10% ethanol?

[WmWatt]

The province of Ontario just announced it's upping the ethanol content of regular gasoline to 10%. Would anyone know if my carburetted Festiva can handle that much alcohol?

[bravekozak]

The gas line will be rusting from both directions. Outside in and inside out.
I fill up with non-ethanol regular every time I visit Lewiston, including my jerry cans.
Tops friendly supermarket station, green handle at the end. It's going to be worse for people who don't drive that often, or have metal gas tanks. Almost all tanks after 2001 are plastic now. Red-Kote time.
wmwatt, just fill up with Shell super. Expensive insurance.

[bravekozak]

Do not read this horror story before going to bed.
If you do decide to pump this poison, check the inside you tank for phase separation at least once a year.
Water and ethanol will be on the bottom (rusting away). The flakes of rust will plug up the jets in your carb.

Side reactions.

[Eviljimchicken]

Oh dang, I have just been using the cheapest gas I can find. All 10% ethanol.

[theastronaut]

It's so horrible that I've been driving on 10% exclusively, in all of my cars including the carbureted ones with no problems for 15 years. The owners manual for my carb'd '88 even says that it's ok to use. I put around 75k miles on my '64 VW that has dual Dellorto carbs that are aluminum bodies and brass jets... highly prone to corrosion if there's water present. They looked new inside still when I took them off and upgraded to bigger carbs.

The only problem you'll have is if you let the car sit a lot, or you might also lose sleep at night if you read the scary articles online. The slight drop in mileage isn't enough to offset paying a lot more for pure gas, do the math on how much energy e10 has in a gallon vs 100% gas... there's no way possible the people that say you'll get a 10-15% drop in mileage are being truthful.


From my 88's owners manual. I've had other owners manuals from the 80's that said that e10 was ok to run.