General E10, E5 Fuel. what do you use and for how long?

[Dragon Man]

in regards to "E10 will kill the fuel system of old cars" i have decided to make this nice poll. this is just for general interest.

I drive Talon a 4x4 Panda which uses Cork, paper and rubber seals. so far in the daily commute over the years i have been using Talon, i usually fill with E10.
besides some cheap nasty Ebay fuel lines, i have not noticed any damage to the fuel system what so ever.
i have even ran Talon on solvent degreaser before!

so, the question arises. what do you use for fuel in your panda? feel free to go into detail!
if E10, how long have you been running E10? have you ever had to replace any parts of the fuel system maybe because it has attacked a seal or caused a pipe to fail?
are you worried about even the (up to) 5% ethanol causing problems in E5 fuel?

lets hear what you have to say.

 

[tobywood13]

E5 since I bought my Panda in November ‘24. It had been off the road since 2009, so I assumed the fuel system would likely be dry and perished from lack of use. I didn’t want to tempt fate by using E10. The seal at the fuel level sender is completely gone, I noticed this in December when a huge amount of fuel poured out of bottom of the car after brimming the tank. No idea if this is because the car was sitting for so long, or if it’s a result of fuel degradation.

In my other ‘classic’ cars (1990 MX5, 1995 Jag XJ6, 1999 Peugeot 406) I have used E10 extensively without noticing any issues.

I’m sure it does make a difference as E10 can contain up to twice as much ethanol as E5, but it must take a very long time for any fuel components to perish. The E10 designation does not guarantee a higher ethanol level. It’s an upper limit, which the fuel producer can’t exceed. However, they don’t have to meet it either. Same for E5. So some batches of E10 may only contain 5% ethanol, for example, some may contain 10%, some maybe 1%. All depends on how the fuel was made. I assume the fuel producers have an overall quota of ethanol/carbon emissions they have to meet, so if they’re well clear of their limits they can reduce the amount of ethanol going in.

Presumably ethanol is more costly to them to include, other wise they’d always be at the 10% limit, so they must minimise their usage wherever possible to maximise profit.

All in all it’s a personal risk thing. The potential consequences are the loss of your car, and possibly life, to fire for the saving of a few pennies at the fuel pump. That’s why in my classics which I actually care about (Panda, Mazda, Jag) I use E5, but the workhorse £450 Peugeot 406 gets E10 as I wouldn’t care if it received a fiery Viking send off at the side of the road somewhere.

 

[The Panda Nut]

E5 since I bought my Panda in November ‘24. It had been off the road since 2009, so I assumed the fuel system would likely be dry and perished from lack of use. I didn’t want to tempt fate by using E10. The seal at the fuel level sender is completely gone, I noticed this in December when a huge amount of fuel poured out of bottom of the car after brimming the tank. No idea if this is because the car was sitting for so long, or if it’s a result of fuel degradation.

In my other ‘classic’ cars (1990 MX5, 1995 Jag XJ6, 1999 Peugeot 406) I have used E10 extensively without noticing any issues.

I’m sure it does make a difference as E10 can contain up to twice as much ethanol as E5, but it must take a very long time for any fuel components to perish. The E10 designation does not guarantee a higher ethanol level. It’s an upper limit, which the fuel producer can’t exceed. However, they don’t have to meet it either. Same for E5. So some batches of E10 may only contain 5% ethanol, for example, some may contain 10%, some maybe 1%. All depends on how the fuel was made. I assume the fuel producers have an overall quota of ethanol/carbon emissions they have to meet, so if they’re well clear of their limits they can reduce the amount of ethanol going in.

Presumably ethanol is more costly to them to include, other wise they’d always be at the 10% limit, so they must minimise their usage wherever possible to maximise profit.

All in all it’s a personal risk thing. The potential consequences are the loss of your car, and possibly life, to fire for the saving of a few pennies at the fuel pump. That’s why in my classics which I actually care about (Panda, Mazda, Jag) I use E5, but the workhorse £450 Peugeot 406 gets E10 as I wouldn’t care if it received a fiery Viking send off at the side of the road somewhere.

Thats generally the effect Stellantis / Peugeot has... LOL

 

[Blurredman]

I've been using E10 since it was mandated (actually I seem to recall a lot of petrol stations switched over to it early, or at least the labelling was switched early). I used to use it when abroad too as it was a lot cheaper than standard in Germany and esspecially in Ukraine and eastern european countries. I suppose as a way to entice patrons onto it (although most in Ukraine would be on 'GAZ'). And I did have problems occasionally with my cars running pretty rough for the tank load, running retarded sort of feeling. Not quite sure why, quality? ethanol content definitely 10%? octane low? I dunno but never occured in the UK so thus:

On all my cars and bikes. No problems with gunky carburettors, haven't noticed a performance difference, and thus far no problems with fuel lines including original factory items many decades old.

Infact I bought 1 litre of E5 before it stopped being sold, and 1 litre of E10 and kept them in glass jars for a whole year. Whilst the E5 had water at the bottom of the jar - The E10 had infact none at all. Of course I don't actually know what percentage the E10 had ethanol, as toby says. Could have been the same or even less than the E5.

Additionally, because of how many vehicles I have, I let them sit for a year, two years, maybe more with tons of fuel left in the tanks. They always start up fine still even on the advertised e10. With the motorbikes you could if there was water in the petrol easy see through into the tanks or easily drain them off to inspect but in the cars it's more difficult, however I have removed the petrol tanks from my cars from them time to time for various other work and found no water in them after draining the remaining fluid into cannisters (so I can actually lift back in the damn things).