Ethanol in petrol

[Jamesphillipps]

Due to soon take delivery of Coast 250 with 70hp outboard. Boat will be kept on pontoon so any engine failure will be very problematical. However this large outboard devours fuel, so Aspen is not an option. Went to Esso website to find following: "Esso super unleaded petrol (Synergy Supreme+ Unleaded 97) is ethanol free (except in Devon, Cornwall, the Teesside area and Scotland)" I'm no expert at all on engines and fuel, but is this Esso fuel an answer?
James Phillipps

[Sea Simon]

Well, this is a really interesting new issue. A first on this forum, I would think?

I ran a big dory for several years, with an  older two stroke Mercury 60hp on it. You're right, I wouldn't want to feed it Aspen-  ££££! Mine was carb fed. As that boat lived on a mooring, and we had (still have) no pumped petrol in Fowey, I fuelled mine by taking the big 25 ltr tanks to the garage. A pal with a big ski boat found it easier to haul the boat out, and take the whole thing to the garage, as he had an underfloor tanks of about 50 gallons!

Hopefully, yours will be fuel injected? Better for fuel consumption ,  emissions etc.
So, What does OEM say re E10 fuel?

If injected, my guess - as I have no experience-  is that you should be ok if you try to avoid/minimise cheap and nasty fuel. Marina petrol is often not the best anyways?
The issue seems to be with this new crappy petrol in small carburated engines, as i can run our petrol car successfully on fuel that cannot be used in my small petrol outboards.

Similarly, but different. My garden machines run fine on reject petrol.
They are 2 stroke and so have more tolerant carb settings?

If a fuel injected outboard, i think you'll be ok.

Looking forward to learning more about this!

[Graham W]

Ironically, while they're busy stuffing bioethanol into supermarket petrol, there's been a rush on the bottled stuff by people who want to make their own hand sanitiser fluid. 

[Matthew P]

Will cars get gummed up while out of use during the virus hiatus?

Matthew
BR20 Gladys

[Sea Simon]

Will cars get gummed up while out of use during the virus hiatus?

Matthew
BR20 Gladysó

Lots of internet advice about, gues you've probably found that by now?
But  may be best to go to oil  majors, or in this case RAC or similar. It does seem to vary!

https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/advice/know-how/does-fuel-go-off-old-fuel-and-fuel-storage-questions-answered/

I think it perhaps depends on your car?
I'd more worried about older carburated cars, I think?

For example,  my wife's fiat 500 will be ok with a can or two of fresh fuel, after layup. It regularly sits for 4 weeks or so for holidays. Not so confident about my colleagues DB 9!
Luckily, not a problem that I have, my suv is Diesel!

[Rob Johnstone]

There's nothing so useful as a spray can of Easy Start in a locker! Although an uncle of mine used to start his old diesel bread delivery van (you know, the ones in the 1960's with sliding doors) after a long lay off by dropping a burning rag into the air intake (after he'd removed the airfilter). It seemed to work every time.

[Sea Simon]

Update.
I've just cleaned the carb on my small Honda 2.3  (used on dinghy, and BRe when racing) for the first time this short season! This motor generally runs on supermarket fuel, as failure is an irritant, rather than a danger.
I'm using my ultrasonic cleaning bath now. Very effective, but obviously still need to strip the carb. The amount of crap disdlodged is amazing.

The new Honda 5 on the BRe still seems to be fine, generally run on Aspen fuel. Just as well, as is still under warranty and I don't want to pay dealer prices for carb cleaning.

More evidence that Aspen works?

[Graham W]

To me, the most important evidence was when I hauled out my Mariner 6HP from the shed last month, getting ready to sell it.  It hadn't seen any use at all for three years but with the small amount of Aspen 4 left in the internal tank started up almost first time and continued to burble away happily with no smoke and no smell. I was so impressed that I gave my purchaser a couple of litres with the admonition to use nothing else.

[Nick Orchard]

I thought people might be interested in an update to my post of 3 years ago regarding using a fuel filter/water separator to combat the effects of ethanol in petrol.

I fitted my filter about 5 years ago and I've not touched it since. I've checked the water indicator from time to time but never seen it show any signs of having any water in (the red ring at the bottom of the bowl will float at the interface between the water and the lighter fuel). I thought it was about time I changed the filter element this year so before draining it I took a photo of the bowl and the red ring still on the bottom. As you can see there's no evidence of a single drop of water, so maybe it's not as bad as we feared. Over the 5 years of use I estimate that it's had about 250 litres of fuel through it, most of it from Sainsbury's. I've not taken a great deal of care to avoid leaving part-filled fuel cans on board - I don't have a petrol car or lawnmower so what do you do with half a tank of 3 month old fuel? The only measure that I have taken recently since unleaded went up to E10 is to use super unleaded which is still E5.

Having said that, I'm pondering changing the engine to a bigger 15HP unit, not for the extra power but because some manufacturers (Mercury/Tohatsu/Suzuki) are now using fuel injection instead of carburettors on smaller engines, but only down to 15HP. The other advantage is that they come with 12A alternators instead of the 6A that you get on the 9.9HP engines, and now that I have the luxury of a fridge I need to feed those batteries!

Happy motoring!
Nick