Hovering around 3.95 here in Ohio. Glad they finally got rid of all that cheepo $2-3/gal sheet. Now gas is just like another trusty BMW OEM part.
$4.25 for 93 grade here in Pennsylvania.
Ya,generic gas sucks but since it all arrives by the same pipeline maybe NOT ?
Still unable to figure out when they mix the 10% alcohol how it stays mixed ?
NO giant stirrers in the farm tanks or station tanks ? Sinks to bottom correct ?
This was drained out of my snowthrower after a summer of storage. The gasoline layer (which is dark green because of the dye in the 2-stroke oil) is on top. The cloudy bottom layer is the water and alcohol. It's also in the carb, filter and lines. And no, it doesn't burn.
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Used to be, that when I encountered gasoline contaminated with water, we added a little alcohol, usually in the form of methanol or isopropanol—products labeled as gas-line dryer like HEET or Pyroil. The water wouldn’t mix with the gas, but would dissolve in the alcohol, which in turn went into solution in the gas. The small percentage of water would simply flash into steam inside the combustion chamber, your engine ran fine. Major amounts of water could be siphoned off or drained carefully, because it formed a clear-cut layer on the bottom of the container. Straining through a chamois or a very fine screen was a good way to remove water, too. Or at least it used to be that way…
Similarly, when that water condenses in your fuel tank filled with ethanol-added gasoline (E10), it goes into solution in the ethanol, no problem. At least until it reaches a certain concentration, at around a half a percent water, although the exact number varies widely with temperature. Lower temperature = less water in solution before phase separation. When the amount of water the alcohol can absorb reaches its max, either because more water is entering the tank, or the temperature drops, the water–which is denser than the gas–drops out . And it takes all the alcohol with it. The resultant layer is 10% or so of the amount of gas in the tank. This cloudy, bilious looking glop is incombustible, which is why you’re all red in the face, have blisters on your thumb and an ether headache like a paint-huffing teenager.
It’s worse. The gasoline above the water/alcohol glop has much lower octane than it used to, because the petroleum company has blended the lowest octane gasoline it could, and boosted the octane rating back to the 87 you paid for up with 113-octane ethanol. Your engine won’t run on the separated phase, which is lingering on the bottom of the tank, right where the pickup is. It’ll start (with difficulty) and run on the gas above it, but the octane will be lowered, perhaps far too low for your engine.
Is there any way to salvage this mess? You could siphon off or drain the separated phase alcohol/water, but you stand the possibility of damage from lowered octane. How about adding more alcohol? Might work, but you don’t really know how much water is down there—it might take a lot of alcohol, which is how you got into this mess in the first place. Warming up the tank by bringing the power tool or vehicle into a heated garage might work, if it’s warm enough, and the amount of water is low enough, and you can agitate the fuel enough to get it to remix. Just pick up that Subaru and do the boogaloo for a half-hour. That might actually work, at least until you actually need to use it out of doors where it’s cold.
Best thing to do with small quantities of gas is to dispose of it, and that doesn’t mean killing weeds back on the fence line. Check with your local sanitation department or even the fire department for instructions on what’s a legal way of disposing of a couple of gallons of contaminated gasoline.
Got a big truck or boat with more gas on board than you can afford to scrap? There are additives that claim to emulsify the water/alcohol phase back into the main fraction in the tank, where it will pass harmlessly through the engine. In theory, that might work. Because I have no experience with any of these products, I can’t endorse them. You’ll need some way to disperse and agitate them in the tank. Best bet is to contact a company that specializes in fuel tank cleaning and fuel polishing. They’ve been doing a lot of good business since alcohol became widely used.
There are other products that claim to be able to prevent phase separation. Unhh-hunh. Just be aware that conventional fuel injection cleaner, based on petroleum solvents, really can’t help much.
Preventing phase separation:
There’s precious little you can do to prevent buying fuel that’s already contaminated with water. It’s not uncommon for underground storage tanks to have several inches of water on the bottom, which is why the standpipe inside them is usually raised 5-6 inches. At home, get rid of the old gas can with a rag for a stopper and get a new one with a properly-fitting cap. Go small, to keep the gas fresh, and store it someplace cool and dry, not in a steamy shed where condensation can creep in. Before dispensing any gas, shake thoroughly and pour a few ounces into a glass container. If it’s cloudy or shows visible droplets, you’ve got phase separation. Fuel stabilizer won’t help with water, but it’s always a good idea to keep fuel from gumming and deteriorating. Drain the tank of all your outdoor power equipment if you’re not going to use it within a few weeks.
