UK E10 from September ?

[Tommy Cookers]

Vivergo is to recommission its ethanol-and-cattle cake-from-wheat plant (built in anticipation of UK E10 compulsion)

we are told E10 will 'be available' from September (it won't from Vivergo)

does 'be available' mean compulsion ?

more for the tax man of course

[Just_a_fan]

Yes, E10 will become the standard petrol from this summer.

During summer 2021, the standard (or ‘Premium’) petrol grade in the UK will become E10.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/e10-petrol- ... e%20change.

[graham.reeds]

Glad I never bought the M5 now.

[Tommy Cookers]

yes ..... today is the UK's E10 day .... (E5 has disappeared except as super unleaded) ....

compared to 'old-school' petrol fuelling .... our cars will have ...

0.5% more energy per cylinder-full of air - so increase their maximum power by c. 0.5% ... but ...

our fuel will have c. 3% less energy per litre .... so ....

fuel economy will fall by c. 3% ...

fuel duty will not be correspondingly normalised (reduced) as was done in the normalisation of petrol with diesel duties
so yes this another stealth tax increase

on delivery 1000 litres of E10 fuel will contain 100 litres of anhydrous (dried) ethanol we can assume
this dry ethanol will strongly absorb c. 4-5 litres of water from wherever it can
(so one might be buying 99.5% E10 fuel/0.5% water for the price of 100% E10 fuel)

low levels of absorbed water actually reduces the corrosion potential (that anhydrous ethanol has)
and hydrous ethanol production is environmentally better .. so ...
some countries use it eg hE15 - also high ethanol blends generally use hydrous
anyway water up to 5% absorbed in the ethanol might be better than was any (water unabsorbed) in 'old-school' petrol

[nzjrs]

I'm a bit worried about this.

I've got a weekend car with a tuned zetec silvertop with Weber 45 carbs and the uncertainty on the other forums I frequent is how the newer fuel will affect the carb, jets and seals.

Does anyone have any intuitions on that here?

[NL_Fer]

I'm a bit worried about this.

I've got a weekend car with a tuned zetec silvertop with Weber 45 carbs and the uncertainty on the other forums I frequent is how the newer fuel will affect the carb, jets and seals.

Does anyone have any intuitions on that here?

Yeah tank the expensive e5 or e0 gasoline.

[Tommy Cookers]

I've got a weekend car with a tuned zetec silvertop with Weber 45 carbs and the uncertainty on the other forums I frequent is how the newer fuel will affect the carb, jets and seals.
Does anyone have any intuitions on that here?

https://www.bellperformance.com/blog/al ... l-additive
this link seems to work works in Explorer but not in Edge

what worries me for my almost shopping-only car is Phase Separation
if left by infrequent use of the car the ethanol will absorb water from the atmosphere
at some level maybe 2% this will cause PS (the alcohol/water falling to the bottom of the tank ie fuel pickup)
the car fuelling will thereafter be alternating between almost-gasoline and alcohol/water

PS seems to be a known problem ...
PS causes starting/running problems as the alcohol/water vapourisation is poor

I think alcohol doesn't absorb water after reaching the Azeotropic point (c. 95% ethanol 5% water) ?

a uni test showed that only BG Ethanol fuel system drier and ISO-HEET additives worked (contain IPA or methanol)
also anhydrous alcohol of course

btw
we are told that the mandating of E10 will save three quarters of a million tons of CO2 annually
does this take proper account of the carbon costs eg of the imported sugar-cane ethanol ?
when it becomes wheat ethanol UK-sourced by Vivergo - is that ok because millions more cattle will get feed ?

[Airshifter]

Where I live in the US we've had E10 gasoline for years. I actually live in a region that opted into reformulated fuel standards as well.

In day to day driving and vehicles,the MPG change was very small, but existed. No issues that we didn't have with regular fuels as far as performance or anything maintenance related.

The only thing I've found that hasn't liked it was two stroke engines, and the only ones I have are weed whackers, so it's not like they are high end stuff. I started using the synthetic fuel in my new one, it's expensive but I don't use much and and has great shelf life.


For quite some time we had a "spare" vehicle that was rarely driven, two different ones over the years. I had times where I didn't even crank the spare car for months at a time, and no issues at all with fuel.

[bigblue]

FYI "premium" fuels may well remain not-E10. For example, Shell V-Power will remain E5, and Esso Synergy Supreme+ 99 must be labelled E5 but is actually "E0".

[Airshifter]

Curious as to any issues (real or perceived) since this E10 introduction in the UK.

Here in the US, a lot of people freaked out, and claimed every malfunction on a car must have been due to the introduction of ethanol. In reality, the vast majority wasn't anything to do with ethanol.

On a side note, there was a guy on a brand specific car website that I follow that ramped up his ethanol percentages due to it being available dirt cheap where he lived. He went up to the 40-50% range without any vehicle mods IIRC, then changed injector sizes and went up even more without issue. Due to the high octane rating (calculated differently in US vs Europe) he found that even an older car could take advantage of more timing and such, and the MPG drop under normal driving conditions was not as substantial as predicted.


As for octane rating and grade vs ethanol blend, I think there is some flexibility on use, depending on the state requirements. Overall it was said it should ease distribution issues in many cases, as adding ethanol increases octane. As such fuel with lower grade octane rating could be supplemented to mid grade fuels, and less refined fuel used more often.

[Just_a_fan]

The issue with E10 (well, ethanol in general) is that it can attack certain rubbers and plastics. Because ethanol is hygroscopic, it increases the amount of water in the fuel too if left standing. This can lead to corrosion of metal parts in some circumstances.

Yes, you can run a petrol car on E10 and higher, but it might not do it any favours unless it has been designed from the start to run on such fuels.

I have petrol garden machinery and have had issues with even the E5 we had before. If fuel is left in the appliance it can cause long term damage to the diaphragm in the carb (and other rubber seals). I had to rebuild a couple for this reason.

I now use a fuel treatment that basically reacts with the ethanol to prevent the issue. Fuel can be left in the carb now over winter with no issues.

Which is useful because this year the grass has carried on growing in to December - we did a grass cut last weekend! And yes, we've also had some snow but it's been warmer than it's been colder and so the grass has grown. We've had -5degC with snow one day and the next day the temperature had gone back up to 10+degC and the snow melted and the grass went "yeah! summer!". In 12 hours. Crazy conditions.

[Scalexf1]

For the preservation of small 2 stroke engines or vintage 4 stroke motorcycles it’s easy to remove all of the ethanol before you put it in your strimmer or chainsaw, motorbike etc.
Search YouTube for ethanol removal from gasoline.
It does not take long to do, it’s simple process also.
Back to 4 star gasoline.

[Just_a_fan]

For the preservation of small 2 stroke engines or vintage 4 stroke motorcycles it’s easy to remove all of the ethanol before you put it in your strimmer or chainsaw, motorbike etc.
Search YouTube for ethanol removal from gasoline.
It does not take long to do, it’s simple process also.
Back to 4 star gasoline.

Yes, you can just add water to the fuel to dissolve the ethanol and then separate the fuel from the water/ethanol mix. If I was wanting to treat a good quantity of petrol than it would be the way to go.

Because I only use a 5L can of petrol at a time, I just use Briggs and Stratton's fuel fit product - it's an easy dose and shake system. Lazy too, I guess.

[Airshifter]

The issue with E10 (well, ethanol in general) is that it can attack certain rubbers and plastics. Because ethanol is hygroscopic, it increases the amount of water in the fuel too if left standing. This can lead to corrosion of metal parts in some circumstances.

Yes, you can run a petrol car on E10 and higher, but it might not do it any favours unless it has been designed from the start to run on such fuels.

I have petrol garden machinery and have had issues with even the E5 we had before. If fuel is left in the appliance it can cause long term damage to the diaphragm in the carb (and other rubber seals). I had to rebuild a couple for this reason.

I now use a fuel treatment that basically reacts with the ethanol to prevent the issue. Fuel can be left in the carb now over winter with no issues.

Which is useful because this year the grass has carried on growing in to December - we did a grass cut last weekend! And yes, we've also had some snow but it's been warmer than it's been colder and so the grass has grown. We've had -5degC with snow one day and the next day the temperature had gone back up to 10+degC and the snow melted and the grass went "yeah! summer!". In 12 hours. Crazy conditions.

The only issues I've had is with two strokes myself, but they are finicky regardless of fuel type really. I've never drained the mower and such other 4 stroke stuff, and it's been running the E10 for years now. For the only two stroke I have now (weed whacker) I just get the pre-mixed synthetic stuff. It stays good for a real long time, and as little as I use it's worth it.

Still mowing here as well.

[Just_a_fan]

The only issues I've had is with two strokes myself, but they are finicky regardless of fuel type really. I've never drained the mower and such other 4 stroke stuff, and it's been running the E10 for years now. For the only two stroke I have now (weed whacker) I just get the pre-mixed synthetic stuff. It stays good for a real long time, and as little as I use it's worth it.

Still mowing here as well.

Thinking further, the mower is 4-s, the brush cutter is 2-s. The previous 4-s mower died and I played with it but couldn't get it to run properly. That might have just been old stuff dying. The 2-s brush cutter I did rebuild the carb on, found dissolved rubber bits in it which I replaced, and it's been a lot happier since I started adding the fuel fit additive.

Perhaps I'll look at buying premix in future for the 2-s. For the amount of use it gets, it might be no more expensive anyway.