We recently tried it in our car and succeeded. This is what happened:
We'd read the letter by John Kolak
on using E85 in regular cars, and then we read Marc Rauch's response.
Rauch describes his ongoing experiments with E85 in non-flex-fuel
vehicles, and it was all positive. And we also read about Robert Zubrin's experiments with methanol and his discovery that non-flex fuel cars already have the components to be flex fuel cars.
But
we were still skeptical and didn't want anything bad to happen to our
beloved 2001 Prius, so we bought a conversion kit and installed it.
In
order to fix an unrelated problem with our car, we took off the
conversion kit (temporarily, we thought) but in the process, we broke
one of the conversion kit's plugs. So we decided to gather up some
courage and try E85 without a kit just to see what would happen. We were
watching David Blume's video where he says he once mentioned on a
national talk show that anyone could put E85 in their regular car, and
immediately the petroleum industry made it mandatory for all gas
stations to put stickers on their E85 pumps warning people not to put
E85 into non-flex-fuel cars. Watch Blume's video here. Blume's reassurance that you can put E85 into any car (and that it's perfectly legal) was the final straw for us.
We
decided to do it. We thought we'd try it in stages. So first we waited
until our tank was pretty empty and put in one gallon of E85. By our
calculations, that meant we were running on 33% alcohol. We figured if
there was a problem, we had plenty of room in the tank to fill up with
regular gasoline and dilute the ethanol enough to stop whatever problem
it was causing. But we didn't have any problems. We couldn't even tell
the difference. Our 2001 Prius was successfully burning E33! This was
encouraging.
The next phase of our experiment was to let the tank empty out some more. Then we put in three gallons
of E85. By our calculations that made it E70 (70% ethanol in the tank).
We still had enough room to add four more gallons of regular gasoline
if there was a problem, which would have brought it back down to about
E30, and we already knew the car could handle that.
But
again, there was no problem. We couldn't tell any difference. The car
was running perfectly! We drove around quite a bit, using up most of the
tank. Everything was going smoothly.
This was great.
Then we embarked on a 500-mile trip and on our way out of town, we
filled up with E85, which put us at probably E80 or so. While we were at
the station, we looked carefully at the little warning sticker. It said
we should check with the clerk before putting E85 in our car. So we
went in to see what the clerk would say. He said the warning was on
there because E85 can damage engines. "Where did you hear that?" we
asked. "The tow truck guy told me," he said, "apparently it burns too
hot or something."
We straightened him out. Alcohol burns cooler than gasoline.
Anyway,
with our tank full of E85, we drove up over the Cascade Mountains (in
Washington State). No problems. The only thing that seemed different is
that the car had a little more power than we were used to. This is not
surprising. They use ethanol in the Indianapolis 500 because it is safer
but also because it can give a car more horsepower (it's a
higher-octane fuel).
Other than that, we couldn't tell
any difference. So our non-flex-fuel Prius went up a long grade to a
high elevation burning E80 with no problems. This was incredible. We
were so happy. John Kolak and Marc Rauch and David Blume were right!
After about 90 miles, we stopped at a rest area and when we got back on the road, the engine light came on.
Uh oh.
But
we already knew this was a possibility. Rauch said he has put straight
E85 into many cars and in some of them, the engine light came on. Our
car kept running fine. There wasn't really a problem. But the O2 sensor
was detecting fewer emissions than expected, and the car's computer
thought something must be wrong.
Rauch said he took his
car into a shop and had them check why the engine light was on (without
telling them he was burning E85). They told him his O2 sensor was
broken. He said thanks, drove away, filled up on straight gasoline and
after awhile, the engine light went off. He took the car to the shop
again, told them the engine light was coming on intermittently and had
them check it out. Nothing was wrong now. The sensor had healed! Not
really. It was never broken in the first place.
So we
decided on our trip to drive the Prius for awhile with the engine light
on. The car ran perfectly. When it was time to fill up, we put in one
gallon of regular gasoline to see if that would make the light go off.
Apparently that wasn't enough. So we filled up on regular gasoline.
Still the light stayed on. We thought we were going to have to take it
to the shop to get it reset or something.
But before we headed for home, the light went off and has been off since!
Now
we think we'll just burn E85 all the time and let the engine light
shine like a badge of courage. We took a risk and discovered we can
immediately stop sending our fuel dollars to OPEC and we can give it
instead to American farmers and American workers where it can do some
good for our economy and our air quality (ethanol produces fewer emissions that cause health problems).
Maybe
once in awhile when we get nervous about it, we will fill the tank with
gasoline just to see the engine light go off again. But then again,
maybe not. It feels too good to fill our tank with freedom.
Adam Khan is the co-author with Klassy Evans of Fill Your Tank With Freedom and the author of Slotralogy and Self-Reliance, Translated. Follow his podcast, The Adam Bomb.
No comments:
Post a Comment