Recommended Fuel for Vy to increase fuel economy

[VYMAD]

"More" ARE going that way. A new Caltex has opened in our town, sells diesel, E10 and premium. By the end of this year it will be the same everywhere. Looks like premium is gonna get popular. No more unleaded.

 

[Cheap6]

There is a lot of unjustified prejudice against E10, largely due to unregulated and mismanaged sale of ethanol in the past. With some assistance from TDT/ACA and perhaps oil co.s.

I would suggest, as a start, reading the rest of the submissions to the Vic. enquiry for a more balanced and informed opinion.

Manufacturers can recommend against the use of E10 if they wish. In the case of VY, Holden doesn't (recommend against using it).

Phase separation with water in E10 is a non issue. At 25C E10 will hold about 2% by volume of water before separating out. To put that in perspective, that's 1.2L of water in 60L of fuel. Do you really think that very many cars have 1.2L of water in the fuel tank, especially absorbed from the atmosphere?

Even if water did enter the tank, a fill with dry or drier E10 would pull it back out into solution to be consumed in the engine - free water injection. Any changes in fuel mixture aren't a problem with closed loop fuel control i.e. any car sold after Jan 1986. If water enters a fuel tank containing hydrocarbons only it stays there or is picked up as liquid water which, naturally, doesn't burn very well.

Without water, potential for corrosion (as distinct from material incompatability) problem isn't present either as there's no free H+ ions available for the reactions.

Water can be a problem for retailers and distributors because the tanks aren't always completely watertight and the fill points are on the ground. There has been a lot of effort to ensure that service stations selling E10 don't get water in the tanks.

The thread is about fuel economy though so these are my figures:

E10: 12.92l/100km 16 fills

91: 12.94l/100km 44 fills

95: 12.88l/100km 16 fills

Everyone can do their own math on the dollar cost.

 

[Sean880]

Cheap6.

Of course the manufacturers will not now recommend against the use of E10 because Governments have mandated its use and the manufacturers do not now want to get offside with the authorities by actively opposing the product and highlighting its deficiencies. Remember it is being done primarily for dubious environmental reasons and it is not politically correct to oppose it.

The use of ethanol has never been advocated by manufacturers - only by Governments with an aganda. So the manufacturers are just going with the flow and don't want to rock the boat. This is just typical corporate behaviour.

Secondly it is when your new car is out of warranty that you will most likely see the problems cropping up in your car. The manufacturers do not then care as they do not have to pay for the fix and in any event will just say that the problem is contaminated fuel you put in the car. The oil companies and service stations will be blamed. Older cars are out of warranty so there is no manufacturer cost there either. Governments do not care as they don't have to pay for the fixes either and will just blame the fuel companies for supplying poor fuel. As we all know, Governments never make errors - only the private sector does.

Diesel fuel has been sold in this country for a very long time and consumers are still getting contaminated product in their tanks for a variety of reasons causing very expensive damage to fuel systems. After all this time - and experience - you cannot buy diesel without the expensive risk of a very bad dose of fuel.

Given the additional problems with the water absorbing properties of ethanol you are indeed optimistic if you consider you are getting "clean" product each time you fill with E10 after all that handling and storage. Then you have the added problems of water vapour and condensation in your car's fuel tank being absorbed by the ethanol fuel. This is inevitable in our coastal climates where most of our vehicles are located and it is a problem in storage tanks.

Finally the corrosive effects of ethanol are yet to be seen in practice and car warranties will be well expired by the time any corrosion issues arise from long term use.

Ethanol is not particularly efficient to either make or use -it's just a bit cheaper than petrol at present but it's not a long term solution.

If you do not care about your car by all means use it.

 

[WogBoyz]

use a good quality 95RON (e.g. BP) on a v6, 98RON is unnecessary unless you can't get 95RON or like throwing away money and lots of carbon buildup in your exhaust

when i was using 91/95ron i took my plenum lid off once a month and clean it, everytime it was fairly dirty, now that i run 98 all the time with an injector cleaner every few months, i took the lid off after 3 months of not cleaning it and it was spotless still , runs much cleaner

 

[Cheap6]

GM and SAAB (= GM at the time) didn't seem to have a problem with encouraging the use of ethanol:

http://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/ar...iofuels/transcripts/EDIC_GM_Holden_270807.pdf

"Mr BATISH — What will make the biggest impact on the climate right now would be E10; there is no doubt about that, because not everybody is able to sell cars and it will be a much quicker thing to do. Most cars are capable of running on E10 up to a certain age. Should we stop there? No. We should go further; we should go to E85. As I mentioned before, there are some manufacturers who have the capability — or who have the engines — to run on E85."

With regard to the car's tank, if condensation is a problem with E10 it's a bigger problem with a straight HC fuel where any water is going to sit in the tank as liquid water. Unless you are pouring water in through the filler, it's not a problem with either; Air at 100% humidity, 25C holds 0.020g water per gram of air. How many changes of air, even in a near empty tank, (water) ice cold for the sake of argument, exchanged through the carbon canister and tank ventilation hoses, and the short time the cap is removed when filling, would it take to to drop 1.2L of water into the fuel? How many actually occur over the course of a full tank?

FilesychrometricChart-SeaLevel-SI.jpg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ground water is a potential problem with E10 in service stations but avoided by handling procedures and verifying the integrity of the tank. If you did happen to get some water in one fill, and it has to be in solution for it to get from the servo's tank to the car, and the servo has a problem if it has water in an E10 tank, particularly if it's enough to cause phase separation, subsequent dry fills of E10 will remove it.

HC only fuels are given a settling period after filling the servo tank to allow any water in the storage tank to drop back down through the fuel. If the servo doesn't wait long enough, you can get the water. The focus on fuels containing EtOH is to avoid the water being in there in the first place. Which would you rather?

The long term viability of generating EtOH as a transport fuel is unknowable but it does at least show potential and some immediate benefits as currently produced in Australia. The current EROI is discussed in a couple of the 2007 submissions to the Vic. government. Looking at just the EROI doesn't give the full story either if it's taking energy sources in a form unusable in vehicles and generating (an) energy source that can be used in vehicles.

It is suggested that mandating EtOH use will create a market that will drive investment in better ways of producing the stuff. Personally, I'd rather just stick a bigger excise on the fossil fuels, maybe returned as working capital for developing alternatives, not just plug in biofuels either, and see what comes out. Policy depends on what the priorities are, energy independence, CO2 reduction, balance of payments, rural employment etc.

 

[crawfy]

not getting into the ethanol debate, this is just for the benefit of the OP

I ran the ethanol stuff from my local United servo for around 3 years, didn't seem to have a problem with it in my VS (similar ecotec motor to the VY as you may know). continued to use it because every time i filled up with 91 ron from out of town, to me the car felt a little less responsive, and the ethanol was cheaper. (note: the tank was never fully drained and would have always had some ethanol fuel in there). I was getting 10.7L/100km (60/40 highway/town driving) so i figured i was about right.
A bit over a year ago, i ran a couple of tanks of regular 91 ron and after about the 3rd tank, the car just felt better! Also the trip computer showed my fuel consumption dropping. Now im getting around 9.7L/100km. Filled up with ethanol a couple of times since, and the car performed dreadfully. Never going back!

 

[Go_Slow]

98 premium BP- 650 kms of a tank easily, 600 beating around
95 octane or less, <550. i notice the diff. but i drive duel fuel now. 35 bucks gives me 450!

 

[2DIE]

I have pretty much always used 98 in my VT.

I used to get around 500kms per tank, then got a 98 tune from MACE and get around 600kms per tank, I don't notice any power increase but the shifts are a lot smoother and for $140 the savings with fuel economy will pay for the tune in no time at all.

 

[wortus]

I was pretty much using 91 Octane in my VY V6 and around town it was getting about 9.8 L/100km. I tried about 4 tanks of 95 and didn't notice any extra power and the fuel economy was abou thte same. Most of the petrol stations afound here sell E10 or premium fuel only so I usually fill it with E10 and the fuel economy is worse, around 11.5 L/100km however given the coat difference it's more economical to use E10 than Premium. I put E10 in my VN for years from a local United and it never had any problems, it ran fine. I even used it in my LJ Torana's every now and then an I owned them for a long time and it didn't damage them at all or make them run badly.
I can't see the E10 damaging the VY and in any case a lot of 91 Octane fuel has had some amount of Ethanol in it for years.
On a recent trip into NSW I noticed most servo's still had 91 Unleaded so I stuck with that over whatever else was available as it is more cost effective.
I've also run the VY to Temora and back and used 95 on the way down and 91 on the way back. the car used less 91 on the return trip at 7.5L/100km.
I've also got a Nissan N15 Pulsar now and it is not listed as suitable for E10 and Nissan don't recommend using it. you can notice an improvement in power on 95 in this car but fuel economy is not much better. I tried a tank of Shell V Power but after speaking to an engineer from Shell that stuff is just a marketing exersise and he said there is no improvement over their 95 unless the car is specifically tuned for thr 98 Octane.
That said a friend has an N15 and has used E10 in it for years and the car has never broken down.

 

[Dr HaxZaw]

i once used e10 for about a month... changed my feul filter and never again. its almost like running your car on a mix on rubber and feul... 98 i find is the best as it makes the engine run smoother