Can e85 be mixed with regular gasoline?
This question is asked very often. Since e85 is already a mixture of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline, it is just fine to mix the two fuels.
Let’s say that you fill up with e85 before a trip then continue to your destination. When you are ready to leave, you notice there are no e85 stations around. You have less then half a tank left of e85, and you need to fill up. Filling up your tank with regular gas is just fine for your flex fuel vehicle.
Filling up will regular gas will only dilute the e85 ethanol from the original fill up. With a rough calculation, if you have half a tank of e85 and fill up with regular gas, you will have approximately 40 percent ethanol and 60 percent gasoline in your tank.
If your vehicle is a flex fuel vehicle, it will be able to take any combination of e85 and gasoline.
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I own a Hyundai 01 Sonata, it is not an e85 vehicle but my owners manual says "gashol" is ok. Driving performance will suffer if more than 10% ethanol blend is used. OK I can take a performance hit to go to work and school. We have two stations in St. Louis that sell E85. I just topped off from a 3/4 tank(regular) with E85 and no engine light has come on yet. Going to try 1/2 tank regular and 1/2 E85. I read else where somebody's wife filled up from a 1/4 tank regular with E85 it was the cheapest at the station! LOL! The guy said engine light came on but car continued to run normally...I believe he had a Honda accord ? civic ... Makes you wonder ? ? ?
I'm glad to hear that somebody put 3/4 of a tank of e85 in a non-flex fuel car and the engine light came on and it was fine. I put a little under 1/2 a tank of e85 in my car today to save money (bad idea) and the engine light came on after a bit. I'm going to fill up with regular fuel next time I drive the car just to be safe. It seems to be running fine though. I kind of assumed my car would be fine because its an 05 (Focus)...didn't realize how small the list of cars that can use e85 was! Whoops. Surprised its not more standard.
Agreed. A flexfuel car will be able to handle the mixture of the two fuel types. I've tried it on my HHR and it had no problems at all.
How are your gaskets in your engine doing?
What I've heard is cars that are made for flex fuel (FFV) have different parts and seals to hold up to the corrosiveness of the E85 along with different specs to the gas tank and pump to prevent electrical arcing. Cars will run on E85 with a hit to performance if they are not a FFV but any extended use can screw up your engine. Also FFV's have a sensor built in that controls the amount of fuel injected in the engine depending on the ethanol ratio.