Pure Gasoline vs 10% Ethanol in older vehicles

[TiredTrucker]

Question is why would a business buy 87 octane fuel and blend it with 10% and sell it as 87 octane fuel? Geuess they wouldn't, but instead sell it as 91 octane fuel. That is why when I am not using E85 (when the pricing spread is wider) I use 91 octane mid grade E10. It is 87 gas with 10% ethanol. We have 87, 91, or 93 at the pump, along with E15, E20, and E85. Based on the information about the 87 E10, I opt for the 91 E10. Same price as ethanol free regular 87 in my area. The 93 premium is so outrageous in price that if I wanted or needed that much octane I could just pump 99 E85 for a dollar a gallon cheaper.

Another reason I use the 91 octane is that we have none of that top tier gas stuff that GM seems to like. I would either have to use an additive once in a while to keep things clean or just use better E10 and E85. E85 cleans better than the detergents in top tier. I would just prefer the junk sub par 83-84 octane gas not get into the vehicle. A lot of people take the ethanol is junk position. I take the sub 87 octane gas is junk position.

 

[Garak]

Originally Posted By: TiredTrucker
Question is why would a business buy 87 octane fuel and blend it with 10% and sell it as 87 octane fuel?

Here, they were blending it up to 89 or 90 octane (and selling it at 87 prices), until others got involved and ruined everything.

 

[y_p_w]

Originally Posted By: TiredTrucker
Another reason I use the 91 octane is that we have none of that top tier gas stuff that GM seems to like. I would either have to use an additive once in a while to keep things clean or just use better E10 and E85. E85 cleans better than the detergents in top tier. I would just prefer the junk sub par 83-84 octane gas not get into the vehicle. A lot of people take the ethanol is junk position. I take the sub 87 octane gas is junk position.

Octane rating doesn't measure "quality" per se. All things being equal, there's nothing particularly wrong with 83 octane fuel in an engine designed to use it.

You could blend 84 an octane blendstock with a 90 octane blendstock to get 87, and no better or worse than finished fuel made from an 87 octane blendstock.

 

[y_p_w]

Originally Posted By: TiredTrucker
Another reason I use the 91 octane is that we have none of that top tier gas stuff that GM seems to like.

I kind of find that hard to believe. "Top Tier" is only a function of the additive package, and that's not that hard for even convenience store gas sellers to meet.

Your bio says Kellogg, IA, so I looked up nearby cities. I found Newton is 12 miles away; isn't that where Maytag used to be headquartered before Whirlpool bought them out? I see a Phillips 66 and a BP station in Newton. Both are on the Top Tier list, and by definition that means they should have the required level of detergent additive.

 

[SHOZ]

Originally Posted By: Garak
Typically, where one sees benefits with E10, it's with older vehicles with rudimentary emissions systems. For various reasons, I've used a lot of E10 over the years, including long before anyone thought of mandating it.


I had a '79 Mustang 4 cyl that would ping like crazy on E0. In 1980 they started selling E10 and it ran great.

 

[y_p_w]

Originally Posted By: SHOZ
Originally Posted By: Garak
Typically, where one sees benefits with E10, it's with older vehicles with rudimentary emissions systems. For various reasons, I've used a lot of E10 over the years, including long before anyone thought of mandating it.


I had a '79 Mustang 4 cyl that would ping like crazy on E0. In 1980 they started selling E10 and it ran great.

Back then they probably just blended in 10% ethanol to whatever was considered regular and called it a day since it would have been a hassle. You were probably getting an effective (and frankly huge) boost in octane rating. The stuff I find suggests that it might boost an 87 octane unleaded to more than 90. These days, gasoline at the terminal is (mostly) meant to blend with 10% ethanol to arrive at the final octane rating. I mentioned RBOB. which is gasoline that is specifically meant to be combined with 10% ethanol to produce an 87 octane unleaded regular.

I found an article on this. The article calls it "octane giveaway".

Quote:
http://www.energyresourcefulness.org/Fuels/refineries_and_octane_levels.html

According to Ford's J.E. Anderson et al., "the refining industry has adapted their blending practices by creating blendstocks for oxygenate blending (BOBs) for E10 that have considerably lower octane rating than a similar grade of finished gasoline lacking ethanol (E0). The adoption of this approach is seen in Fig. 3, summarizing survey data from US retail filling stations, specifically for measured octane ratings of unleaded regular-grade fuel identified as 92 RON at the pump."

"Octane ratings above the minimum shown on the pump label are termed octane ‘‘give-away’’ by the oil industry (but could provide a benefit to the consumer). With E10 in 1983, the octane ‘‘give-away’’ occurred because ethanol volumes were small (E10 comprised less than 4% of regular-grade fuel based on Fig. 1 data). At these volumes, refineries would have found it impractical (and not cost-effective) to make small quantities of a lower-octane-rating blendstock for E10; thus the ethanol was likely ‘‘splashblended’’ into the prevailing regular-grade E0 gasoline."

By 1990, the average octane ratings of regular-grade E10 had decreased considerably and remained essentially unchanged through 2010 this change reflects the adaptation of refining and blending practices to the E10 ethanol content by mixing it with blendstocks that had lower octane ratings (this clearly costs them less).


Here's the image they have showing surveyed average RON (not sure why not (R+M)/2) over the years as blendstocks specifically for ethanol became more common:

 

[SHOZ]

I had the car for about 10 years so I would assume they got the blend down right with the lower octane. Don't know. But it was the first car I ever had that would not run on regular gas at the time until the alky was added.

 

[Garak]

Originally Posted By: y_p_w
Back then they probably just blended in 10% ethanol to whatever was considered regular and called it a day since it would have been a hassle. You were probably getting an effective (and frankly huge) boost in octane rating.

That's why it was a good marketing tactic to sell it for the same price as regular 87 E0. We can debate what octane ratings really mean all we want. However, if you sell a higher octane gasoline for the same price as a lower octane rating, it's going to be seen as a deal by a significant portion of the buying public.

 

[y_p_w]

Originally Posted By: Garak
Originally Posted By: y_p_w
Back then they probably just blended in 10% ethanol to whatever was considered regular and called it a day since it would have been a hassle. You were probably getting an effective (and frankly huge) boost in octane rating.

That's why it was a good marketing tactic to sell it for the same price as regular 87 E0. We can debate what octane ratings really mean all we want. However, if you sell a higher octane gasoline for the same price as a lower octane rating, it's going to be seen as a deal by a significant portion of the buying public.

10% ethanol is pretty much the standard these days, so it makes sense for there to be a standard commodity fuel (BOB) designed for that. Also - the large demand for higher octane fuel means that the refiners can't afford to just "give away" higher octane fuel when that comes from blending in ethanol.

I'm not sure what it was like back in the 90s when MTBE was also in the mix. Ethanol was probably more prevalent in the Midwest and East Coast because they were closer to the ethanol sources that can't typically be sent by pipeline. On the West Coast, they probably had blendstocks designed for 15% MTBE. My undestanding is that while MTBE is barely used now in the US, it's still used around the world - especially Asia.

 

[SHOZ]

Illinois got E10 way back as a support for the farmers. It was the same time a sales tax went in on gas too. So you use more gas and pay more tax.

They also had a long time gasoline pipeline spill and contaminated the soil with MTBE. They just settled the lawsuit. Shell oil paid out millions, paid for the bottled water everyone had to have and paid for the installations of municipal water lines all over the countryside. This all happened sometime in the 80's.

 

[Garak]

Originally Posted By: y_p_w
I'm not sure what it was like back in the 90s when MTBE was also in the mix. Ethanol was probably more prevalent in the Midwest and East Coast because they were closer to the ethanol sources that can't typically be sent by pipeline.

Here, one station chain in particular was using ethanol, whereas others were not.

 

[dareo]

In my 98 T100 i can get a 20 mpg mixed driving tank on 88 non ethanol, and 18 mpg on any octane of E10. I usually buy E10 since its everywhere and the pure 88 one station only and more than 10% higher. I do like to get the non ethanol for my small engines though.

 

[TiredTrucker]

Originally Posted By: y_p_w
Originally Posted By: TiredTrucker
Another reason I use the 91 octane is that we have none of that top tier gas stuff that GM seems to like.

I kind of find that hard to believe. "Top Tier" is only a function of the additive package, and that's not that hard for even convenience store gas sellers to meet.

Your bio says Kellogg, IA, so I looked up nearby cities. I found Newton is 12 miles away; isn't that where Maytag used to be headquartered before Whirlpool bought them out? I see a Phillips 66 and a BP station in Newton. Both are on the Top Tier list, and by definition that means they should have the required level of detergent additive.


Yeah, and those have the interstate highway pricing structure, since that is where they are located. I suppose if I wanted to pay inflated prices for fuel just for some idea of 'top tier" I suppose I could. I never bought into the top tier game. E85 will keep the entire system cleaner than any top tier gas at wildly inflated prices could.

 

[y_p_w]

Originally Posted By: TiredTrucker
Originally Posted By: y_p_w
Originally Posted By: TiredTrucker
Another reason I use the 91 octane is that we have none of that top tier gas stuff that GM seems to like.

I kind of find that hard to believe. "Top Tier" is only a function of the additive package, and that's not that hard for even convenience store gas sellers to meet.

Your bio says Kellogg, IA, so I looked up nearby cities. I found Newton is 12 miles away; isn't that where Maytag used to be headquartered before Whirlpool bought them out? I see a Phillips 66 and a BP station in Newton. Both are on the Top Tier list, and by definition that means they should have the required level of detergent additive.


Yeah, and those have the interstate highway pricing structure, since that is where they are located. I suppose if I wanted to pay inflated prices for fuel just for some idea of 'top tier" I suppose I could. I never bought into the top tier game. E85 will keep the entire system cleaner than any top tier gas at wildly inflated prices could.

I had a look on Gasbuddy for Newton. Really weird. Only three sellers of regular listed, everyone has midgrade, and only two premium (not sure if this is 91/92/93/94). BP seemed to be pretty reasonable. I'd also have no problems with those prices compared to what I'm paying in California.

Along my commute, several of the cheapest options are from "Top Tier" gas retailers including Costco and Arco.

 

[zpinch]

Dont use ethonol blended fuel in classic cars, bad news... thats why we used to have lead in the fuel.

 

[TiredTrucker]

Originally Posted By: y_p_w

I had a look on Gasbuddy for Newton. Really weird. Only three sellers of regular listed, everyone has midgrade, and only two premium (not sure if this is 91/92/93/94). BP seemed to be pretty reasonable. I'd also have no problems with those prices compared to what I'm paying in California.

Along my commute, several of the cheapest options are from "Top Tier" gas retailers including Costco and Arco.


Well, we don't daily commute anywhere with any personal vehicle. One of the advantages of owning the business. The vehicle I use for that is a class 8 semi truck using diesel and I am as anal as anyone regarding where I get my fuel. 21,000 gallons of diesel a year, I have to be picky on pricing.

And my comparisons are only going to be for my area on gas. Gas here comes in 87. 89-91 mid grade, and 93 octane varieties... all with ethanol except an 87 regular no ethanol variety at Casey's General Stores near me. And I am not going to go out of my way to worry about some top tier game. Again, since not commuting with my pickup, it is going to get filled at the best price I can find along the way with 91 E10 or 99 E85. BP in Newton and 66 in Kellogg stations in my area do not offer those two fuels, though they are supposedly top tier outlets. Murphy's (which also has a 10 cent discount using their card) and Kum and Go in my area offer these both, they have the best pricing in the area compared to any other outlets, and are close to me than any other outlet. So, they get the business.