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September 6, 2010

Ethanol in gas sounds good, but ruins small engines

I am getting really flustrated with what federal and state goverment are making us do, without any research, in the name of going green and saving oil.

Specifically, ethanol fuel. It sounds good, but I will bet no one in either goverment knows or even cares what it does to small engines. Let me give you a hint.

First of all, it won’t affect cars and trucks unless you let them set for a few months and, even then, the motion will mix the ethanol and gas.

Small engines, however, such as chainsaws, lawn mowers, snowmobiles, outboards and ATVs, set for long periods of time, and the ethanol seperates from the gas.

When this happens, the ethanol attracts moisture in the atmosphere and distributes it first to the fuel delivery system and then the lines.

Then, after a period of time, the engine goes. You may prolong this for a year or so by using a marine stabilizer.

It has gotten so bad that manfacturers of small engines are voiding the warranties on their engines if they find out that you used gas containing ethanol. Well, guess what, you can’t buy gas that doesn’t have ethanol in the state of Maine.

If they want to use ethanol, we should at least have one grade that doesn’t contain it, such as 91 octane.

The airports are switching to a low-lead 100 octane, which by the way you can’t use in any small engines.

The only good thing about this is the jobs that will be created in small engine repair shops



Richard Magoon

Embden

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