I always use Shell V-power gas in my car since i bought it. I noticed in Ontario, they have a lot of gas stations offering Ethanol gas. I beleive it's based from corn and better for the environment. Now, is it bad to use this in a Max? I never tried it and probably won't because it's not available here(or near me anyways). Anyone of you know anything about that??
My personal idea on it, is that it's a big No No!!

 

dont use it.. its bad for the car and it will run like a$$

 

back in the day, they used to use this stuff named "gasohol", but they stopped because it wasn't any better than gasoline. It produced less emissions, but that's about it. Alcohol is hydrophilic, which means it attracts water, which inside the engine, is bad obviously. (Just as a reference, nitro RC cars require the use of after-run oil, since the fuel they use is so corroding.) Stick with straight up MTBE gasoline, and you'll be all set.

 

you cannot use it.

http://www.e85fuel.com/e85101/flexfuelvehicles.php

 

E-85 can only be used in cars designed for it. Many American makes have it available for only some of their cars, usually designated as FlexFuel vehicles. A fourth generation Maxima cannot use it. To the best of my knowledge, no new Nissan can use it either.

Cars that are designed to use it will do great with it.

That is not to say you can't use gasoline mixed with 10% ethanol. Generally, that is available at the mid-grade level. Wehn I lived in Minnesota and North Dakota that is all I would use, I've driven at least 17,000 miles on my Maxima with that gas and hundreds of thousands of combined miles on that gas in other cars. No ill effects. Unfortunately, it does not seem to be available in Florida. Ethanol burns cleaner for the environment, reduces dependency on foreign oil, and supports America's corn growers. Despite skeptics, it will not reduce gas milage, preformance, or vehicle longevity. I've driven several cars to well over the 200,000 mile mark on 10% ethanol blended fuel that may have been rusting out, but were still running great.

 

The new Titan can. See my above link.

How long ago was that?

It all has it now in MN. The governer want to increase it to 20%. WTF.

 

Just moved to Florida in January, but I was living primarily in North Dakota prior to that. The low and high octane gas was pure fossil fuel, but the mid grade, which generally sold for the same price as the low octane, was 10% ethanol. In ND, the pumps were clearly marked as to which you were getting, but now that you mention it, I don't remember ever seeing that in MN.

 

In NY you don't have a choice. Any gas you get will have 10% ethanol. There may be more for Cali but I'm not sure since they are the most strict with emmissions and NY is second. I currently live in FL for school and they don't use any type of additive such as ethanol. I don't notice a difference in how my car runs between the ethanol and non ethanol.

 

MTBE in gasoline is being phased out, and will be replaced in May 2006 by ethanol. Soon everyone will be buying ethanol. 'Isawyou' has his facts straight --- there won't be any ill effects.

 

MTBE is basically methanol/wood alchohol with some additives in it. The only diff between it and ethanol is that its highly toxic to the environment and can kill you if enough gets into a water supply. Ethanol is simply alchohol made from other plants and is nothing more than 200 proof denatured moonshine in a sense. IIRC you can use up to 15% ethanol in any vehicle, but any more requires a flex fuel vehicle to run it. I just hope the U.S. can get on a clean renewable fuel source and get off the fossil fuel bandwagon so i dont keep feeling like im getting mugged every time i fill up.

 

Mximus is 100% right. If you look at your owner's manual or any other car's manual you will see that you can use Ethanol/E15/Gasohol in your car SAFELY. E85 is the new ethanol mix (85% Alcohol/ethanol/whatever they use) and cannot be used safely by any means in our cars.

E85 is rated at 105+ Octane. This yields greater power, but slightly less gas mileage .......... at the same price as 87 octane.

My question is ... will E15 have a greater octane then 93 and will it yield performance?

 

anyone know if the vq30dd would work on this stuff? i know they need a high octane rating with low sulfur.

how much sulfur does e-85 have?

 

isawyou
This is simply not true. Ethanol only releases ~67% of the chemical energy (on a volume basis) that gasoline does when combusted. Therefore, you will absolutely get less miles per gallon of fuel with a gas/ethanol blend compared to straight gas. Figures from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline

For example, if you currently get 25 MPG with 100% gas you can expect:

with 10% Ethanol / 90% gas
25*.9*1 + 25 *0.1*0.67 = 24.2MPG (or 96.7 % of the MPG of straight gas)

with E85 ( 85% Ethanol / 15% gas)
25*.15*1 + 25 *0.85*0.67 = 18.0 MPG (or 72.0 % of the MPG of straight gas)


Mximus
Actually, MTBE is not very close to methanol: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MTBE http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methanol except in that they both contain C, H, and O. A chemist certainly would never say they are the same or only differ by some additives. They are chemically distinct.

95mtlMAXSE
To answer your question, no you cannot use E85 because your engine would require 1/0.68 = or ~148% of the volume of E85 (relative to straight gas being 100%) to acheive the proper air/fuel stoichiometry and your computer will not know (or be allowed) to sufficiently adjust the injector pulsewidth to add the extra 48%.

However, for blends with only 10-15% ethanol the computer can adjust sufficiently to run (typically by sensing a lean condition on the O2s and adding fuel trim). However, there computers are limited in how much they can add and they cannot compensate sufficiently to run E85.