I needed gas today and stopped at a Marathon station because it was on my right and I noticed it had a different hose for each grade. I figured, lemme give it a try. Well the pump said that the gas can contain 1 to 10% ethanol. I have never noticed this info before at my local Texaco station. But I filled up with the 93 octane anyway. I'm not sure if it was psychological or not but my bike ran a little weaker...

My question is... does all gas today contain ethanol? Is is bad for the Harley engine?

 

ok to fill with gas up to 10% ethanol... all the shell stations I fuel at(as well as hess) say the same thing...

 

In the Houston, Sugar Land and surrounding areas, all gas pumps have the stickers containing up to 10% ethanol...

 

Just about all gas stations have the 10% ethanol. I run shell 93 and have never had any problems. There is a Gulf station nearby that advertises no ethanol but I never stopped and filled up to see if there was a difference. I usually try and run the same brand of gas.

 

I think there is a difference. I had to buy oxygenated fuel (10% ethanol) at one of those cheapie places because I had no choice. I prefer some name brand gas but on that tank I had no power and got crappy mileage. Plus, you can only get 91 octane max in Arizona....unless you find some special place. I stopped at a Love's once that had 100 and 110 (but the 110 was leaded)

 

With the price of crude oil falling with our economy, ethanol has become more expensive than gasoline. Many of the stations that have been adding ethanol to their gas have stopped doing so because of the added cost, even with the $0.05 kickback each station owner gets for each gallon of ethanol he buys.

 

For me any name brand premium fuel works great in my bob with the exception of Arco/ AMPM mini mart. I got fuel so bad one time from them that I drained my tank and re-filled it. Never been there since.

 

I have discussed this topic on many other fourms and have posted my personal findings.

I live in Oregon and the state did NOT have ethanol in the gas up until about 6 months ago, when they passed a law to mandate at least 10% in the gasoline.

Now before I go on, let me explain that I travel a lot, especially between Oregon and California. There is a HUGE difference is fuel mileage between gas in the two states. When I would fill up with gas in CA, my mileage would instantly drop about 15% and this is no exaggeration. And to back up my findings, as soon as Oregon started putting ethanol in the gas, my mileage with Oregon gas has dropped.

A little more.... I also have a BMW 540i and it took about 3 tank fulls to gas for the computer to adjust to the ethanol when Oregon changed the gas. The car ran like crap along with about a 15% decrese in mileage.

Problem is, now most states have laws or regulations that require some ethanol in the gas so there isn't much we can do about it. Once the computer adjusts (if you have been running gas with NO ethanol) it will run normal again but will NOT regain mileage.

There are many online articles about ethanol and all of them I have read say ethanol will reduce mileage.

The "experts" say 10% ethanol will NOT harm the engine

Sorry to make this so long but just a little more info I have gathered. Last year I took a 4500 miles road trip thru Oregon, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming and Colorado. I was in a Scion XD car which averages about 34 mpg with the ethanol gas in Oregon. I ran several tanks full of gas while traveling thru Wyoming and averaged 40mpg but the gas in Wyoming did not have ethanol. That's a huge difference in mileage. I could also tell better performance but that's easy to see in a car with such a tiny motor.

Hope this info helps. You really can't worry too much about the gas, just make sure you run premium. We do a lot of long trips on the bikes and you can't always be picky on which brand of gas you want.

 

I read recently where the feds want to up the ethanol to 20%, then what do the bike mfgs. do? As previously mentioned expect you fuel mileage to drop.

 

It takes 1.5 gallon of ethanol to equal the energy in 1 gallon of gas. So gas with 10% ethanol will give you a little less mileage.