gas prices on the lake

[jrc]

Originally Posted by Cobalt

I spoke to a tech at Cobalt Boats regarding ethanol in fuel and was told that Merc and Volvo do not recommend using ethanol blended fuels in their engines. This includes recent models. Although, the engine manufacturers feel that a 10% blend would not cause major problems. They strongly recommend against using the E85 blended fuel which some new cars are designed to accept.

The tech also said that Cobalt never used fiberglass gas tanks in any of their boats.

Most normal pump gas is or will soon be E10 which is 10% ethanol and 90% gasoline. Most modern engines will run on this. For most engines it's close enough to 100% gas.

E85 is 85% ethanol and only 15% gasoline. You can only use this is your vehicle is specifically design for it. Some very new cars will run on this stuff, but the cars are clearly labeled. As far as I know, no one make a boat engine that will run on E85. This isn't a matter of E85 might cause problems, your boat engine just won't run on E85 at all.

[Cobalt]

Thanks Skip,

The websites are very informative. It certainly seems far from a ringing endorsement by Merc and Volvo for using ethanol blended fuels in their engines.