Fuel Natural 95 E10 for 4age insted of E5

[Ryo]

Hello
In my country (Slovakia) starting from january 2020 was announced that old type natural 95 fuel with marking E5 definitive ends it will be available only type E10 which contains more ethanol should i worry that in time it will damage the engine internals or rubber parts in fuel delivery lines? How is your experience and what fuel do you use in your country. I heard in EU is common to use E10 marked fuel but is supposed to be used for new cars. I searched the forum but was unable to find if there is such thread opened for this topic.

[r.ave]

I was thinking about the same thing. Here in the Netherlands we have te same issue.
That being said, i saw last night that 'BP' sells e5 (Ron95) as well as e10 (Ron98 -> BP Ultimate)
So I will be using that for all my older cars.

[Dave W]

Here in the USA we have been using 10% "E10" in for about 20yrs. I have been driving a 4AGE for about 13yrs and have not seen any real maintenance or driving issues because of it. The real problem is small lawn equipment engines. Typically the carbs have very small internal passages and the alloy is not treated to prevent oxidation caused by the ethanol. As a side note, the government is now considering removing the ethanol requirement completely, because it causes more smog then straight gas. Dave W

[r.ave]

Well I should have added that, All Ron95 was e10 untill a few months ago. Due to eu-regulations (i believe) they changed that to e5.
Only gasstations with a single fueltank below their station for petrol will be allowed to continue selling e10 instead of the mandatory change to e5.
And there are not many stations with a single petroltank so you'll have to search for it.

[banpei]

For the AE86 I haven't seen any issues so far, but for the Carina I've noticed that it's building up mold on the flexible fuel lines. I have no idea how old these lines are, but I suspect they have been replaced in 2004 when the car was reconditioned. I'm not driving the Carina regularly and from what I've read this is a common thing for non-ethanol approved fuel lines.

[Dave W]

My guess is that the Carina fuel line could have been replace with a standard low pressure fuel line Vs a fuel line designed for a high pressure fuel injection system. You could actually be getting leakage. I know the turbo guys that run E-85 use Teflon lined hoses, but just 5 or 10% alky has not really caused any issues. But if you have 30yr old fuel lines it's probably a good idea to replace the fuel line just on principle. Dave W

[DJexor]

Or I misunderstood what r.ave says or he is wrong.
As I understood since 1st of October 2019 tank stations are obliged to sell e10 if the have only 2 types of fuel. 1 should be diesel and 1 is the new 10% ethanol type fuel (e10). This old e95 fuel was the equivalent to the e5 right now, which contains a maximum of 5% ethanol in the fuel. The e5 is the fuel type that is more suitable for older cars and is only available when the station has more than 2 types of fuel. So in europe we already drove cars using fuel with ethanol, only the standard now contains more ethanol. I'm not sure if e98 is still available these days (BP ultimate is e5 now if I'm correct, which gives them the possibility to mix more ethanol to it)

[The Doctor]

R.Ave is wrong indeed, it's the other way around. Like you said, petrol had 5% ethanol in it for years and years, i don't see why an extra 5% will cause problems at all we didn't already have! We all know fuel doesn't last as good as it did 20 years ago, due to the ethanol addition. I'm using the E10 in all of my cars and i have no problems at all. If it really is this bad, there must've been problems with E5 as well in the past years. If it is bad for rubber fuel lines and gaskets, 5% will also cause damage, it will take a bit longer, but still.

Besides that, someone i know used E85 in an old Starlet for 3 years and didn't have a burned down car every week, so i guess it's fine?
For long term storage i would advise using VPower, Total Excellium or BP Ultimate, as, for now, they don't have ethanol in it, supposedly. Firezone used to sell RON102 fuel in the netherlands, which deffo didn't have any in, but they stopped selling it now.

[Ryo]

I am often wondering if rubber hoses have the same quality as the old one's made 30 years ago i don't really believe in quality of new rubber parts. Too much recycling i believe and synthetics. Last time on my friends diesel car when i replaced return hoses for diesel after two years it developed cracks even it had this termal insulation around it and this is only one example i had experience in bad quality with other rubber parts as well. On my AE86 i am still using all original rubber hoses and see no real issue with them. If in my country will be only E10 Natural 95 available i will go for 100 octane fuel instead which is not sold that much because of higher price but will have no ethanol in it. It seems our government choose to get rid of E5 completely as some smart ass told them the E5 is bad because of emissions. As our country turns slowly into one big car factory plant it seems they want to ban older cars for sure and ensure that people buy new one's. Last year we got stricter MOT emission norms and they during inspections now completely ignore what manufacturer define for emissons for the specific car. It is slowly turning into witch hunt for owners of older cars and it don't depend on how excellent condition is your car actually.

[banpei]

(01-04-2020 05:06 AM)Dave W Wrote:  My guess is that the Carina fuel line could have been replace with a standard low pressure fuel line Vs a fuel line designed for a high pressure fuel injection system. You could actually be getting leakage. I know the turbo guys that run E-85 use Teflon lined hoses, but just 5 or 10% alky has not really caused any issues. But if you have 30yr old fuel lines it's probably a good idea to replace the fuel line just on principle. Dave W

The Carina has a 2T with single carb, so it's a low pressure fuel line. My guess is that the cheap fuel lines in 2004 never took E5 or E10 in account and this is due to "normal" wear of such a line. And like the Docter said: it will only go a bit faster now. I guess 16 years for a cheap ass fuel line is "normal" and I'll replace it in spring.

As I said before, I don't use the Carina very often for the past three years. If I drove more than 300 kilometers that would be already a big stretch... I already kept the amount of fuel inside the fuel tank as low as possible due to E5 and top it up with 5 liters every time the warning light switches on.

I've switched to 98 octane E5 (V-power or Synergy+ and such) as it has up to 5% ethanol but according to many sources actually none. The problem is that there is only one gas station in my town that sells 98 octane and it's on the other side of town. All others (about 8 ) are unmanned and thus selling E10 or diesel.

I've also read that you can add an additive to "kill" ethanol and protect against the corrosive effects of it, and against dissolving gaskets and floats.
https://millersoils.nl/product/ethanolkiller-eps/
I doubt if this has any influence on the AE86 and 4AGE, but it could be more applicable to carbureted engines like the Carina.
The description also states it helps to "unfreeze" carbs. Would this really be such a big problem?