Truckracer

My Feedback: (19)

One thing is very clear whenever one of these discussions come up. Some parts of the country have problems with fuels, some do not! It doesn't seem to matter whether the fuels contain ethanol or not .... problem fuels are problem fuels. I feel lucky to live in a part of our country where these problems seem to be at a minimum.

We all know that modern gasoline formulas are a mix (cocktail) of many different compounds .... any MSDS sheet will show up to 35 different hydrocarbon products that can be mixed to be called gasoline. It does seem that adding ethanol to the cocktail increases the problems, especially if the formula is already one prone to problems.

Here in my area, all of our fuels come by pipeline from refiners in Texas and Oklahoma. These fuels seem to have few problems. It would be curious to trace the problem fuels back to their refiner and maybe a pattern could be established. Florida and other states in the SE seem to be especially hard hit by fuel problems. Northern states, not so much.

Just some thoughts, not a solution. But if a guy knew the fuels in his area were especially bad for small engines and their carbs he could use alternate fuels and possibly ward off some aggravation. For the people that continue to point the finger at ethanol as the sole source of the problem .... good luck as it just ain't so.

One last thing ..... gas formulated for mixing with ethanol at the end point will usually have a different formula than gas mixed to be marketed as is. Could this be a contributing factor to fuel problems?