CEL after filling up with E15/Unleaded 88/Eco 88

[dabangsta]

I normally do not have access to Unleaded 88. When I travel to Colorado through New Mexico, They offer 85 octane, 87 "mid", and 90 "premium". A few stations also have Eco88 (which is 87 octane regular unleaded mixed with E85 to a Ethanol content of 15%). It is $.30 cheaper than 85, and higher octane. My vehicle runs great with it, and the fuel mileage is close enough to using regular unleaded that there isn't a trackable difference.

 

However this time after putting in 17.5 gallons in the tank (the 30 miles to empty alert was triggered, the gas station I had planned on stopping at was out of gas, the next one had a power outage), I got a CEL. When I look back to the last time this happened, I think I had a tank of Eco 88 also.

 

The less than helpful message in the app is the same as last time, but it goes away before I can get it, and it isn't saved as a historical code, which is odd. I will try another reader, but Forscan or Torque app don't see any stored codes or pending, or current codes. It isn't happening during idle, it is after bombing down the highway at 85 mph for a couple hours.

 

I filled up with 86 octane later on (used 85% of the tank of Eco 88), and continued on. Once it sat overnight (I had driven 12 hours, and wasn't up for checking the code) next startup the CEL was off.

[STBEAST]

I don't know but are you sure your vehicle is ok with 15% ethanol? My 2024 Edge ST is designed to run on 10% max.

 Ethanol is not good stuff. That's why it is cheap.

Hope your vehicle is ok as a lot of long-term damage can occur to the rubber and plastic components in the fuel system if they are only designed to handle up to 10% and you are running an unapproved fuel. 

 

[Samurai Edge]

So, each time you filled up with Eco88 fuel, you get this message.  What does that tell you?   Hmmm. . . 

 

Do not buy Eco88 fuel.  Your system is telling you not to.

[dabangsta]

2 hours ago, STBEAST said:

I don't know but are you sure your vehicle is ok with 15% ethanol? My 2024 Edge ST is designed to run on 10% max.

 Ethanol is not good stuff. That's why it is cheap.

Hope your vehicle is ok as a lot of long-term damage can occur to the rubber and plastic components in the fuel system if they are only designed to handle up to 10% and you are running an unapproved fuel. 

 

The owners manual (my 2019, your 2024) say specifically nothing over 15% ethanol, so Eco 88 should be fine.

[dabangsta]

14 minutes ago, Samurai Edge said:

So, each time you filled up with Eco88 fuel, you get this message.  What does that tell you?   Hmmm. . . 

 

Do not buy Eco88 fuel.  Your system is telling you not to.

I didn't connect the dots the first time, and it is fairly rare to find Unleaded88, so I haven't filled up with it for a while. Once it happened again, I looked at my receipts and I had gotten Unleaded88 that last trip at some point. I will see if I can get the actual code set, but none of my code readers see a history/current/stored fault codes.

 

My winter gas is 15% ethanol and 87 octane, but this time of year it is only 10%. Since I would be burning 80-90% of it at once, and it won't sit in the tank, and 30 cents cheaper for better performance a negligible hit in mpg (I think it gets the same or better, as I have used it coming down from higher elevations, as well as going to higher elevations).

 

In May of this year a bill passed allowing year around distribution of E15, due to probable lack of gasoline (the one that everyone with a pre 2001 car freaked out about).

[Samurai Edge]

Yes, it's true.  I have seen in the Subaru world where people are using E85 because they claim they get better performance numbers on the dyno.

 

What nobody is saying, or realizing, is that you get may better performance but you are also burning the fuel faster due to the higher ethanol content fuel.

So, is it really worth the cost over all buying cheaper E85 over the standard fuel?

IMHO, absolutely not.

 

The only cars that should be using the E85 are those cars whose fuel systems are deliberately designed to run on E85.  FlexFuel systems are so designed so they go either way.

 

You must live out in the corn state area where corn is aplenty to use to generate the E85 fuel.