I will probably go to France and i know that you can find there 100% Ethanol for less than 0.70e instead of 1.9e for the classic petrol. Can i use it without damaging the engine? does it safe without a specific equipment?

Thank you

Hi Michel,
as you may have seen through some of my posts, I'm French, living in France (and I got the only ever imported Vellfire here \o/ ) .

 

Short answer : 

It could damage your engine because you need to inject 30% more fuel when running on E85 than SP95 or 98, and your injectors will probably not be able to achieve this, then you'll get a check engine light with "System too lean" error. So you NEED a kit if you want to run 100% E85, don't do it without.

 

Long answer :
So first of all, we don't have any 100% Ethanol (E100), we have E85, which means this fuel CAN contain up to  85% of ethanol (in summer), and a minimum of 65% of ethanol (in winter).

Because of this, you need at least injectors 30% bigger than stock ones (for example, I used to drive my Lexus IS300 (2JZ-GE) with Supra's injectors without any kit with 100% E85, and it runs great.
On stock injectors, in the best case, you can put a kit with an Ethanol sensor that will adapt the injection timing to the current percentage of ethanol.

Last but not least, since fuel prices are going straight up, you can't find 0.70€/liter E85 anymore.

You'll find it at 1.1/1.2€ per liter now.

 

I hope it has been helpful
 

Hi. Just reading this post above, on fuel types. Interested as I hope to be going to France later this year. I have a 3 lit 2006 Alphard. All of the above was over my head. My question is, would I be able to buy the same fuel in France as I can hear in the UK. I mostly use the 95 octane fuel. Many thanks in advance.

On 5/1/2023 at 11:56 AM, AlfAlphard said:

Hi. Just reading this post above, on fuel types. Interested as I hope to be going to France later this year. I have a 3 lit 2006 Alphard. All of the above was over my head. My question is, would I be able to buy the same fuel in France as I can hear in the UK. I mostly use the 95 octane fuel. Many thanks in advance.

Hi,

sorry for the late answer, I didn't got notifications about your post !

 

So to answer to you, you'll find everywhere SP95-E10 (so this is usual 95 octane fuel with 10% Ethanol in).

You COULD be able to find some rare stations with SP95-E5, which is usually called "SP95" (without the E5 specified), but it's very hard now, there's only few of them.

But your 3L should run smoothly with some SP95-E10. If you are afraid, you can go SP98, it's a bit more expensive but it's better than SP95-E10 for the engine.

Many thanks for your help. Will probably save me some embarrassment at the pumps. Hopefully going later in the year.

Small update :

E85 price is slowly going down, we are able to find it now for less than 1€/liter.