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So I have been filling up with ethanol free gas recently and sure enough my gas mileage has gone up. This is no surprise as ethanol does not run as well as pure gas in my cars. So i know of only 2 stations in this area that are ethanol free. One is right in downtown and is about 20 cents higher than other stations. This is because the only ethanol free they sell is the mid-grade.
Now there is another station outside of town that sells good old pure gas. But they are 15 miles out of town. So to drive there and back I have to put 30 miles on my car.

Now considering that I have noticed my mileage go up from 29-30 to 32-33 which is a great increase IMO, I am wondering if it is worth it to drive 30 more miles outside of town just to get this better mileage. From my calculations, it is. But I am wondering if my math is somewhat flawed. I also just replace my heavy 17s with some Konig Feather wheels that are only 15 lbs a piece! and I slapped some Goodyear fuelmax tires on there, so I attribute some of the increase of MPGs to that.

Btw I drive a 2005 Kia Spectra 5. Brand new the car got about 33-35 on the freeway and it was stock. Now the car has 47,000 miles on it and it has a Cold Air Intake with a aftermarket header with a cat-back exhaust. I also have a Carbon Fiber hood and I took out the heavy back seats. And I do not street race i just like to cruise.

Pretty simple answer: no.

Cost isn't just gas mileage. There's also wear-and-tear and depreciation on each mile driven. Just think about how much people are allowed to claim for business mileage.

However, focusing just on the gas cost, to compare the 2 just deduct the extra 30 miles from your tank distance on pure gas and recalculate the mpg.

I suggest filling up with the E10 and then working out how much time that 30 miles took. Now use the time you've saved to do something either constructive or just plain fun. :)

It would be about a wash for me.

Typical fill up is 18 gallons.

I've seen about a 6% hit using e-10 vs pure.

Average mpg 30.

18 x 30 x .06 = 32 miles

But I enjoy cranking my stereo so it's constructive time. :Banane09:

That's kind of how I feel. Even though i have to put an occasional 30+ miles on my odometer, I get ~2-3 more MPGs to the tank using ethanol free. Thats about a 10% increase. But like I said I also attribute the raise in MPGs to light wheels and more fuel efficient tires. But it still seems like it is worth it to drive 30 miles to save 7-10% per tank.

And all the while my engine will last longer because I am not running ethanol through it.

I did a quick calculation on it and it seems you need more accurate figures.

If you are going from 30mpg to 32mpg it'll cost you adjusted mpg.
If you are going from 29.5mpg to 32.5mpg it'll give you better adjusted mpg.

I don't know how you calculated your E0 mileage, but there's a potential for a mileage penalty if you're having to travel 15 miles out of your way to a particular gas station since it's harder to wait until you're almost empty. (If you can fill up anywhere you can take more chances). If your E0 mpg is calculated at the pump over a good number of fills then you can ignore this variable.

Note that you'll be driving further:
With a 14 gallon tank you'll get 462 miles at 33mpg.
So you'll be adding at least 6.5% to your total regular travel distance by going 30 miles out of your way.

Pros:
- Lower maintenance costs through avoiding E10 engine wear

Maybes:
- Better/worse adjusted mileage

Cons:
- Higher gas cost
- Additional maintenance costs and depreciation through higher miles traveled

The tires could be a major factor in the mileage increase you're seeing. I think you'll need to test E10 vs E0 again, with the tires already on there. Our Odyssey saw a 5%+ increase when we put the FuelMax's on. Until you know for sure how much difference is from the tires and how much is from the fuel, you can't make a good decision.

I'm a huge fan of non-e fuel, but I doubt it works in your favor to go that far out of the way. You also have to plan your fills more carefully so you don't run out. However, if you are over there for another reason, by all means, do it!

There are other things to consider as well. With E10, 10% is going mostly on shore instead of 100% going mostly off shore with E0. Jobs and deficit are part of the equation.

I don't wait until I am almost empty. I go at 1/4th of a tank. My father is a mechanic and he told me never run the tank down to empty. Just too high of a chance of something abd happening.

And it is 15 miles out and then 15 miles back. So that's where I get my 30 miles. And in the long run 30 more freeway miles are not going to be as bad as the many short trips I take. In a way the more I drive on the freeway the better it would be for the car in the long run. If anything it would make the car last longer.

My usual commute btw is 7-9 miles a day.

Hey VG if you think driving more will make your car last longer you should be in sales !

well my logic goes like this. If I put 30 more miles on my car that means that the oil will warm up and work better than if I was only driving 7-9 miles. Now I am not talking about 50 or 100 miles cause that would be ridiculous. But it would take me 3 days of driving to reach 30 miles. that either 1 cold start up and going or 6 cold start ups and going. That's a 1 to 6 ratio just for my starter. besides I run amsoil in my car and even though the oil can go 25,000 miles or 1 year last year I only put 7000 miles on my car.

So with that logic, i am going to continue to drive 15 miles outside of town to get the good gas.

This way your car may last more miles, but not more time. You have the same amount of cold starts per week (month, year), you just add some extra distance.

Not for me, my 96 Yukon 5.7 Vortec 4x4 gets the same mileage with either.

I use Wal-Mart, Chevron usually and the non-ethanol fuel gets the same mpg.

This makes NO sense considering

Ethanol has about 76,000 BTU/Gl
and
Alcohol free Gas @ 120-125,000 BTU/Gl

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_BTUs_per_gallon_of_gasoline

It could be that your Yukon's gas mileage is low enough, the difference disappears in rounding errors. 3% of 15 mpg is only .45 mpg which could round down, while 3% of 50 mpg is 1.5 mpg. The difference looks bigger on a high-mileage vehicle and smaller on a low-mileage one, but the percent is the same.

You also need to consider the year your vehicle was made. I have a 97 metro so it can handle E10, but it isn't good for it. The car was sold before Ethanol was in wide use. If your car was pre 95, avoid it like the plague.

As for the argument that buying with ethanol keeps 10% at home, that's a loaded statement. Ethanol is heavily subsidized, so it's actually sold at a loss which means the government is borrowing money to pay the farmers to produce it (did I mention that corn is one of the worst crops to produce it?) so we end up borrowing money from the federal reserve and China to use it. Wow! What a great deal!

One other item to the pro category: using your money to support a business selling non-ethanol gasoline.

i would say no, the goal is to use less fuel, and maybe 15 more miles will put nice mpg numbers but you still be using more fuel my 2 cents..

Colonel Gaddafi would say just anywhere !

Here's small suggestion: if you carry three or four 5 gallon jerry cans to that 15 mile away station, you could almost halve the actual cost in wasted fuel (and your time) for such an errand...

Up here in Vancouver, Canada, I just paid $1.43.2/litre ($5.46 US/US gallon) for 94 octane super premium - it is the only grade of Chevron fuel that is ethanol free. Premium (91 octane) is $1.40.2 and "may contain up to 10% ethanol" as it says on the pump. Mid grade (89 oct) and regular (87 oct) also "may contain up to 10% ethanol".
I haven't been able to get a straight answer, yet, whether or not there is 10% ethanol in the fuel every time one fills up... do the blends vary more than I thought from tanker to tanker?

As usual the whole story, if you can get it, is annoyingly complicated.

I actually have 2 cars. One is a 1991 Honda CRX HF. and the other is a 2005 Kia Spectra 5. On the Kia I have noticed a big change in mileage going to ethanol free, but the Honda seems to be about the same, but I have not done extensive tests in the Honda. It's been in the shop recently.

But the station that I go to is a non-affiliated station. So I enjoy going there just so that the oil companies don't directly get my money. And they just gave me a gas card worth 5 cents off on every gallon. So now it is definitely worth it.

I haven't been able to get a straight answer, yet, whether or not there is 10% ethanol in the fuel every time one fills up... do the blends vary more than I thought from tanker to tanker?

I don't know the answer to that question, but very often the mid-grade fuel is made by mixing regular and super-grade at the pump itself. So there is a good chance that the mid-grade has about half as much ethanol in it as the regular does (assuming there is none in the super-grade fuel). Perhaps a bit more than that, as 89 might contain more 87 than 92...

-soD