E15 vs E10 Gas Mileage (No More E15 for me)

I may need my head examined for this but I filled my 2017 Tacoma 2.7L/5MT truck with E15 (aka Unleaded 88) today. Gonna check it in this tank and see if it's worth the cost difference vs E10.

Here's how this worked out. My tank of E10 got me 398.6 miles for 18.646 gallons for 21.37 MPG at a cost of $70.84.

The E15 cost $68.05, a price difference of $2.79 for the tank. I'll update this to see if it's worth the $.15/gal price difference.

My driving is spirited, 30 miles/day curvy hilly roads from 35-65mph. I can get mileage up to 24mpg if I drive slow but I like to rev this up and shift to have fun when I'm driving. I admit I drive too fast but it's fun to be bad and do bad things.

 

I paid $4.29 for 87 octane 10% today, envy your prices.

 

At least in the Gen2 6cyl nothing above 10% ethanol is recommended. Personally I'd stay away from ethanol. Fyi- my 2014 had 185k miles and no issues.

 

My last tank was actually $3.46/gal for E10 in a neighboring town. All they had was E10 and non-ethanol 87 octane. I think the non-eth was$3.76/gal.

I run non-ethanol in all of my small engines. I did run a tank full of non-ethanol thru this truck and the cost vs MPG was not worth it. I figured I'd go the other way to see what happened. I was surprised when I did the math and a tank full was only $2.79 cheaper with the $.15/gal price difference.

 

So I'm keeping a close eye on this. My best mileage out of this truck has been 24mpg. I drove it like an egg was under the gas pedal when I got that. For 24mpg the first 1/4 tank gets 150 miles then 100 miles for the next 2, then 150 miles for the last 1/4.

This tank is on track to get 24mpg unless it goes sideways somewhere. I'm driving my normal style--not grandma 24mpg style. I'm baffled at this so far.

 

I see what you did there OP
I believe you might have borrowed that last line from ya’ boy?

https://youtu.be/qcqOgnQyXp4

 

Holy crap! I didn't think anyone would ever get my reference.

 

00:47 -- Psychopath at 7...

 

I just hit the last 1/4 tank mark with 324 miles. It's figuring out to 22mpg at this point. I'm usually filling at the 400-420 mile mark so a little while on the whole tank mileage.

 

It might be worth clarifying before the girl scouts jump in that you are not buying the e85 in the picture because the pumps are purposely marked to confuse for marketing purposes. People get confused with e15 and e85 because of the math. e15 is up to 15% ethanol and e85 is up to 85% ethanol. The key to both the e10 and e15 is the 'up to' part. You could potentially get more ethanol in e10 than e15. What I love with e15 is that it really confuses the octane junkies that think that more octane = better mileage. e15 kind of throws a wrench into that theory. You might find yourself with no video games for a whole weekend if you don't pay attention at the pump.

 

I'd just go with one of the etoh free ones and call it a day.

 

I did a tank of 87 octane non-ethanol unleaded awhile back and the increased mileage wasn't worth the increased cost. Checking this to see if it goes the other way. So far it is similar to E10 but I also agree that it is impossible to tell how much alcohol is in the gas. It could explain the same mileage as E10.

 

I added that to the OP. Good call.

 

"I wanted to do hoodrat stuff with my friend."

 

It's less about cost to me and more about the waste of water to produce etoh for gas. Simply put, I don't like the concept of putting food into gas. If you want to continue to subsidize corn farmers, fine, but the corn produced should be made into food and transported to countries where people are starving.

 

But how will us race car guys get alcohol race fuel at the pump?

 

I don't know about refining methanol, but try building some sort of still, and growing your own veggies needed to brew that stuff.

 

I'll just keep paying $2.89g at the pump for my alcohol until it's not available.

 

at those prices, I'd be putting in that non-e gas every time... I get 1.5-2mpg more on non-e, plus it just feels better (might be a placebo effect, but )

 

Definitely placebo. Alcohol has higher octane.