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Risky Pumping: Drivers Are Mixing Ethanol With Gas In Traditional Tanks
By Mr Ethanol | July 1, 2008
DetNews:
To save money and support neighboring farms, Scott Dubbelde began mixing gasoline and cheaper, ethanol-based fuel in his cars years ago, driving first to the gasoline pump, and then to the ethanol pump.
It has worked so well that Dubbelde, who manages a local grain elevator, mixes fuels for all three of his family cars, though only one was designed to handle ethanol-heavy blends.
The practice has caught the attention of the Environmental Protection Agency as a handful of filling stations install pumps that allow drivers to select different ethanol blends with the push of a button.
Auto manufacturers warn that ethanol can corrode fuel lines and damage hoses, seals and the fuel pump in cars not made to carry ethanol. That can lead to bad gas mileage, poor performance and may even affect the vehicle computers that warn of problems.
The EPA says it can damage emission control devices.
Yet with the price for a gallon of gas hitting a string of record highs this year, motorists are paying little heed, even at the risk of voiding their warranties.
“It works good, real good,” Dubbelde said of the blends he uses in a Toyota and a Buick, which he improved through a couple years of experimentation. “No ‘check engine’ light comes on. I don’t even think there’s a difference in mileage.”
The local Cenex gas station installed special blender pumps after managers saw customers mixing their own fuel just like Dubbelde.
Motorists at the station in this western Minnesota town can press a button and fill up with E85, a fuel mixture with up to 85 percent ethanol, or blends varying from 20 percent to 50 percent ethanol. There is little physical difference, except that blending pumps have buttons offering increasing levels of ethanol rather than 87- or 89-octane gas.
Dubbelde pumped E30 into his Buick Rendezvous SUV. He uses E20 in the family’s Toyota Avalon and pumps up to 85 percent ethanol into his flexible-fuel pickup truck.
The savings at the pump are real. While regular gas was $3.93 a gallon at Cenex recently, E85 was going for $3.23. E20 was $3.81, E30 was $3.71 and E50 was $3.52 — and that was before the 20-cent-per-gallon discount Cenex offered for ethanol blends 20 percent and up as part of a special promotion that day.
Topics: Cars, Ethanol, Gas, Money |
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