e85 Savings, Nearly a wash...

NYSpeed Automotive
1

I’ve been playing around with buying e85 in my

2008 Grand Marquis Flex-Fuel

http://e85prices.com/milesperdollar.htm

Using this calculator shows a near wash in any savings with using e85 over regular gas in this car.

Using today’s prices (I just filled up in Lackawanna).

3.19 for E85
3.77 at my usual station

E85 MPG 17
Gas MPG 19

10k miles per year.

Cost per year, fueled with E85:
$1,876

Cost per year, fueled with gas:
$1,984

Savings on e85 $108 per year

Obviously this is calculating that every drop of fuel I put in the car is e85 for one year, which won’t happen because there are so few e85 stations throughout the country. Also this is not calculating price fluctuations in the market.

Also the e85 station in Lackawanna is 4 miles away from my usual gas station, and it is out of my way. So I lose 8 miles every time I fill the tank just driving to an alternative fuel station.

There is a station in Lockport that charges $3.39 or $3.49 per gallon for e85, that is really overpriced.

So with the current gas prices, it is not worth it for me to drive to Lackawanna to buy e85 fuel.

2

Its cheaper then race gas for performance applications :tup:

I’m curious to see what E85 does in price if regular gas keeps dropping.

3

Absolutely you are correct.

The price for e85 in Nebraska is $2.40 per gallon, and the price for e85 in Texas is $2.49 per gallon.

Moving to Texas (which I am doing), will save me $500 per year in fuel costs.

4

However its more of a wash there since regular gas is 2.75 or less currently lol

5

Yeah, I agree. e85 is probably not worth it anywhere in the country.

Nebraska just happens to have the biggest spread of gas versus e85 prices (over 15 percent).

Most of the country is under 15 percent spread.

6

Does not help us diesel guys.

7

Man, are Doritos expensive these days.

8

Yeah factor in how much more corn products cost and you are losing money. Lol

9

For some reason when I read this thread title I thought to myself, “E85 savings, oh, they’re really adding up the savings, now he’s almost at a free car wash”. Kinda like the points at Tops or reduced wash price with gas at Delta Sonic. I’m retarded.

10

The fact that we’re now burning a staple food crop for this country in our cars shows just how stupid we are and how powerful lobby groups are.

11

been playing around a little bit with E85 in my grand cherokee… and the results are terrible. the price difference is a bit more than 10% but the mileage drop off is huge…something like 19-20 on gas versus a solid 15 for E85. granted the very hilly terrain here in western PA makes it difficult to compare driving conditions from day to day but it is a noticeable drop off. i have never reset one of the fuel economy read outs on the dash in over 16k miles and it dropped from 19.4 to 15.2 in a single tank of E85. it was a tank of stop and go, hilly rush hour traffic but that is still a pretty big drop off.

12

Meh cheap race gas. It’s effectively 108-110 octane when it’s real summer blend e85.

13

yeah you get less mileage per gallon for e85. it really only makes sense in performance applications. the station in NT is 3.45/gallon for e85 opposed to 3.85 for 87

14

so basically E85 is awesome for turbo cars only.

15

Pretty much at the current price of E85 its not worth it for a daily driver.

However for performance applications in the summer its really cheap race gas

16

I was getting 14mpg on e85 and 24mpg 93, but that’s with a heavy foot and city driving.