Maxol E5 - where's the catch?

MarkN

The local Maxol to me had signs outside for E5 today and as it happened I had run the car almost dry to see what I would get from a full tank.

Filled it up and they have little cardboard signs on the pumps explaining what it is. First thing I noticed was that it was 114c a litre - same price as normal unleaded.

So when I went in to pay, they have more leaflets at the till and I brought it with me. It clearly says that in tests, the average octane rating of E5 is 99.2 so it's easily going to be 98.

I'm just wondering, mainly due to the price, where is the catch!? Or is it a case of E5 was made to be better for the environment and it just is an added bonus that the rating is around 99 octane and they are not charging for the fact?

It says all Maxols will have it shortly.

bennyx_o

Basically, it's 95% unleaded and 5% bio fuel (ethanol IIRC) It's not levied like normal 98ron as it's classed as a Bio Fuel. It's supposed to be better for the environment, too, so while you're getting the best out of your car, you're doing the trees a favor too.

bushy...

I suppose it saves them money somewhere/how , happy side effect is the "e" bit is high octane, so means less additives to make fuel that suits nice highly strung engines
Lead is good though http://www.racefuels.com.au/fuelsDetail.asp?ID=11
gram and a half in every litre , like that chocolate ad...

colm_mcm

I filled mine with it last week, but it'll take a while for the ECU to recognise that I'm using proper petrol now!

E92

ECU only reprogrammes the engine if you use a fuel lower than the reecommended octane rating of your car(and unless we're talking about a high performance and/or direct injection car), it makes very little difference. If you use a higher octane rating than the recommended it makes no difference whatsoever.

But as E5 if perfectly acceptable to BMW and to every other car made in the past 10-15 years and will reduce the car's net CO2 emissions by around 4%, whats not to like about it?

pete4130

almost all unleaded fuel you get has some ethanol in, sometimes up to 15%.
For more info check www.greenfuels.co.uk

ethanol burns hotter and has a higher octane (but less mpg!). Maxol and ford have a partnership for FFV's (flexi fuel vehicles) that run on E85 (85 ethanol, 15% unleaded). any petrol car made after 1990 can run it pretty much, a few mods to ruber hosing so the ethanol doesnt rot it away and a chip to regulate how much fuel and the timing of the spark and your running. sipposedly an in crease in performance with higher octane?

80% of new cars in brazil run on E85 (or any mixture of ethanol and unleaded). SAAB also do a FFV car too. When you buy a new car here the government gives you a 50% rebate on your VRT, which isn't enough to encourage the use of E85 tbh. The good thing with E85 is it produces 70-80% less co2 and as the ethanol is roduced by crops, this is offset by the co2 the crop takes in when growing. It beats me why E85 isnt more popular, its cheaper, cleaner and removes out reliance on oil as well as keeping jobs going here (our ethanol is produced by a dairy farm in cork!).

I've done alot of research into the use of ethanol as I'm thinking of converting my car (no govt. grants or tax relief for doing that) so hence I know some of the useless facts mentioned above!

colm_mcm

E92 wrote: »

ECU only reprogrammes the engine if you use a fuel lower than the reecommended octane rating of your car(and unless we're talking about a high performance and/or direct injection car), it makes very little difference.

The car is a japanese domestic market coupe. think they're supposed to run on 100 RON.

Del2005

MarkN wrote: »

The local Maxol to me had signs outside for E5 today and as it happened I had run the car almost dry to see what I would get from a full tank.

Filled it up and they have little cardboard signs on the pumps explaining what it is. First thing I noticed was that it was 114c a litre - same price as normal unleaded.

So when I went in to pay, they have more leaflets at the till and I brought it with me. It clearly says that in tests, the average octane rating of E5 is 99.2 so it's easily going to be 98.

I'm just wondering, mainly due to the price, where is the catch!? Or is it a case of E5 was made to be better for the environment and it just is an added bonus that the rating is around 99 octane and they are not charging for the fact?

It says all Maxols will have it shortly.

The EU wants all petrol sold in Europe to be E10 soon, the way they see it is that it's better to have 10% of the whole fleet on "enviromentally friendly" fuel then a much smaller % on E85.

The reason why I've used the "enviromentally friendly" is because of all the damage being done in the tropics plating palm oil plants and also the fact that some of the bio fuels being produced are claimed to have more CO2 output and cause damage to the enviroment in other ways

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055167171

dcGT

So, I've two questions: -

1. Can this E5 stuff be used in any petrol car or are there certain restrictions? If so, what are they?

2. Will it increase the performance of a car designed to run on 98 RON (or higher) that's currently running on 95? If so, have people experienced this performance increase first hand?

Cheers,

DC.

TommyT

1. Apparently E5 can be used on any car that runs on unleaded fuel but do not get this confused with E85 which can only be used on cars that have been modified to run on it.

2. I have been using E5 for a couple of weeks and cannot notice any performance increase.

JHMEG

colm_mcm wrote: »

I filled mine with it last week, but it'll take a while for the ECU to recognise that I'm using proper petrol now!

This should be almost instant as far as I know. Like as soon as you drive off the forecourt. The knock sensor should notice the difference and retard/advance timing instantly. It doesn't have to "learn" anything... my car doesn't take any time to learn when there's 95 or 98 in it.

JDM cars are not mapped per se to run on 100RON. They run a map (a lookup table) like all cars do, and timing is altered depending on the knock sensor inputs. But the map remains the same. The performance difference between octane ratings is no more profound with a JDM car than it is with a Euro car etc.

dcGT

TommyT wrote: »

2. I have been using E5 for a couple of weeks and cannot notice any performance increase.

Thanks TommyT. Is the car in question one that is designed for 98 RON?

Cheers,

DC.

Anan1

I filled with E5 last week and noticed an immediate difference. (in a car that takes 98)

Anan1

One other thing - I would expect fuel consumption to be marginally higher on E5, due to its slightly lower calorific value.

omega man

Anan1 wrote: »

I filled with E5 last week and noticed an immediate difference. (in a car that takes 98)

Deffo agree for a 98Ron recommended car.

dcGT

E92 wrote: »

ECU only reprogrammes the engine if you use a fuel lower than the reecommended octane rating of your car(and unless we're talking about a high performance and/or direct injection car), it makes very little difference. If you use a higher octane rating than the recommended it makes no difference whatsoever.

So if the ECU does not 'adjust' when a higher octane fuel is introduced, why do some people report better performance? I assume these people are the ones with 'high performance' cars? Just trying to understand this.

Cheers,

DC.

Anan1

dcGT wrote: »

So if the ECU does not 'adjust' when a higher octane fuel is introduced, why do some people report better performance? I assume these people are the ones with 'high performance' cars? Just trying to understand this.

Cheers,

DC.

Because their recommended octane rating is higher. A car that's supposed to get 98 won't be so happy on 95. A car that's set up for 95 will be fine on 95.

dcGT

Anan1 wrote: »

Because their recommended octane rating is higher. A car that's supposed to get 98 won't be so happy on 95. A car that's set up for 95 will be fine on 95.

Ah ok. I misunderstood E92's post. It suggested to me that the ECU will not reprogram if you begin using 98RON in a 98RON engine that had been using 95RON. So here's the scenario: -

98RON Engine
98RON Fuel - Fine
95RON Fuel - ECU adjusts (as fuel is lower than recommended rating)
98RON Fuel - ECU already set for 95RON - Does the ECU adjust again for the higher rating for which the engine was designed? I assume this is the case?

Cheers,

DC

Anan1

dcGT wrote: »

98RON Fuel - ECU already set for 95RON - Does the ECU adjust again for the higher rating for which the engine was designed? I assume this is the case?

Cheers,

DC

Yes. The engine always tries to adjust up to the rating for which it was designed, ie a 95 engine will try to adjust up to 95 and a 98 engine will try to adjust up to 98.

MarkN

Hard enough to tell how this changed my car because I only did about 4kms since filling up but when I opened the tank flap it also said it could be run on 91 unleaded - that must be fun :eek:

Mayshine

The S2000 likes it - Its mapped for 98 so it should - Its taken a couple of fills but the difference is mostly in engine smoothness and a little more pull from 6k-9k

I'll be sticking with it for sure

whippet

The GTi is due a fill tonight .. might pop a tank of E5 in to it and see how it goes .. as far as I know it is set for 98ron.

JHMEG

As I said earlier in response to colm's post, there is no such thing as a car being mapped for 98RON. Normal cars will have one map which is used for all octance ratings from the lowest (probably about 88) up to the highest (105 maybe) that the makers reckoned the car would encounter in normal life.

The knock sensor determines the grade of petrol and will alter ignition timing to suit. Higher octane suffers from less pre-ignition than the cheaper stuff so the ECU can set the timing more precisely, using different parts of the map. You may see more performance, you may not.

To say a car is mapped for 98 means it will not run well, if at all, on anything else.

Mayshine

fair enough about the maps, however why would their be a big sticker on the fuel flap saying 98 RON min. I presume its because the compression rationis high and it needs a more knock resistant grade of fuel

As far as I am aware there is a default ignition map that sets the timing based on the engine revs / load has the appropriate timing adjustments.

For most cars these are set optimal timings for 95 RON with the ECU retarding these timings when it senses knock.
For other cars, these timing are for 98 RON (mine for example). This is dependnent on different factors, e.g. comp ratio, boost etc.

When I drive mine on 95 the engine retards the timing to some degree from the value in the open loop map until the knock is reduced to an acceptable level

So surely there is only one map, albeit one that can be adjusted dynamically (downwards)

JHMEG

Yes, there is only one map, but several "routes" can be taken thru that map. Best analogy I can give. But that map will cover a lot of different grades.

A lot of high performance cars will say 98 as it's the best there is, and they will perform best on it, as will most cars. In the US the S2000 will say 95 as it's the best there is there.

To answer the OP's question, as far as I can see the only thing about E5 that *might* be a slight problem is that water will mix with alcohol, and it is possible atmospheric moisture would be absorbed in your fuel tank. This can be a serious problem with E85.

E92

What I meant(though it is clear some people didn't understand fully understand my explanation, so sorry about that) is that the ECU reprogrammes the engine management to compensate for using a fuel with a lower RON number than the recommended one.

This usually means a small reduction in power, often so small you couldn't tell e.g BMW 330i E46 on 98 RON produces 231 bhp, on 95 RON it produces 221 bhp.

If you use petrol with a higher RON number than the recommended one, it makes no difference whatsoever to the performance of the car. The ECU doesn't remap the engine if you use a petrol with a higher RON number than is necessary.

In other words, unless you own a highly tuned up car like say an S2000 with its 118.5 bhp per litre, which is a huge amount of bhp per litre, or a car with direct injection like all the new BMWs, it will make practicaly no difference to the performance of the car using 95 RON on a car designed for 98 RON.

Basically unless you have a high performance and/or direct injection car, designed for 98 RON or not, buying Super Unleaded or 98 RON fuel is throwing money down the toilet.

And if you use a fuel with a higher RON than the recommended one the ECU doesn't reprogramme the engine for that fractiobnal increase in power, so you really don't need 98 RON in a car designed for 95 RON.

colm_mcm

So if my car is set up for 100RON and I'm using 95, this means I'm down in power doesn't it.
So by using higher octane fuel I'm getting more power than I would on 95?

E92

Well to quote myself::D

E92 wrote:

unless you own a highly tuned up car like say an S2000 with its 118.5 bhp per litre, which is a huge amount of bhp per litre, or a car with direct injection like all the new BMWs, it will make practicaly no difference to the performance of the car using 95 RON on a car designed for 98 RON.

Basically unless you have a high performance and/or direct injection car, designed for 98 RON or not, buying Super Unleaded or 98 RON fuel is throwing money down the toilet.

And yes the higher the recommended RON is, then obviously using 95 will have more of an effect on performance, but the point I was trying to make is that in the vast majority of cars the difference in power is so small that there will be little if any difference.

colm_mcm

I wonder how much extra oomph it will give, time will tell !

Tanabe

colm_mcm wrote: »

I wonder how much extra oomph it will give, time will tell !

What JDM coupe are you drivin'?

FTO okay, keep using the E5 & let us know if you feel any difference;)

E92

colm_mcm wrote: »

I wonder how much extra oomph it will give, time will tell !

You should already know the answer if you have started using it!

I think it was JHMEG who correctly said that the engine management adjusts straight away.