E10 fuel compatibility

New South Wales will become the first state to outlaw regular unleaded petrol, leaving owners of cars using the 91-octane unleaded no choice but to use the E10 ethanol blend fuel.

The law in NSW already requires fuel companies to blend four per cent ethanol in the regular unleaded they produce, and that will rise to six per cent on January 1, 2011 before going to 10 per cent on July 1 next year.

While New South Wales is leading the charge to cleaner, greener ethanol blend fuel it is expected other states will follow suit.

Queensland has indicated it plans to move to an E10 blend next January, but is yet to finalize the required legislation for the move. The Victorian government, meanwhile, has said it is planning a similar switch, but has not yet indicated when it might do so.

At this point in time NSW is only replacing regular unleaded petrol with E10, a blend of 10 per cent ethanol with 90 per cent unleaded petrol, leaving owners the option of running their cars on the more expensive Premium unleaded or the even higher priced 98-octane unleaded fuels currently available.

If the timing of the switch is still uncertain in some states, one thing that is clear is that motorists are facing an ethanol-powered future and the effect on some of the cars they're now driving, particularly the older ones, is still to be determined.

The move to use ethanol in petrol is being driven by a need to cut our greenhouse gas emissions, but it also has the important effect of reducing our dependence on fossil fuels, which are said to be running out.

Along the way the shift will also help Australia's balance of trade, given that more than half of the oil and gas we use is imported and adds some $17 billion to our trade deficit with predictions that it could go as high as $30 billion by 2020.

Unlike oil ethanol is a renewable fuel, currently made locally from waste products such as sugar cane, waste from starch production, red sorghum, with other feedstocks being developed for future use.

While all that is laudable it doesn't answer the very real questions motorists have about the effect of ethanol on their cars. For starters ethanol has a higher octane rating than regular unleaded, generally running at 94-95 octane against the 91 of the outgoing regular unleaded.

As a result owners may notice an improvement in the performance of their cars when using E10, but they might also see a slight increase in fuel consumption, by one to three per cent, according to the Biofuels Association of Australia. But that is more than compensated for by the lower price of E10 at the pump.

But the current fears of owners are being fed by past reports of cars having had issues with corrosion and damage to rubber seals and gaskets when run on ethanol. The corrosion concern has been addressed by the requirement to add a corrosion inhibitor to the ethanol, leaving open the question of the effect on seals in the fuel system.

BP has come out and said that cars manufactured after 1986 and using regular unleaded can switch to its E10 fuel without a problem. The oil company says that it has sold more than 100 million litres of E10 in Australia since 2000 and has not had a single complaint. So confident is it that BP backs its claim that E10 will not cause any problems with a guarantee. Other oil companies are expected to make similar claims about their own fuels, and are expected to have their own guarantees to ease the fears of motorists.

While BP says that cars made after 1986 will be fine on E10 owners should consult the FCAI website, which has a comprehensive guide to E10 compatibility of most cars on the road.

Virtually all cars sold in Australia in the past two years or so won't have any problems running on E10, so too will the majority of cars built after 1986. But cars built before 1986, and that covers the vast fleet of classics on the road, are best not run on ethanol. They are the ones most likely to suffer problems with rubber seals and gaskets.

The best option for owners of those cars in the medium term is to run Premium unleaded of the higher 98-octane unleaded and use an additive for valve protection.