Winter Blend Gas

We haven't switched here "yet" but I know it's coming soon. It's usually mid to late October for us.

 

Keep in mind, it's been a lot colder in the mornings the last week or two. I notice my engine running much longer on a cold start than it did three weeks ago.

 

Yeah I am not looking forward to the winter gas myself, and sorry your state already switched over... This is part of the reason we got rid of the truck for a PHEV so we could avoid running the Prius hard all winter. At least you are still getting close to 50mpg though. I am curious to see how far it drops in full blown winter though. This will be our first full winter with our Prius (we bought it at the tail end of last winter), so we have not seen cold weather ops with it. I have read the horror stories of 35-38mpg though on winter blend gas + the cold.

 

I don't even see mpg that low in MN. Being in FL, you'd have to drive some mighty short trips to cause that.

Here's my experience last winter:



.

 

Well here in Jax my daily drive 1 way is 11.2 miles give or take... When we move to Virginia at the end of the month my drive is going to go to 5 miles 1 way with a lot of sitting in traffic. I personally have never seen mileage lower than 48mpg, but having read other peoples threads I try to prepare for worst case scenario. Plus our average trips to the store (Wal-Mart, Target & such) are barely 1.5 miles away. I also like to give people practical numbers as I know not everyone sweats the MPG's like some of us. Certaintly looks like it has quite a dip between Dec-Feb. Will guess due both to initial car warm up and heater usage? I should probably start a log like that for our car.

 

The short trips will lower the Prius MPGs because the Prius needs to run atleast 20 minutes per trip to mitigate the cost of warming up the ICE and catalytic converter. Blocking the lower air intake of the 2010 Prius will help lower this warm up cost for short trips and urban stop-and-go traffic congested roads. You should not block the lower air intakes for superhighway driving (>55 mph for >30 minutes) If you'd rather not sweat the MPGs - your best bet for reasonable MPGs is to set the "ECO" mode on and just drive the Prius like anyother car - the Prius onboard computer will then make the decisions for you. If you haven't already - you can also get better MPG if you use a Jax service station that sells pure gasoline - you can goto the following link to find one near you - pure gas has more energy per gallon.

Ethanol-free gas stations in FL

 

Interesting question, is that MPG loss due to gaso composition, or cold weather? Gaso composition, the main difference I guess is higher vapor pressure, EPA allows more butanes in there? The old rule-of-thumb is that all gasolines are the same, so if this minor change makes a big MPG difference, the old rule would be proven false (exclusive of ethanol MPG debit).

 

Car Compulsive, I am in SE Michigan and have not seen a drop in MPG's yet. My current tank is at 56 MPG over 400 miles into the tank, and for my driving routes, this is even a bit on the high side. Tires at 42/40, though I am going to drop them 2 psi this month due to the increasingly harsh ride on our poor roads.

 

Here is some info from FuelEconomy.gov

I do not think it helps answer too much, because: (1) not sure the 1.7% less energy number (winter fuel) is up-to-date and/or includes variations in ethanol; and (2) not aware that there is a good correlation between fuel energy content and MPG.

Lots of other factors - colder/viscous lube oil cited as 3 MPG debit in winter in one post on another site.

 

Are there ethanol free gas stations in mass?
c

 

How can you tell that the winter blend gas has arrived?
Thanks.

 

The only thing you can easily determine is legally what date the gasoline stations in your area are allowed to switch over to the less restrictive winter blend. However, they may still have summer blend in storage and will use summer blend until it is used up. Maybe ask the station manager. Got this info from reading other posts.

 

Both the databases from pure-gas.org and from buyrealgas.com
suggest there are no ethanol-free gas stations in the state
of Massachusetts.

 

Also, when the EPA does the MPG fuel test it does NOT use 10% Ethanol gasoline.

Why????

Here in Oregon I have absolutely no choice as 10 % Ethanol gasoline is required all year long in Oregon.

The EPA should use 10% Ethanol gas when conducting their test as
they seem to always tell us how GREAT Ethanol is.

Another point; 10 % Ethanol gas is more likely to give you at least a 5-7 % less mpg's than regular gas, maybe more.

Ethanol for fuel, from a standpoint of common sense, is useless, when it takes 2 gallons of diesel fuel, 250,000 BTU of energy, to make 65,000 BTU's 1 gallon of Ethanol.

Only our government can see the sense in that....

alfon

 

Gasoline without Ethanol is available in Oregon, you just have to know where to find it.

http://www.boatoregon.com/OSMB/news/E10.shtml

http://pure-gas.org/index.jsp?stateprov=OR

Here's more info regarding the lifting of the ethanol blend requirement for gasoline above 91 octane.

http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/argus/index.ssf?/base/editorial/1271445675256810.xml&coll=6

http://www.oregon.gov/ODA/MSD/renewable_fuel_standard.shtml

and some additional interesting info:

http://e0pc.com/newreality.php

Demand for Gasoline at a 10 year low:

http://green.autoblog.com/2011/09/27/u-s-gasoline-demand-hits-10-year-august-low/

 

Fortunately we don't have to deal with the "blend" up here however "comma", once the studded snows go on and the temps dip to 30 and below I drop from 51 to 41-43. Ouch and that is with a 30 mile commute.