Is your car E10 petrol-ready?

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!

I’ve 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! :wink: :slight_smile:

I wouldn’t have done it either. Though I had a 2003 Skoda Fabia. I still wouldn’t have risked it.

Something else to worry about :surprised:
I have had one tank of petrol since last February so will fill my car up again and be ok for another year :slight_smile:

According to that list my 2007 Ford Fiesta is ok.

Indeed they can, which is why I have said that E5 petrol will continue to be sold for a while once E10 is introduced.

There will undoubtedly be publicity when the new fuel launches in the UK but pumps will look something like this:

Hi

DIESEL AND i HAVE LOADS OF IT.

Apparently, the forecourts have put their diesel prices up higher than petrol.
So sell yours and undercut the forecourts.
You’ll make a killing.

Diesel is almost always more expensive than petrol in the UK.

Further to my post #17 yesterday the price of diesel is £123.9 the same as yesterday, unleaded though is now £118.9, a 3p increase. Almost the same comment as yesterday though – someone, somewhere is playing around with the fuel / oil prices! :shock: :slight_smile:

Yes, you’re perfectly correct. My apologies.

Although diesel is slightly more expensive than petrol, when you consider cost per mile, diesel comes out cheaper.

Of course, I wouldn’t have a diesel car now because we don’t drive enough to make it worthwhile. I worked out that it would cost us a lot more overall - maintenance and replacement parts, for example - if we had bought a diesel car.

I’m a bit surprised or maybe I shouldn’t :wink: that E10 is being introduced in the UK only now. I’ve been using it exclusively for 15 years now for my new 2006 Toyota Corolla Verso and my new 2011 Toyota Verso and was in fact one of the first who used it and had no qualms about it although some usually older men (except my brother) thought they should warn me.
It’s correct that it’s up to the driver what to use, either E5 or E10, provided the car is not too old and is listed. The stuff is a bit cheaper but it provides slightly lower mileage or so at least they say. Could also be a myth. Needless to say that I’ve never had any problems because I use it.
I liked taking the Mickey out of the sceptics who didn’t use it. After I had traded in my first Verso for the next model I told some of them that I’d have got 1500 quid more from the dealer if I hadn’t used E10. These guys didn’t want to know how the dealer could have found this out assuming that I wouldn’t have told him. No, they were just so pleased that their decision not to use E10 seemed to be confirmed by that information. “Didn’t I tell you…”. Their faces fell when I told them that that was a joke.

As pointed out E10 has been around for years here in NSW because ethanol is produced in the state by Manildra. However most, but not all, service stations still sell unleaded which is about 2c a litre dearer.

I never use E10 in any small engines such as my mower or generator because the ethanol has an affinity for water if it is not used for a while (likewise if you own a boat)

My last car (Mitsubishi Colt) ran very happily on E10.

BTW our standard octane value is 91 which is low by European standards, you can buy 95 and 98 but why would you if your car runs fine on the 91? My current car is a diesel so it is all academic to me except as I mentioned for my generators and mower.

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Thats a bit of an old picture as I am paying about 109.9c a litre for diesel at the moment.

For those who’d welcome more arguments for not using E10, I just read a study this morning saying that bioethanol is likely to damage the fuel vapour restraint system of a car. This activated charcoal filter will have to be inspected regularly and be replaced at 80,000 miles. Prices starting at 30 quid.

All of this to ‘save the planet’, while China and others heavily undo what very little change we can make!

An update from this in The Telegraph says that today the government will anounce that all petrol stations will sell E10 Petrol, which is 10 per cent bioethanol, as the standard from September - and that the current E5 “will be sold as the more expensive super grade and available at the majority of petrol stations.”

“The switch will add around 1.6 per cent to all drivers’ fuel costs because E10 is less efficient, meaning drivers will have to buy more per mile, the AA said.”

"The move to E10 was welcomed by the National Farmers Union, which anticipates a boost to the UK’s wheat and sugar sectors to supply the fuel.

The Government said the move would boost job opportunities in the North East, including the re-opening of manufacturer AB Sugar’s Vivergo plant in East Ridings."

Not sure if this is helpful, but I saw that MCC had an E10 compatibility checker where you can enter a car’s number plate: E10 Fuel: Is Your Car One Of The 300,000 That Won’t Be Compatible?

My new motor mower instruction book tells me not to use E10 petrol because it will knacker the engine up (Honda 147cc). E5 petrol is OK to use though.

It just shows how you are going to have to check though, as I’ve said, E5 should be available for some time (years?) yet.

I see that the E10 rollout is due to start soon with “summer” being publicized.

All my small engines say only to use unleaded (ie not E10) I think part of the problem is that ethanol has a great affinity for water which is no problem if the fuel is regularly changed/used like a car but deadly for small engines used only occasionally.

Having said that I inadvertently ran one of my generators on E10 for a couple of years because I didn’t read the manual and it seems to have suffered no lasting damage.

My Mitsubishi Colt ran fine on E10 for the 6 years I owned it.

E5 has never been available here.

The government intends to make E10 the new standard petrol grade. It contains less carbon than other fuels and more ethanol, a kind of alcohol manufactured from plants. But according to the RAC, 24% of motorists are unaware of it, while 27% do not know if their car is compatible.

Current petrol grades in the UK - known as E5 - contain up to 5% ethanol, with the other 95% being regular unleaded petrol. Their replacement, E10, will see this percentage increased to 10% - a proportion that would bring the UK in line with countries such as Belgium, Finland, France and Germany.

Introducing E10 could cut carbon emissions by 750,000 tonnes a year, says the Department for Transport, the equivalent of taking 350,000 cars off the road and an important step towards the government’s climate change targets.

The new fuel is being rolled out everywhere in the UK except Northern Ireland, where it is not due to arrive until early 2022.

Every petrol vehicle built after 2011 should accept E10. But it will not be compatible with some older vehicles - as many as 600,000 of those currently on UK roads, the RAC estimates.

The government has set up a website where drivers can check whether their car will run on E10 fuel.