A reminder for those that have either forgotten or were not aware that it looks likely that E10 petroleum fuel will be rolled-out here in the UK this year as part of a range of measures designed to lower CO2 emissions.
It has been used in France, Germany, Belgium and Finland for a few years now and is used in the USA and Australia too.
All cars sold here in the UK from 2011 were required to be E10 compatible and even if yours is not, E5 petrol should be available alongside E10 petrol for quite a while.
Thatās not to say that devious retailers wonāt start charging a premium for E5 though.
Hereās the RACās explainer:
And hereās a link as to which cars are or are not compatible with E10 petrol (in pdf format please note):
My VW Golf is diesel so not affected by any of this. However, my other car is a 1984 vehicle with a Ford V6 engine, converted to unleaded, no idea about how this engine will be affected. Perhaps best converted to some other form of fuel e.g. hydrogen or LPG, rather than mess about having the existing engine modified yet again at extortionate cost!
Donāt worry too much because as I said, E5 petrol will be available for quite a while yet I imagine.
I wanted to increase awareness, not scare anybody into getting rid of or adapting their cars.
Iām not sure what this will mean for āclassicsā in the longer term though?
Perhaps some sort of add-on might be enough as in the currently-available lead replacement fuel additives?
It does mean that sooner or later and one way or another, driving an older car which isnāt compatible with E10 will cost more to run.
When unleaded came in specialist garages could fit a gadget that, with an adjustment to the timing, allowed the car to run very well on unleaded. I canāt think what it was called now but it was something that I was told was fitted to aircraft engines at one time. The name ācatalyserā seems to ring a bell and if that is the correct name then itās been on my āone day to be a classicā for years and ran OK all of that time. Cost-wise the car is only insured for an annual mileage of 1,500 miles so that would not be too costly.
Yes, I guess it is now with limited mileage due to not being able to go anywhere. My mileage when working was getting on for 18-20,000 a year, then it dropped to around 10,000 on semi-retirement, down further still to 4,000 miles a year now fully retired. The VW Golf is now seven yearsā old and has only covered 27,000 miles. I was going to buy another VW Golf but the depreciation at Ā£50 a week is too much and besides, the current Golf has only had two new tyres in all that time so is still almost a new car.
Isnāt that the device fitted in the exhaust system though, the one thatās attracting thieves to steal for the expensive metals contained in it?
This one, the ācatalyserā is fitted into the fuel line and whatever it contains allows unleaded to be used rather than the cost of new cylinder heads or refurbishing the existing ones.
I assume that cars for which the new E10 petrol is compatible can still use E5 petrol perfectly safely. The article doesnāt mention this, of course.
If both are suitable for our car, I shall use whichever of the two is cheaper also bearing in mind that (according to the article) the E5 fuel provides slightly higher mileage than the E10.
Iām also not sure how the fuel pumpsā colours indicate E5 and E10, though I assume that it will be written on them somewhere.
The way itās going with so few miles each week I will be forgetting where the fuel station is. Although I drove past it today and couldnāt believe the cost of diesel, Ā£123.9 a litre! Unleaded was Ā£115.9 a litre so both are very different to the last lockdown when fuel was very much cheaper due to lack of demand. It was around Ā£109.9 for diesel then but now thatās all changed. I suspect some garages are making up their losses by charging so much more for a litre. Plus of course the differential between unleaded and diesel now being around 8p more when some yearsā ago it was 2p LESS! Thereās some manipulation of prices going on somewhere!
If only I could run the Golf on heating oil, itās the same only probably a different colour and thatās only 39p a litre (including 5% tax) which shows how much tax is levied on fuel for cars etc.
A friend of ours, a fireman at the time, used to run his diesel on chip oil. It was an old car, though, but it ran perfectly well except for smelling like a fish and chip shop!
Iāve heard about that before. Someone had the bright idea of collecting all the old, used fat from chippies and used it in his car. The chippies were previously paying a lot to have it taken away, he did it for far less and got free fuel into the bargain!
I doubt my VW Golf would run happily on it and new engines are rather expensive!
