Originally Posted By: andrewg
I have a new Honda Fit with a direct injection engine. The manual says it is designed to operate on up to 15% ethanol.
I suppose if that is the case, then I'm not overly concerned about the ethanol use as where I am the pumps state that they use UP TO 10% ethanol. As long as Honda and the fuel providers are being honest....I trust that I have nothing to worry about.
Would not matter much anyway as finding non-ethanol fuel here, as well as a Top-Tier , high detergency mix WITHOUT ethanol....is almost impossible. Premium makes no difference in ethanol amounts in my neck of the woods UNLESS I specifically go to an advertised non-ethanol station. Very, very, few are anywhere close by and all but one station is even top-tier.
No thanks...not worth the effort in regards to ethanol.
As for some research I did about using Chevron Techron additive to keep things cleaner in my DI engine? Well, while the product will help in keeping the injectors clean and the combustion chamber itself....it will have no effect on the area that DI engines have had some issues with...and that is the valves.
From the info I have seen, the majority of the conclusions revolve around using top-tier gas for it's higher levels of cleaner detergents and avoid the inexpensive, non-brand name fuels that are not top-tier.
Other than avoiding ethanol (nearly impossible for most), not much else can be done.
Congratulations on your new Fit. I'm a small DI engine owner ( Hyundai and not Honda ) and beyond Top Tier gas I also try to use low NOACK oil. I'm currently using PP Pure Plus but I've also used QSUD and try to stay with SOPUS oil because of the typically lower NOACK. I'm on my first go round of the GTL based version of Platinum so I'll see if there's any noticeable difference. I agree that non-ethanol fuel is hard to find, expensive, and in California at least, almost impossible to find. The vast majority of good fuels you'll find will be probably in the 7-10% ethanol range. It is what it is...
I also try to make it a point to not idle the car for more than two or three minutes at most. This can be hard depending on your commute ( if any ) and your local driving but that seems to be mentioned often as something to try to limit with DI engines along with too many consistent short trips versus something on the order of 15-20 miles that will fully warm up the engine and the DI processes and fuel pump. Whether this is erring on the side of caution or not, I think there are things you can do to minimize or eliminate problems in the future. Personally, I'm encouraged by reports I see of recent ( 2012-forward ) DI cars reaching 100K miles and beyond with no deposit issues, etc. It's my belief that there are original generation designs like the older VW/Audi units and there's a second generation that should have fewer problems. In that sense, I don't consider myself an early adopter but we'll have to see as I'm not even at 50K miles yet.
