Just thought i'd let you all know that I tried E85 in Monte for the first time...Its not easy to find E85 around here, but a Chevron station near my work just started having it. Which works perfect for me because my business gas card is for Chevron

Anyway, so far i've put 70 miles on the car since filling it up...(it took 17.3 gallons, the most i've ever got in the tank was 18.1, so I got almost all E85) but in these 70 miles i'm averaging 18.1 MPG. I was averaging 22.7 MPG(which is on the low side for me, normally i'm more around 25-26, but lots of city driving on the last tank). So far, its about 70% highway driving, and 30% city on the 70 miles of E85 driving.

I paid $2.59 for E85 which is 105 octane...Reg 87 octane was $3.09, Prem 91 Octane was $3.35...

As far as performance goes, I can't really feel any difference...MAYBE, just MAYBE there is a little more power after 4,500 RPM in second gear.

As S_Dahm told me, and I observed for myself too, the exhaust smells different then usual. It kinda has a sweet smell to it...

Anyway, I just wanted to let everyone know what my experience with E85 was so far...I'll keep you all updated as I go through the tank.

 

I've never even seen the stuff :P

 

Yea, I hadn't either until about 3 weeks ago this Chevron station started having it...so since have a flexfuel, I HAD to try it at least once...The milage sucks though, I would have to do some calculations of the milage differences vs. price differences to see what is actually cheaper in the long run...But I would need to run several tanks of E85 to get a good average MPG with it...so maybe within a year I will have filled up enough on E85 to actually get a good average...LOL

With all the traffic this morning on the way to work milage dropped some more...now its averaging 17.3MPG....I have NEVER had an average in the teens's at all...21ish is the lowest i've ever gotten on gasoline.

 

Hey Michael, when your driving, does is smell like a Tortilla mill?

 

JJ, LOL! no can't say that it does...but then again i've never smelt a tortilla mill. But if it smells like fresh tortillas, then damn that would be bad news for me...haha if I had to spend my days smelling a food smell from my exhaust, I would be non-stop hungry...and i'm already hungry most of the time...hahaha

 

IDK I think the people behind you would smell it... I dont' really sit there and smell my own tailpipes when I'm driving...

 

Dose it smell like popcorn or corn on the cob heeheehee! If I had a car that had E85, I haven't seen any gas stations around me that sell it. I don't understand why, there are tons of farmers around here that grow corn.

 

o_0...

 

for people to eat :P

 

i worked with E85 a ton in college. we actually tuned an arctic cat F5 snowmobile to run on it. i agree, it does have a sweeter smell to it, due to the corn. i kinda like it. the color of it is pretty much clear, so it looks just like water, whereas gas and diesel have a yellowish tint, with the exception of farm diesel (red in color). combustion temps are much cooler than gas due to the alcohol so your engine is probably running cooler, but it probably isn't noticeable on the gauge.

your 17mpg michael sounds pretty good considering E85 has about 30% less energy per gallon than gas which translates to about 30% less mpg, depending on driving of course. the 105 octane is a great benefit, should have almost no KR i bet you S/C guys out there would love that!!