"Anna Albano was putting gas in her Dodge Caliber about two weeks ago when she realized she had made a mistake. A $240 mistake. Instead of fueling her 2007 car with unleaded gasoline, she filled it up with E85, which is not compatible with cars made for just unleaded gasoline," the Gary Post-Tribune said. "Although local mechanics say Albano's mistake doesn't happen often, they do see cases of it, and one mechanic said he expects them to go up as E85 becomes more common. Albano said her mistake occurred because she didn't know that the Family Express at Calumet Avenue and Burlington Beach Road in Valparaiso had recently reconfigured the pumps so E85 fuel was on the same stations as the regular and diesel pumps. When she picked up the pump, she thought it was unleaded. It wasn't until after she had started fueling that she realized something was wrong. 'I noticed my total was less than usual,' she said. 'I looked and realized I was using E85.' She left her car there overnight and then had it towed to a car shop to have the gas drained out, which cost $240, Albano said. Although not everyone realizes their mistake as soon as Albano did, they usually catch on pretty fast, said Tim Walter, a technician for The Auto Shop in Valparaiso. 'It's going to be sluggish,' he said. 'It's going to feel like you're running out of gas.' That's because, essentially, you are. E85 is made up of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline, versus unleaded gasoline, which has just 10 percent ethanol. The problem occurs because ethanol burns at almost twice the rate that gasoline does, Walter said, meaning a car goes through it almost twice as fast."
(Gary Post-Tribune, Aug. 25, 2008)
(http://www.post-trib.com/…)
In most states where E85 pumps are prevalent those pumps are marked not only with signage, but the hoses and nozzles are usually yellow. However, that's not the case everywhere. Some states choose to mark the pumps in different ways. Gasoline stations that want to offer ethanol blends higher than E10 have the option of using blender pumps. Those pumps provide blends higher than E10 for flexible fuel vehicles and are clearly marked. E85 typically is priced 50 to 60 cents less per gallon than regular unleaded because E85 contains less energy than regular gasoline. So the price is based on energy content. (Todd Neeley)
