I filled up my truck last night with E85 has a kind of guinea pig experiment -it is Flex-Fuel capable. Should we dedicate something for this, or just post in general topics? Regular gas shot up to $3.30 a gallon and I found a gas station close to me (Thorton's) that sold E85 for $2.22 a gallon -I live within the far eastern end of the corn belt. With E85 that cheap -$1.08 less per gallon, I think I came out ahead once. Haha.
Math it out and see much you spend dollars per mile. If it works it works. Notice any change in driving performance?
@imperator My truck does the calculations for me in real-time. I'm getting between 15 and 16 MPG right now; I was averaging 17-19 MPG before E85. I've gotten coasting up to stop signs and red lights down to a science again. I didn't fill the tank completely up with E85, though. I filled it up from a quarter of a tank, which in my truck, the fuel capacity is 35 gallons. I think there was around 10 gallons of regular left in the tank. Ford upgraded the fuel tank capacity with trucks that came equipped with the tow package.
I noticed right away when the last of the straight E10 gas came out of the fuel lines because my gas mileage suddenly dropped from 17-19 to between 15 and 16.
I did notice the engine seemed a bit peppier, but my truck is naturally aspirated, so any performance boost is likely going to be limited.
I used GasBuddy to help narrow down options. Unlike regular gas, there's a considerable difference from station to station, even on the same street. The station catty corner to Thorton's was $2.38 a gallon for E85 and across the highway, another station was selling E85 for $2.79.
I know there will be slightly more MPG because of the remaining E10 that was in the tank. I'll probably let it go to ¼ tank again, to try to dilute the E10 even further to get a more accurate MPG on E85.
So I thought I'd update my experience with using E85 so far. There is definitely more torque and horsepower using E85 than E10, even with a naturally aspirated engine. When I went to go up an incline, my truck doesn't downshift a gear like it usually does. My old Ranger was the same way as far as downshifting. There's a sloped S-curve a mile away from me, and I go the speed limit, 55 MPH. I stayed in top gear for the duration of the incline. I've used 15.6 gallons and I'm averaging 16 MPG. I've traveled 251 miles since refueling.
I'm going to fill up again with E85 to dilute the regular gas a little bit more so I can get a more accurate reading. I put 25 gallons on top of 10 gallons of E10 that was still in the tank, so that is likely distorting the MPG slightly.
@justin-shepherd so what does E10 vs E85 work out to in dollars per mile?
@imperator As long as there's probably a $0.75-$1.00 discount on E85 vs E10, it should break even. I filled up with E85 for $2.22 a gallon vs. regular E10 at $3.30 a gallon. The lesser energy content of E85 vs E10 cancels out at that threshold on an energy density basis. Anything less than a $0.75 to $1.00 discount isn't worth the mileage reduction.
I'll start paying attention to E10 gas prices vs E85 prices. If there's a 33% discount on E85 or more, I'll fill up with E85 instead.
@justin-shepherd right now (16mpg) the E85 is costing you 14 cents per mile. E10 (18mpg) was costing you 18 cents.
@imperator I still had about 10 gallons worth of E10 in the tank, though, so that's probably an artificial result. My fuel tank capacity is 36 gallons.
Interestingly, E85 isn't nearly as tightly regulated as E10 is. E85 can be between 51% ethanol and 83% ethanol and still qualify as being "E85".
@justin-shepherd if you have a good scan tool, it should tell you the alcohol content % it's running on. There's also cheap simple testing kits (If I remember correctly, it was basically just a graduated cylinder you add water and fuel to)
@imperator I have a scanner with ABS capability, but I don't think it's advanced enough. My Ranger was flex-fuel capable as well, and I didn't see anything about alcohol % under live data. That truck was relatively primitive, though. I'll try it and see.
I saw that when I was researching E85's pros and cons. Scotty has used them with regular E10 before, I think.
@justin-shepherd so even with just around 40% E85 in the tank, you're already saving 4 cents per mile (or $40 every 1k miles), and possibly stand to save more.
@imperator I might wind up making that switch, then. I was just going on energy density vs cost. I may have over-complicated this, which would be typical for me. Most of my driving is done on back country roads, where I can anticipate light changes, coast out stops, etc.
@justin-shepherd the density is not a useful metric to us, because your engine doesn't consume E10 and E85 at the same rate. It has a more powerful pump to deliver more volume, and bigger injectors to spray more fuel, which the engine requires to generate the same power from ethanol. (in fact FF engines are known to produce a bit MORE power than non-FF variants). So yes, the density requires a FF engine to consume MORE fuel. But you don't need to think about energy density, because this property is already born out in the MPG number ... it drops. So all else being equal, E10 is obviously a more efficient fuel. More power, more miles, for every gallon.
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But! we don't really care about the volume either ( I mean unless your fuel tank size is a limiting factor and you need maximum range). We care about the cost to us, and they are NOT equal. So in the end the $/mile number captures everything we as humans actually care about. How far we get on a dollar.
@imperator Makes sense, my Ranger only had a 20-gallon tank and I'd fill it up every 270 miles. I'd have a quarter tank left at 270. I couldn't put E85 in it without sacrificing more range, and I was already filling up once a week as it is. I'd be getting gas every 240 miles If I had put E85 in there, all else being equal. I'd wind up getting gas 2x a week, which is a waste. My F-150's 36-gallon tank allows me to get almost 500 miles to a tank with E85, so I still only need to fill up once every two weeks or so.
I filled up with E85 again today right after gas prices went back up to $3.29 a gallon again. I went to Speedway after I went to Home Depot and paid only $2.19 a gallon for E85. Haha. I did some calculating based on what @imperator told me. As long as the price ratio between E10 and E85 is less than 0.833, I'm coming out ahead based on my driving style. This was a pretty cool experiment.
I'm still running E85 in my truck and have been for 6 months. I have some more data that may be useful to some.
If you have a Flex-Fuel vehicle and are considering buying E85 vs E10 gas because of the recent price spike with Regular gas. I have some additional data for you to consider.
If you're considering E85 as opposed to Regular and you do lots of short trips, you will not get even halfway decent gas mileage. 6 weeks ago, I drove 4 miles on country roads in 18⁰F weather to a gardening center to get a 15-gallon nursery pot. My truck consumed 0.5 gallons of fuel during the trip; that's about par with my old '79 Catalina when I go 70 MPH on the highway.
My truck is getting 13.5 MPG in the wintertime, largely because of my new-found driving style of anticipating light changes and coasting instead of braking wherever possible.
Even if you drive for a long enough time to fully warm the engine up. If you encounter stop-and-go traffic, your gas mileage similarly will go into the toilet.
I filled up my truck with E85 yesterday for $2.50 a gallon after a $0.25 discount on the fuel at Thornton's. I am a rewards member and I receive coupons offering the discount every two weeks. $2.50 per gallon and 13.5 MPG results in $0.19 per mile, vs E10 at $3.79 a gallon and getting 17 MPG results in $0.22 per mile. Even at this price, I'm saving money over the long run.
@justin-shepherd wow that is quite the difference in price
@justin-shepherd Sounds like a pretty good deal, but longer term we'll have to see what happens to U.S. corn production this year (the major source of U.S. ethanol) due to the mideast war.
https://www.agweb.com/news/crops/corn/why-iran-conflict-could-shrink-u-s-corn-plantings-spring
I didn't know that our corn crop relies on fertilizers from that region of the world. It would make sense, that area is quite rich in natural gas and it's one of the feedstocks that eventually becomes fertilizer. We'll see what happens.
@justin-shepherd There are a lot of nasty side effects to this thing aside from the obvious horrors of people and buildings being blasted to pieces. The price of fuel is most relevant for us here in discussing cars, but there are unexpected consequences almost everywhere you look. It's a very bad situation with no end in sight.
Well, E85 prices in my neck of the woods are now almost on par with regular gas. I'll probably go back to using regular for my next fill-up for a while.
The left coast is paying over 5 bucks a gallon now. $5.15 in California which is higher than the national average during the Ukraine business. And it looks like the nation is heading towards an all-time record high.
Up here I'm paying $5.70. Looks like I might be buying that Chinese EV after all.
@imperator Gas prices in my area are in a range from $3.55 a gallon on the low end to $3.99 a gallon on the high end. E85 depending on the station is in between $3.39 a gallon and $3.59 a gallon. The highest price for E85 is more than the lowest price for regular gas. Thornton's is the cheapest location in the area right now.
That's interesting. You would think now would be the time to buy E85
@imperator Maybe more consumers with Flex-Fuel cars are switching to E85, driving up demand for it. I haven't been getting emails from Thorton's Rewards offering $0.25 per gallon off of E85 for the last two weeks, either, and they were offering it roughly once a week prior to the Iran situation.
you're probably right. By the way your browser is posting duplicates almost every time. I've been cleaning them up the past few days.
@imperator I've been using my smartphone lately, so that could possibly be it. After I reply, I press the Home button proactively, when the browser gets "stuck". The "You Replied" thing pops up, but I haven't been reopening questions after I've answered them. I'll start reopening stuff after I reply to start clean-up. Thanks for alerting me to it.