Ethanol 101

[Banditorama]

Originally Posted by Hitman

I believe it, 100%.

Go talk to a real and active automotive engineer that works for Ford or GM and deals with engine systems, fuel, emissions, timing and so on. You'd be amazed at what they test and account for. And yes, there are actual myths and urban legends, some of the things the government said would never work, actually do.

Run your A on E85, and ethanol free fuel back to back, and you'll notice a seat of the pants difference. Go talk to the tuner guys that run E85 in their cars and make tons more power than on straight gas. Go play with alcohol / ethanol toys (sand cars, drag cars), and there are components designed to run on these fuels. Carb jets, injectors, pumps and other things are different for cars that are designed to run "flex" fuels, over cars that run straight gas.

I'm sure the dealer received their intel on pump failures tied to people running ethanol free fuel.

The diesel guys are going through the same thing with current emissions relating to sulfur content, DEF and other things.

It's completely believable.

The Chrysler Pacifica isn't a flex fuel vehicle. These cars are designed to run on fuels from a wide range of countries. A lot of EU countries are 5% ethanol, Japan's standard is 3% ethanol, and there's plenty of countries where E0 is still the standard.

Ethanol free fuel won't cause issues with automotive fuel system components designed to run on ethanol fuel. But ethanol fuel will cause problems on older automotive fuel system components that weren't designed to run ethanol.

The diesel fuel issue is related to modern diesel fuel's lower lubricity rating. Which is a completely separate issue from ethanol in gasoline