Cold weather fuel consumption

[ernieb]

11 hours ago, Roy124 said:

 

Modern E10 unleaded petrol has a higher ethanol content, which brings the benefit of lowering emissions from petrol machines and vehicles. However, it can cause problems if the fuel is left to stand for more than a few weeks. 

The ethanol in the fuel bonds with moisture in the atmosphere and can form a layer of water inside the tank. This water then has a corrosive effect on the engine, causing silent damage.

 

This is the issue for the PHEV owners who's driving profile is lots of local non ICE mode driving with the occasional longer drive. I can go two or three weeks without the ICE kicking in other than me forcing the ICE to start to circulate the fuel.

[Cyker]

Yeah, they are more at risk, but it's not as bad as it seems - If you fill the tank, there isn't enough air for there to be significant moisture, so you're less likely to get condensation on the walls that drops into the tank as the tank runs down, as modern tanks are sealed against the environment to stop fuel vapours escaping.

Then, as long as the car is used regularly, the tank will be agitated by the movement - acceleration, braking, cornering, speed bumps, potholes, awful road surfaces etc. - so the fuel will stay mixed.

It's partly why I was advised to fill my tank when I had a diesel, as they are apparently prone to microbial growths when there is a lot of humid air in the tank, esp. when it condenses on the walls, which then fall into the tank and block the fuel filter, and filling the tank minimizes the amount of humid air that can hang around, and also reduces the likelyhood of condensation forming on the tank walls, as it can't if the walls are coated with diesel!

Petrol is more toxic so microbes are less of an issue, but the less moist atmospheric air in the tank the better so filling it when you refuel still seems like it would help reduce the chance of any water takeup in the first place.

I must admit I don't know what the 'use-by' date of various fuel types is!! Weeks? Months?? Not years I would expect...

I would imagine E10 has a lower shelf life than E0 and diesel, esp. if not stored in a sealed container, but I don't think I've seen any tests

[TonyHSD]

Someone has mentioned about 3 months for petrol before starts going bad. I have seen people start cars that have been stood for far long time , they definitely run a bit rough at the beginning. My biggest complaint about E10 is that takes away from my car performance and because my car seats at the border where from nice driving car can easily become underpowered and noisy slow box just because of poor quality fuel or E10 lower calorific numbers, for me is a huge deal to have a good fuel in and let the engine run smoothly as possible. 

[Flatcoat]

I run my RAV on E5 by using Vpower or other brand equivalents and now do the same with my newly acquired weekend toy CLK. at the moment my local Shell garage sells its Vpower at £1.66.9 which is 10p premium or 6% so quite happy to continue. 

[Rhymes with Paris]

As I said in an earlier post, the fuel conditioner designed for snowmobiles that I used in motorbikes, seems to work well for extending the shelf life of petrol.

For if you lay them up for a bit, and not easy to drain down everything.

The Moto Morini I used it on was more of a summer bike, with carbs , and not easy to start anyway, what with its left hand kick start , and as my son used to call it, the chicken dance on the kicker.

 

 

[Marcusthehat]

I have been buying E10 since we bought the car, so I suppose I am no the wiser re any performance inhibitions. And still getting very acceptable fuel economy.

P.S.

I now feel a warm glow of schafenfreud when I see the price of diesel.

Marcusthehat

[Cyker]

It is pretty shocking; I'm surprised the biodiesel industry hasn't stepped in to disrupt the market at these prices!! I didn't realize how much the world in general depended on russian diesel - We're lucky we make most of our own petrol!

 

[Smani]

Ethanol has higher octane number hence increases power and performance.  

I came from a country where from early 2000's a very large proportion of the national fleet was powered by engines called "FLEX", that could use petrol, pure ethanol or any mixed proportion of them in the tank.  My last car in that place was a mini pickup truck 1.8 which majority of the time I filled with ethanol.  Manual says for that car, power when using petrol was 140 bhp, and when using ethanol was  155 bhp, approximately 10% more.  However, the consumption was rubbish on ethanol, but the difference on price per litre still compensate at that time. Have no idea how it is nowadays.

The only problem using constantly ethanol is the lack of lubrication properties that petrol has in comparison with ethanol, even with the engines being built to resist this condition. 

Note: By that time, the regular petrol sold on the pumps already had 23% of ethanol.  They also had the "special" version with less ethanol like Shell V-power.  

[Lawnmowerman]

If you wish ethanol-free fuel it is available from your local Stihl dealer - straight fuel or 2-stroke mix.

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[Flatcoat]

On 11/13/2022 at 9:11 PM, Cyker said:

It is pretty shocking; I'm surprised the biodiesel industry hasn't stepped in to disrupt the market at these prices!! I didn't realize how much the world in general depended on russian diesel - We're lucky we make most of our own petrol!

 

Do you mean bio or synthetic? Bio requires wheat which is expensive - diesel can also be made from coal or synthesised, both are very clean too however diesel has such a bad name in the west it is unlikely to return in the car fleet and will be all but extinct in 20 years. We will regret it. I suspect petrol will survive if only in synthesised form as the real world implications of going BEV become apparent to the brainwashed politicians and unelected decision makers as the public revolt against the costs of net zero cobblers. 

[Cyker]

1 hour ago, Smani said:

Ethanol has higher octane number hence increases power and performance.  

I came from a country where from early 2000's a very large proportion of the national fleet was powered by engines called "FLEX", that could use petrol, pure ethanol or any mixed proportion of them in the tank.  My last car in that place was a mini pickup truck 1.8 which majority of the time I filled with ethanol.  Manual says for that car, power when using petrol was 140 bhp, and when using ethanol was  155 bhp, approximately 10% more.  However, the consumption was rubbish on ethanol, but the difference on price per litre still compensate at that time. Have no idea how it is nowadays.

The only problem using constantly ethanol is the lack of lubrication properties that petrol has in comparison with ethanol, even with the engines being built to resist this condition. 

Note: By that time, the regular petrol sold on the pumps already had 23% of ethanol.  They also had the "special" version with less ethanol like Shell V-power.  

Yeah, ethanol only has about 60% the energy of petrol so the power drop is massive, and is why one of the upgrades a flexfuel engine needs is a more powerful/higher flow fuel pump, but you can run at much higher compression ratios to claw back some of that lost energy (I think ethanol is equivalent to 110 RON??)

I think that might be why the newer Toyota engines mostly feel okay on E10 as they are running very near the limit of compression for normal petrol (The M15A-FXE in my Mk4 Yaris is supposedly running a compression ratio of 14.1:1!!  )

 

37 minutes ago, Flatcoat said:

Do you mean bio or synthetic? Bio requires wheat which is expensive - diesel can also be made from coal or synthesised, both are very clean too however diesel has such a bad name in the west it is unlikely to return in the car fleet and will be all but extinct in 20 years. We will regret it. I suspect petrol will survive if only in synthesised form as the real world implications of going BEV become apparent to the brainwashed politicians and unelected decision makers as the public revolt against the costs of net zero cobblers. 

Bio, but not from wheat, from WVO. McD apparently uses its waste oil to make biodiesel to power its trucks, and I knew a friend of a friend who used to make his own for effectively free. Was quite funny as he used to take the waste oil from the local shops (Which they'd pay him to take apparently!), and run it through some contraption and chemicals to make it.

Basically ran his van on it for free for years, as apparently you can DIY something like 2000 litres of fuel without the taxman coming after you!

 

Synthetic fuels is just clutching at straws; Biodiesel is really easy to make from vegetable oil, but synthetic diesel and petrol is about as bad as hydrogen to create fully synthetically, as the amount of energy you put in to make it in the first place is a fraction of what you get out.

Petrol in particular is a pain to make, which is partly why they're using ethanol instead of 'biopetrol' as the 'eco' part of the fuel (Bio-petrol is a thing, but just isn't economically viable to make in bulk)

 

One of the worst things about the demonization of diesel is it's closing off an avenue of power  generation - One really good thing about the diesel cycle is it will run on pretty much anything that can a) flow and b) is combustible, whereas the petrol/otto cycle is much more limited in what it can use.

If they could figure out a way to make the diesel-cycle more clean burning, which we already had technologies for (Air-blast injection is an old technique that makes the emissions much cleaner, and this more recent ducted injection trick also showed great promise), it would have opened up the possibility for an omni-fuel engine!