Topic: Flex Fuel

[AlekStooge]

With the winter months coming up I won't be saving as much on gas driving my truck. I knew it can take Flex fuel but never put any in or looked into it until I saw the prices are like $1.50 a gallon. I also noticed it is mainly an Ethanol based fuel, which I know how some people here feel about Ethanol

What do you think? Is using Flex fuel for the winter a good idea to save money on gas?

[b52bombardier1]

As long as your truck can accept it, Flex Fuel will work.  Just don't expect great performance or mileage because gallon for gallon, there's not as much energy in ethanol as in a gallon of gasoline.

Rick

[Bailgang]

If your truck can already use flex fuel "E85" then it's fuel system should already have the corrosion resistance needed to deal with it but as b52 said you'll lose some power and notice a drop in fuel economy. If your truck can already handle it then I'd say go ahead and try a tank full and see what happens and keep note of the fuel economy and see if it works in your favor. Some vehicles get just enough fuel economy on flex fuel that when combined with it's cost per gallon it works out better than regular gas, some break even but many get worse and the only way to find out for sure is try it.

[BomberMann650]

Sometimes i get stuck behind a truck running on corn gas.
I can tell you this much.  The exhaust does NOT smell like french fries.

[ekpent]

 I bought some of that recently to play around with as a cleaner. Had some in an empty cat food can outside and when I came back it had a bunch of dead flies floating in it. They were extremely attracted to it, all the way to their death. I also have a Dodge Caravan that will accept E85, never have used it but wanted to empty my gas can so tossed it in. Beforehand I read my owners manual and they had some specific recommendations about adding that along with regular gas. May want to pull out your manual first and see what it has to say.
  Not the best pic but this is from my manual------

[Thekramer666]

I like to run a tank now n then just because of its performance effects it's as if you can barely tell my engine is idling recently tho using gas I think I've been experiencing some dirty injectors so I ran a tank of 85 for the hell of it n I couldn't get the same issue to pop up now on my gas fill and it's either cleaned them a tad or I'm losing my mind lol but yea the cost vs gas mileage wise are not far off at all

[eigenvector]

I've never even seen it for sale.  My truck is E85 certified, and it's a 2000 Ranger - so while they say it can run it, I just can't buy it.
Not that I really want to.

[b52bombardier1]

Since I despise the usual E10 fuel so much, I don't think I could ever bring myself to buy the E85 Tennessee Tranquilizer juice.

Rick

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N900A using Tapatalk

[Dunk]

Track your MPG and $/mi on either E10 or MTBE, whichever you have available, and compare that to MPG and $/mi on E85. With a fancy luxurious computer controlled vehicle MPG will drop appreciably with E85 but it's $/mi that matters, so track it and compare.

No E85 available locally but I've always build my engines to be close to the edge on 93 octane. Always thought it would be cool if E85 was available to build a real high compression street car.

[AlekStooge]

I thought I was going to get some hell no's/ stay away from it.

I guess it's a matter of experimentation to see the MPG vs $. I'm going to check my owner's manual for any requirements before hand and as long as they aren't too tedious I think I will try it.

Thanks for the input.