Killer Ethanol Continues To Confuse German Car Owners

Bertel Schmitt
by Bertel Schmitt

Germany is in an uproar against ethanol. Last week, motorists celebrated a win against alcohol in their gasoline: Oil companies stopped the build-out of E10 gas stations. The matter still fuels the headlines. Over the weekend, German’s Die Welt newspaper shocked its readers with the news that the bio-benzene can ruin engines which supposedly are ok for the fuel.

“E10 is under suspicion to stress the engine oil harder than conventional fuel. This causes minimized viscosity and increased engine wear,” writes the paper. Supposedly, the stuff literally waters down the oil. Die Welt quotes Thomas Brüner of BMW who said: “The 10 percent ethanol increase the water in the engine. The water condenses and mixes with the oil. The oil gets diluted and ages faster.”

Ever since these news hit, you see more and more motorists checking their oil. Not for a lack of level, but for an increase. If the level rises, it’s caused by the ethanol water. At the same time, the level of confusion is on the rise, and E10 sits unsold in full tanks.

Sunday evening. BMW sent out a press release in which the Munich car company “supports the introduction of E10 in Germany. The statements of Mr. Brüner do not refer to countries with a fuel quality as in the EU, they referred to countries with a lesser quality of fuel. Some older BMW vehicles require the anti-knock properties of Super Plus ROZ 98.”

Maybe you want to keep an eye on that dipstick.

PS: BMW today issued a flurry of press releases on this topic. In its third sixth missive (so far) (I get them in German and English, English version follows) BMW “would like to make the following clear:

  1. The condensation effect is a side effect of the normal combustion process – independently of the use of E10 – and therefore does not pose a problem.
  2. The oil-change intervals defined by BMW are not affected and therefore remain unchanged.
  3. The report’s falsely claimed link between the use of E10 fuel and “more rapid engine wear” does not exist.”
Bertel Schmitt
Bertel Schmitt

Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.

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  • Geozinger Geozinger on Mar 07, 2011

    Only 10% of the corn crop in the US is sweet corn. The rest is feed corn, which is for animals and ethanol production. Once distilled, the remainder of the corn can be used as feed. How often that happens, I don't know. Since 1986 in the US, cars have been required to be able to handle alcohol fuels, meaning the fuel system should be made of materials that will not degrade in the presence of alcohol. Additionally, a number of older carburetors usually have the option to get alcohol resistant parts, in the event a conversion is needed. Growing up in the midwest, the fastest race cars were on methanol, and they used off-the-shelf Holleys that were converted to methanol. They usually had viton needles, different floats, used larger jets than gasoline carburetors. I think the reason why we use anhydrous alcohol in the US is since alcohol is hygroscopic and gets water from the air, already having water in the alcohol lowers the efficiency of the blended fuel. I've seen studies (from Minnesota) claiming that E30 is actually a better fuel than E10, that the mileage doesn't get any worse, but the amount of gasoline is less, naturally. A few years ago, Volvo and SAAB were both touting their E85 cars in Sweden, which were specifically set up to run on the fuel, with higher compression engines and retarded timing maps. Anytime a motor runs on both gasoline and ethanol, it will be set up to run on gasoline first, and ethanol second, which seems to ruin any benefit from using ethanol in the first place. Ideally, I'd like to see bio-butanol, as a replacement for both gasoline and ethanol. It has the long carbon chains like gasoline, but burns clean like alcohol. I know a company called Coskata was working with GM to increase methods of ethanol production, it's a shame they weren't working on butanol instead. They developed an anaerobic microbe that would emit ethanol from feedstocks that could be any kind of starchy substance. But, with genetic engineering methods, they may be able to. I don't know what the reasoning was to concentrate on ethanol. I think the larger threat to the worlds corn production is the unstemmed proliferation of genetically modified strains that have gotten out into the 'wild'. We really don't know what will happen in the future with corn. Here's hoping we can take our garbage out of the landfills and recycle it back into light crude.

  • Jerome10 Jerome10 on Mar 08, 2011

    I just can't understand why we use fuel that 1) adds cost to the gallon of gas 2) decreases mileage 3) is subsidized heavily by the government and 4) could damage engines. The Germans might be doing the typical German risk-averse thing with this stuff, but at the end of the day, if it works in getting rid of ethanol gas, then I'm all for trying it over here :)

  • MaintenanceCosts It's not a Benz or a Jag / it's a 5-0 with a rag /And I don't wanna brag / but I could never be stag
  • 3-On-The-Tree Son has a 2016 Mustang GT 5.0 and I have a 2009 C6 Corvette LS3 6spd. And on paper they are pretty close.
  • 3-On-The-Tree Same as the Land Cruiser, emissions. I have a 1985 FJ60 Land Cruiser and it’s a beast off-roading.
  • CanadaCraig I would like for this anniversary special to be a bare-bones Plain-Jane model offered in Dynasty Green and Vintage Burgundy.
  • ToolGuy Ford is good at drifting all right... 😉
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