I'm currently looking at a new 2006 TSX / Navi. Absolutely love the car, but I'm concerned how the car will handle burning Ethanol. Lately the gas in the Houston area is getting more and more Ethanol. In fact some of the shortages we have seen on gas in the Houston area is due to the fact that they are placing more Ethanol in our gas and the transistion is causing some of the shortages. Will this cause a problem with the performance of the vehicle? Could it cause engine damage, or at the least fuel injection problems? Knocking?J ust curious if this could be an issue in the future.

I feel that we will see more and more Ethanol placed in our gas in the future. I could be completely wrong, but I would like to get some feedback on this issue. Thanks guys / gals!

 

i thought this was happening across the US as mandated by the government?

 

Yes, I think you are correct. Just curious how it effects the performance of cars burning premium fuel. I would think that the TSX is a little more finicky on the type of fuel you could burn in it. And something like Ethanol added to the mix might cause issues. I honestly don't know. But before I purchase a new TSX, I would like to know if this could be an issue in the future. My guess is it would not be an issue as long as the octane is 91. But I would like to hear from the experts.

 

Welcome, Shr1ke! As for the rest of you, be nice; this is my brother-in-law...

And yes, I think the octane rating is the key component here rather than the ethanol ratio. They can't sell 93 octane gas unless it's really 93 octane.

 

The ethanol is only a replacement for the MTBE that was used before.

 

Ethanol is just another additive that replaces MTBE. See this thread for a little info:

https://acurazine.com/forums/showthr...hlight=ethanol

 

Our car can handle E10 (which is the maximum dosage of ethanol you're allowed to get as "normal" gasoline).

 

Thanks for the quick responses. The Ethanol article was a very interesting and well written article. It's also nice to know that the TSX can handle E10 gasoline blend. So, all of this should not cause any major damage to your TSX, but you most likely will be getting worse gas mileage.

 

I thought it was supposed to improve gas mileage? wasn't that the government's point?

 

Supposed to be is the key word. Now it's just a grand marketing scheme to get everyone fixated on ethanol being the solution to our gas woes. It's ridiculous. There is no solution right now except to conserve as much as you can.

 

Nope, it just burns cleaner and lowers emissions. Using ethanol does lessen (in theory) how much oil we need as a country, but I don't think anyone has ever claimed it helps with gas milage.

 

Not true, at least not today -- today's farming, refining, and distribution technology makes ethanol a net energy loser (i.e. we use more oil creating ethanol than we replace by burning it). There have been studies claiming that theoretically ethanol could be slightly net energy-positive but not in the US today.

However that doesn't mean ethanol is necessarily a bad additive -- after all, the MTBE that ethanol in E10 replaces is not there for fuel in itself, but to improve the combustion of the real fuel compounds in your gasoline. Ethanol is worse than MTBE not because of its energy cost but because it is more expensive (due primarily to distribution difficulties) and worse for the environment (both because it increases evaporative emissions and because it makes gasoline spread faster through groundwater).

 

i think according to our owners manual our cars can handle up to 10% ethanol in the gas. Although i think the more ethanol the worse gas mileage we got. It shouldn't affect it much though... maybe .5 MPG overall.

 

MTBE was harmful to the environment.

 

i fill up at Husky here which blends ethanol with gasoline. The 94 octane ethanol blend kicks ass, my car has never felt smoother and so free to rev. The gas mileage is comparable with the 91 octane fillups, I see no substantial difference either way.

 

Only because the US used crappy tanks that leaked to store it in, so it leaked out and into the ground. Europe is still using MTBE with no problems because they used quality storage tanks to begin with.

 

That isn't generally accepted as fact; it really depends on who to listen to. Yes, one study says it's a slight energy loser but that study takes into account the gas used my the employees to drive to/from work. That seems silly IMO because those people are going to work somewhere (that involves driving) regardless so that shouldn't be counted. Other studies say it's a slight energy gainer. Even if it is a slight loser today, it's just a matter of time before the process evolves to become net positive. Now I'm not saying we need to make every car E85 compatible or anything, but I think E10 is a good idea because it lessens our dependance on oil and it makes for a cleaner burning fuel.

 

How does E10 make us less dependent on oil? E10 is simply gasoline with the MTBE replaced with ethanol.

Plus, ethanol does not burn as efficiently as gasoline so the E85 that is currently being used does not go as many miles per gallon as the equivalent amount of gasoline.

 

<hijack>
Sure there is. Drill Alaska. Pump California. More exploration in-continent. Or we could have a "war for oil."
</hijack>

 

A switch from MTBE to E10 was projected to save California refineries about $1.2 million per day in crude oil costs and $1.7 million a day in oxygenate costs. Source: http://www.energy.ca.gov/mtbe/documents/30098013.PDF page 26.

 

Excellent example of "how to lie with references you hope nobody will read." Unfortunately I took the liberty of reading the very next page of text, which I now quote:

(emphasis mine)

Even in the long term analysis your reference admits that ethanol "is the most expensive of the alternative oxygenates studied, increasing average costs in the long term by 2.5 cents per gallon compared to MTBE."

 

This is not accurate. The real story is that MTBE was found in groundwater. Even California's courts have judged that MTBE is in fact not a carcinogen and that trace elements are not that dangerous (plus, as has been said, leakage can be prevented with some capital expenditures).

More importantly, ethanol is worse for the environment for two important reasons:

• Ethanol is highly volatile -- it (and gasoline containing it) evaporate much faster than gasoline not containing ethanol, increasing evaporative emissions and/or requiring expensive measures to counteract them.
  
• Ethanol is hydrophilic, meaning that gasoline containing ethanol has a tendency to spread through ground water MUCH faster than gasoline with MTBE. Gasoline is a carcinogen and we do NOT want it in our water.

 

Yeah, except for "not in my backyard."

And if we did find oil elsewhere, we'll still be in the same boat when that supply runs out.

 

ethanol is mainly produced from sugar cane and corn. The USA doesn't have many climate zones to grow massive amounts of sugar cane. ethanol lowers your mpg. It may be cheap now, but wait until the demand increases for it. Gas that lowers your mpg and costs about the same as gas would be stupid.

 

I recently ran into gas shortages in the Houston area - my local station had only regular, no mid or high grade. I had no problem burning regular - in fact, my mileage on this tank was 33 mpg vs 29-30 with premium grade. This was based on mostly city driving in 6 days time. Why better mileage with a lower grade of gas?

 

welcome and i own a 06 tsx, i also live in houston and so far all is well with the new mixes and everything car still runs the same

 

yeah, it's just that my gas mileage has noticeably suffered. My initial concern was how Hondata's reflash would react to the E10 blend, but there's been no loss in power or any other changes.

 

It's impossible to come to any conclusions about gas mileage from a single tank -- there's too much random variation possible, and your ECU's tuning parameters actually change over the course of four drive cycles or so. You need to keep track of your actual mpg (by writing down odometer numbers and pump volumes, not trusting the MID's mpg readout which is known to be optimistic) for several tanks of both types of gas being tested, and check that the averages of each distribution are different by more than about three times the standard deviation of each, before you can reasonably conclude that there's a mileage difference. Also you must be careful to control for driving conditions (weather, traffic, and driving style are three other factors known to influence gas mileage), which is extremely difficult to do.

 

 

yea mpg has suffered

 

gas stations here in NYC has a little sticker by the pump that reads "contain 10% ethanol"..

 

In your exuberence to respond, you missed the context of the conversation.

I was simply pointing out that E10 reduces the use of foreign oil.

I do not argue that the short term cost of ethanol is more expensive than that of using MTBE. The long term cost of ethanol may very well be cheaper - and that's the big picture.