Ethanol Content Sensor - Always at 11%?

[TurboTapin]

5 hours ago, GTSBoy said:

And we shall have to presume that Canada is the same?

Sadly no. They get pump E85, we don't. 

[TurboTapin]

3 hours ago, Murray_Calavera said:

If I drove to a typical petrol station, what would my choices of fuel be? 

Canada:

87, 89, 91 AKI everywhere. 94 AKI at all Petro Canada pumps. 

USA:

Depending on the state they will have either 87, 89 and 93 AKI or 87, 89, 91 AKI. They also have a fair bit of E85, again dependent on the state you're in. 

USA Gas Fun Fact: It's outlawed to pump your own gas in the state of New Jersey. 

 

[Murray_Calavera]

4 minutes ago, TurboTapin said:

87, 89, 91 AKI everywhere. 94

So of these

4 minutes ago, TurboTapin said:

87, 89 and 93 AKI or 87, 89, 91 AKI

and these, which ones have ethanol in them? 

[TurboTapin]

35 minutes ago, Murray_Calavera said:

So of these

and these, which ones have ethanol in them? 

I can't speak for the US, but for Canada as I mentioned above, all fuel gases contain ethanol. We have regulations for E5/E10/E15. Each province handles it differently but basically any fuel gases sold must be E10 and slowly increasing to E15 by a certain year. 

[Kinkstaah]

So yes. All of them. Something like 98% of all fuel in the USA has 10% ethanol:
https://afdc.energy.gov/fuels/ethanol-fuel-basics

2 hours ago, Murray_Calavera said:

So of these

and these, which ones have ethanol in them? 

It's labelled as like, AKI, 87, 91, 93 with an E10 or E5 or E15 label on the pump.

At a certain point, it's not just "E10" instead of 91. It is 91, 95, 98, and all of them have 10% Ethanol in them. You can also get E85 and E30 which is why you do see some people rolling around with E30 tunes in them.

[Duncan]

yeah the sugar refining companies were pushing for the same in Oz originally, all fuels were going to have 10% ethanol to make them "cheaper" (noting, that the loss in l/100 might be greater than the decrease in price).

I guess they won that fight in Canadia

[GTSBoy]

But seriously, can we ask for the results of the "tip a bottle of metho into a nearly empty tank" experiment?

[soviet_merlin]

Here E10 is the cheapest fuel. And general advice is to not use it unless you hate your car. From what I remember it clogs up stuff in the fuel system or injectors? 

With US/Canada being E10 across the board, does that mean that all fuel there is terrible?

[Kinkstaah]

I think given SAU's knowledge of E85 we can strongly conclude that 10% ethanol in almost any situation is entirely fine. Almost all of the myths against E85 were overblown, let alone E10.

[soviet_merlin]

2 hours ago, Kinkstaah said:

Almost all of the myths against E85 were overblown, let alone E10.

Hmmm, interesting. Makes me wonder whether there is bias as well. It's the cheapest fuel, so it is used for all kinds of ill-maintained shitboxes which are bound to have issues regardless. Nicer cars tend to require higher octane rated fuel and can't use it anyway.

FWIW, the official NSW E10 facts page is decent. 

[GTSBoy]

The hydrocarbon component of E10 can be shittier, and is in fact, shittier, than that used in normal 91RON fuel. That's because the octane boost provided by the ethanol allows them to use stuff that doesn't make the grade without the help.

The 1c/L saving typically available on E10 is going to be massively overridden by the increased consumption caused by the ethanol and the crappier HC (ie the HCs will be less dense, meaning that there will definitely be less energy per unit volume than for more dense HCs).

That is one of the reasons why P98 will return better fuel consumption than 91 does, even with the ignition timing completely fixed. There is more energy per unit volume because the HCs used in 98 are higher density than in the lawnmower fuel.