.

I am going to ignore E10, just like I did with unleaded petrol.

JA