ETHANOL in fuel – Our right to use 'Yesterday's Vehicles on Tomorrow's Roads.

What a mess that was – here is V2 which I sincerely hope will be clearer ….

The following message from FHBVC offers owners of classic vehicles an opportunity to help “Preserve our right to use ‘Yesterday’s Vehicles on Tomorrow’s Roads” by taking part in a survey which I believe can be completed in about 5 minutes.  Please spare the time (the deadline is 31st August).

Help the Federation respond to Government consultation on the introduction of increased levels of ethanol in petrol.

Dear Enthusiast,
The Department of Transport has issued a consultation document on the subject of introducing higher levels of ethanol in petrol.

Many older vehicles are likely to suffer damage and possibly dangerous fuel leaks if the E10 grade of petrol is used without modification to their fuel systems.

For the purposes of this consultation the Government is focussing on vehicles more than 25 years old.

Whilst wishing to introduce the higher ethanol level E10 grade of fuel, the Government are guaranteeing a ‘protection grade’ of petrol at the E5 grade that is equivalent to the currently available 95 RON petrol.  However this guarantee will only last until 2020 when further consultation will take place.

It is likely that on the introduction of E10 at the 95 RON level, the currently available ‘Super’ grades with an octane level of 97 RON or higher, will cease to be available.

The Federation has designed a survey on petrol useage in older vehicles which will provide valuable evidence in the consultation response.

Please complete the survey and help the Federation preserve our right to use ‘Yesterday’s Vehicles on Tomorrow’s Roads’.

The survey can be accessed by clicking this link :

If you wish to read the consultation document it can be found by following this link Department for Transport consultation :

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/e10-petrol-consumer-protection-and-fuel-pump-labelling

Please encourage your friends and fellow enthusiasts to complete the survey, just forward this email and they will be able to follow the survey link. The survey will close on 31 August 2018 in order to collate the results for the Federation’s response to the consultation. A copy of the response will be made available on the Federation’s website.

Thank you for supporting the Federation of British Historic Vehicle Clubs and helping to keep historic vehicles on the road.

Paul Chasney
Director – Research

David,

Many thanks – that is weird because both links work on my desktop.

However, between my first and second postings the “introduction” seems to have got lost.   I initially said:

“The following message from FHBVC offers owners of classic vehicles an opportunity to help “Preserve our right to use ‘Yesterday’s Vehicles on Tomorrow’s Roads” by taking part in a survey which can be completed in about 5 minutes.  Please Spare the time – the deadline is 31st August.”

B…………….

Folks,

A couple of years ago my local (all makes) car club invited a speaker from one of the companies marketing ethanol removal kits.  The talk was interesting and fairly convincing and one kit was purchased for trial purposes.

Although it worked well enough, the process entailed multiple decanting operations – not the safest way to handle petrol at home.  Water had to be added to the petrol and then thoroughly mixed to enable the water to absorb the ethanol.  The mixture was then left to stand in a special container until the petrol and water seperated at which point the water, with the ethanol in solution, could be drawn off via a tap in the container leaving ethanol-free petrol.

The process meant only a couple of gallons could practically be treated at a time and to produce a “tankfull” would certainly be a long and potentially hazardous process.  In addition, this was not a process that could be carried out just anywhere and it was clearly going to be necessary to revert to fuel containing ethanol once the tank required filling on a long trip.

The conclusion was that the kit did what it was supposed to do but, in practice, it was probably really only suited to low mileage, low consumption, vehicles that rarely ventured beyond the capacity of one full tank of fuel.

B….

25 litres of petrol will weigh almost 20 kg.  I would not want to be manhandling that to pour it between containers, no matter how safely I thought I could do it.

B…