I filled up for $73 today

[Tom King]

I had stocked up pretty good, just from dumb luck, before fuel prices started skyrocketing, but the lawnmower was about empty, and on the trailer anyway, so I went ahead and filled it up at the non-ethanol pump.

[wtnhighlander]

How much does that tank hold?!? $75 is the range I hit for a near empty fill on my pickup.

[Tom King]

Two 7-1/2 gallon tanks on the mower.

My diesel pickup has an aftermarket 56 gallon tank in it.  

[legenddc]

You're lucky you can find non-ethanol gas down there. I'm sure its what most people down there use for their water toys. It would be an hour drive for me to get some around here.

For my gas pressure washer I'll run regular gas and then the ethanol free cans you can buy at Home Depot to flush it. Hopefully next time I need to use the washer it will start without a carb replacement.

[Tom King]

Every station near the lake, or on the main roads leading to the lake, sells non-ethanol now.  I run it in all the small equipment, which has too many different pieces to bother to start every month.  Some will sit for a couple of years, but will still start with fresh gas, or mix in the tank.

[wtnhighlander]

There are multiple stations around my town that sell non-ethanol gas. Small engines and old cars still use a lot of rubber gaskets & such, that ethanol deteriorates. But I ran a tank through my truck once, on a long highway trip, and the mileage increased by 20% over my typical. Ethanol is not a very efficient fuel.

[Coop]

It has been so long now but wasn’t the initial intent to add ethanol to gas to give corn farmers a break without having to give them a subsidy?

[Gary Beasley]

I think it was supposed to burn cleaner, make less smog than non ethanol. Thing is, if you burn more fuel due to lower mileage seems it would be a wash.

[Chestnut]

On 4/29/2022 at 8:11 AM, legenddc said:

For my gas pressure washer I'll run regular gas and then the ethanol free cans you can buy at Home Depot to flush it. Hopefully next time I need to use the washer it will start without a carb replacement

Have you tried emptying the gas tank and letting it idle out of gas? I do that with all of my small engines. I never run stabil and they start first pull even after sitting for 6 months.

10 hours ago, wtnhighlander said:

There are multiple stations around my town that sell non-ethanol gas. Small engines and old cars still use a lot of rubber gaskets & such, that ethanol deteriorates. But I ran a tank through my truck once, on a long highway trip, and the mileage increased by 20% over my typical. Ethanol is not a very efficient fuel.

That's interesting. I run ethanol free premium in my subaru often. I get stuck rural places where the only premium fuel is the ethanol free kind. I've never noticed a difference in mileage. So much goes into making engines efficiently run off ethanol though so it can vary greatly. It makes a superb race fuel in high performance engines that are designed to burn it.

[Tom King]

I never run a two stroke out of gas.  If done, the last few revolutions are without lubrication.  The gas cutoff valve is the off switch for my generator, and Billygoat blower, which are both 4 strokes.

[wtnhighlander]

Straight gasoline is listed here at 116000 btu/gallon, where ethanol is 77000 btu/gallon.  Racing engines designed for ethanol use it in large quantities. I've read somewhere that such engines burn alcohol because it helps minimize heating of the engine, but I can't find the source for that.

FWIW, my finding of 20% fuel mileage increase was under near ideal conditions of constant highway speed over several hours. That value would not be likely under typical city driving conditions.

[legenddc]

On 4/30/2022 at 9:30 AM, Chestnut said:

Have you tried emptying the gas tank and letting it idle out of gas? I do that with all of my small engines. I never run stabil and they start first pull even after sitting for 6 months.

Yeah with my power washer last time I did that, put in the ethanol free stuff and ran it dry again.

[TerryMcK]

My car has a 70 litre tank (not sure how many US gallons that is) and last time I filled up a couple of weeks back it cost £100 GBP. At todays currency exchange rate that equates to $125 USD. We in the UK have always had more expensive gas (petrol) than the US but recent events have pushed the cost up massively.

 

[Tpt life]

Roughly 3.8 litres per gallon. (So 18ish gallons Terry.) That number is in my mind as my first job was custodial, and early one gallon flush urinals came dually labeled. 
 

EDIT: that makes your price double what I am currently paying here. 

[TerryMcK]

Wow with a capital W. The imperial gallon is slightly more than a US gallon at roughly 4.5 litres to a gallon. Even so we are being fleeced hand over fist here and have been since the start of motoring.

Price of a litre of E10 petrol (10% ethanol - the rest is regular unleaded) today is about £1.61 GBP or $2.02 USD

So 2.02 multiplied by 3.8 equalling $7.67 a US gallon. 

[Robby W]

California isn't too far behind. We were at $6.50 a gallon, now you can find it for $5.30. when I filled up with 14.5 gallons the last week, it was $87+/-. I wish the world leaders wouldn't think they had to prove who is better and who has to do it their way.

[Tom King]

Back whenever it was before that fuel went up so much, before Russia and Saudia Arabia flooded the market, around 2009 or something, diesel went to $4.00 a gallon.  I filled up my truck, and it cost $200.  I'm not driving it much these days, but whenever I fill it up next, it will be a lot more than $200.