My '04 Explorer is a flexible fuel vehicle, meaning it can run on E85. I've been waiting for years for a gas station to stock E85 so I can try it. Well, I finally found a station near where I work (Schaumburg, Il) that has E85, so I tried a couple of tank fulls.
Pro's: Car ran absolutely great! Its 105 octane. The idle was so smooth you couldnt tell the engine was running. It also seemed to have a bit more pep, but that may have been my imagination. Upon first starting up in the morning, the car exhaust smells like alchohol
Con's It's still horribly inconvienent to use. The gas station is still out of the way for me to fill up and they did everything they could to discourage people from buying it. Only a single pump, with a teeny weeny little sign on it about 3 inches square proclaiming its E85. I had to go in and ask where the pump was. It was also pre-pay instead of accepting a charge card.
More Con's Regular gas was going for $3.19 at the time, E85 was $2.99, so I saved
20 cents a gallon, 6%. But my gas mileage went from about 18 mpg to 13 mpg on the first E85 fill up and 15 mpg on the second E85 fill up. So I saved 6% on fuel costs but had a 17 - 28% decrease in fuel efficiency. BTW, everything I read said to expect a 5 to 15% decrease in mpg so I obviously greatly exceeded that. Not exactly cost efficient. Mileage went back up to 18 mpg on the next regular gas fillup.I did two tank fulls then went back to regular gas. I couldn't afford E85.
Illinois does have an E85 rebate program,
dickm
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