How Ethanol Gasoline Additives can Damage Older Car Engines
News flash! CBS has recently reported that ethanol additives in gasoline can actually significantly damage older vehicle engines. Is this true? Or is just another story made up by overconfident news reporters to mess with people’s minds and grab everyone’s attention through seemingly genuine theories? Since the EPA approval of putting a total of 5 percent more ethanol into gasoline, which is actually a relatively important amount, considering the original percentage of ethanol in gasoline was only 10 percent, some owners of older car models, which still possess the unimproved, un-updated technology in their engines, have reported problems with their much beloved and previously well-functioning vehicles.
The EPA had approved the newer type of gasoline E15, as it is now called, for model year 2001 cars or those made later. But the problem is, there are still loads of older cars out on the road, and they have much different engines than those of the newer, more technologically progressed models.
How does a seemingly simple addition of ethanol to the regular gasoline affect the entire engine of an older car? Well, the scary reality is that it can actually melt holes right through the pistons of the engine! This occurs because some older car engines were traditionally built for the usage of higher octane leaded gas, meaning the lower-content ethanol containing fuel. Because of this, the compressions of the engine would be much higher in the older engines. So with more ethanol, the result is detonation of the engine. The car will not be running right and the driver will be able to sense it quite easily as a big difference from the usual start-up. The longer the vehicle keeps on detonating, the worse it is for the engine as well, the eventual product of which may just as well be the melted holes and therefore a much damaged engine.
So what can the owner of an older vehicle do in order to prevent this possible disaster from occurring and ruining the highly-important as well as pricey engine of their beloved car? Well, the expert recommendation is the usage of premium for the higher octane content. Another type of fuel that will now work best for the older cars is very expensive racing fuel with special additives that help. But of course, this option is, as suggested, quite expensive. But this shouldn’t discourage the devoted old-vehicle drivers of today. After all, not every singlecaris only made forcarshows in today’s world.
