The New Petrol (E10)

Aug 11, 2021 Last reply: 4 years ago 57 Replies

There's been (still is) a short but illuminating debate on E10 petrol in uk.rec.sheds but not, as far as I can see, here?



As someone who knows about almost nothing, is sceptical about almost everything, and who likes to see balanced discussions ... I'd love to see a debate here, given the wider, and often very informed, user-base of D-I-Y.



Cheers John



(Currently a diesel driver, but likely to move to petrol next.)


I am sceptical too that encouraging deforestation of poor countries to grow biofuels is a positive contribution to global warming.

Depends a bit on your views about AGW and the rest, I guess.

Like your current biodiesel, it is going to cost you more. It will run OK in modern cars. If you believe the alarmists it will knacker your lawnmower. Maybe you think the cost increase is acceptable.

My 50-YO 12 inch qualcast pushmower only needs some tea and couple of hobnobs

Especially when they take more energy to produce than they yield, and require vast quantities of water in places that are already suffering shortages.

People often forget that while solar panel efficiency may be crap, it's still *significantly* better than photosynthesis as a way of collecting solar energy.

I was told, when buying new lawnmower 3 months ago, that it was the carburettor that would suffer.

A replacement (plastic) carb for my Briggs and Stratton engined mower cost me under £10 earlier this year

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yes but you may have to buy a new one every time you want to use the Mower ;(

Small price to pay for being green with the added bonus that China can export more from their coal powered manufacturing plants. :)

As with all ecobollox, its an expensive virtue signalling and profitable solution that doesn't work, to a problem that doesn't exist.

Whoa! That?s a major assumption! Don?t see anything green about burning forests down to inefficiently produce a carbon containing flammable fuel.

Tim

Another John snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com wrote in news:lalaw44- snipped-for-privacy@201-92-171-81.dsl.telesp.net.br:

That may be because it has f'ck all to do with DIY (with the relevant threads relating to equipment compatibility excepted).

Alternatively you may wish to reinforce this group's descent in to an opined rant forum[1].

[1] as if it wasn't 70% there already

So what you are basically saying is the title is wrong... Go with "Is it ok to use the new E10 petrol in my B&S engined mower?" and we are mostly there (or at least a good deal closer than some of the other stuff here)

IIUC, "super" petrol is staying E5, and since that is what I use in my petrol tools, that saves having to worry about it.

(I use super since that is what they car wants, and I normally fill the can the same time I fill the car)

ISTR there was a fair amount of "off topic" stuff 20 years ago - but far more participants so it was a bit more varied and interesting! So the decent is gradual :-)

How exactly does it affect anyone here? I do feel however that the two stroke engines about on gardening gear are very polluting indeed. Surely something should, by now, have been done to make a cleaner engine for portable gear? Brian

You seem to have overlooked the punctuation at the end :-)

"Brian Gaff (Sofa)" snipped-for-privacy@blueyonder.co.uk> posted

Well I've got two petrol lawn-mowers, three 2-stroke garden tools and an outboard motor.

They're mostly used in rural areas, so a bit of smoke doesn't matter much.

People in towns usually use electric tools.

I'll jump in here, as a resident of Treznal, where E!0 has been around for while: I use E10 in a over-20-year engines: an lawnmower with a Tecumseh engine, and a four-stroke generator with a Briggs&Stratton engine. And I have used it for many years with no ill effect.

I do run the engine dry at the end of the season, fill a cupful of Aspen into the tank, run the engine for a few minutes to flush the carb, and then seal the gas filler cap with aluminum foil to reduce evaporation. I do this because a small engine repairman advised me he'd lose about 50% of his business if everyone did that...

Thomas Prufer

That's interesting - I hadn't heard of Aspen fuel, but it looks like a good way to winterize engines and prevent the jets from getting gummed-up. (OOI, where's Treznal? Google maps hasn't heard of it)

Lithium batteries are making cordless tools more viable for a lot of gardening jobs. It's interesting that, around here, some of the contract gardeners doing housing estate and "roads" maintenance have moved to strimmers powered by a back-pack of batteries, presumably giving "all day" output. For the big chainsaws used by loggers, I suspect that two stroke still gives better power to weight (and there will always be more energy in a can of petrol than in a bunch of batteries weighing the same).

I got a Wolf Garten push mower about five years ago, and I would never go back to a powered mower. This is much easier. Much more so than I was expecting.

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