# Curious why the gas mileage went up from 25 to 30 plus mpg on my OR1E(09 Corolla).



## ntcindetroit (Mar 23, 2017)

I was getting only about 25 mpg filling up my OR1E with E85 at various gas stations in metro Detroit.

First, It ran initially, then I noticed engine is lacking of power, then hesitation and knock or misfiring.

Went out of state and couldn't find E85 easily, so I started fuel it with regular, E10 and or E15. After a few tanks, I noticed my average gas mileage went from 25 mpg up to 31~32 mpg doing delivery. The Average went approaching 40 mpg on freeway driving.

The only thing I did is replacing the broken belt and water pump at 200,000 miles.

I hardly turn on the A/C and after 13 years, the a/c still works great these past couple months when I do the door dash around lunch hours.

Still curious why the gas mileage went back up from *25* to *30+ something* mpg.


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## Atavar (Aug 11, 2018)

Less ethanol = more mpg


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## Zachhiiee (Oct 24, 2021)

Because the higher the ethanol content, the lower the efficiency will be. Ethanol has a 33% lower power potency compared to fuel without Ethanol. Ethanol is only used to reduce emissions, and the type of emissions.


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## Atavar (Aug 11, 2018)

Wrong, ethanol is used to artificially prop up agricultural markets. There is no real world reason to use ethanol in a car. it reduces your gas mileage to the point that you are paying more $/mile even though you pay less $/gallon. It reduces the life of plastic and rubber parts in your engine. With huge carbon footprint for ethanol manufacture it is actually worse than pure gas. 
The only real reason for ethanol is to sell corn.


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## Donatello (6 mo ago)

You are crazy if you are ubering at base rates with anything less than a hybrid or an electric car.


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## PukersAreAlwaysYourFault (Mar 25, 2021)

Banana in the tailpipe.


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## Johnny Mnemonic (Sep 24, 2019)

PukersAreAlwaysYourFault said:


> Banana in the tailpipe.


Look, Man, I ain't fallin' for no banana in my tailpipe!


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## shoreview (5 mo ago)

Atavar said:


> Wrong, ethanol is used to artificially prop up agricultural markets. There is no real world reason to use ethanol in a car. it reduces your gas mileage to the point that you are paying more $/mile even though you pay less $/gallon. It reduces the life of plastic and rubber parts in your engine. With huge carbon footprint for ethanol manufacture it is actually worse than pure gas.
> The only real reason for ethanol is to sell corn.


Wrong -- if you want to stop engine knock in gasoline engines, you've two cheap, scalable options -- lead, or ethanol. Lead has been determined to be toxic at any level. Ethanol, which we originally used to control knock before chemical companies pushed lead on us in the 1920s, turns out to be particularly good at controlling knock in high horsepower and turbo-boosted engines. Case closed. Ethanol has become the norm.

Now, this is E-up-to-10 we're talking about. E85? Yes, that's a sop to sell corn. But think of it this way. Suppose we simply can't produce the batteries to sustain an all-EV fleet. What then? We don't have the infrastructure Europe has to switch everyone over to rail or streetcar, at least not any time soon. But for the roughly half to two-thirds of the population with access or the possibility of access to a plug at home and not dependent on public charging, plugin hybrids running on E85 would, in practice, produce very little net CO2 given how much of our driving is within commute range for a typical plugin-hybrid battery.


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## Uber's Guber (Oct 22, 2017)

I own a couple of those E85 vehicles, but I only run E10 (or even ethanol free when I can find it). E85 fuel burns like shit; your mileage suffers terribly and so will your engine. If I could find E85 for $1 a gallon I’d probably pump the shit into the tank. Until then, that corn-crap stays out. The only corn I’m interested in is that stuff they pop at the theater.


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## Heisenburger (Sep 19, 2016)

ntcindetroit said:


> Still curious why the gas mileage went back up from *25* to *30+ something* mpg.


Despite all the previous dialogue being solely focused on fuel mix, that kind of difference in MPG isn't fully explained by fuel composition/type. Other factors:

Weather (*average* ambient air temperature) variances between the high and the low MPG dates.
AC usage level (constant, frequent, occasional, never) variances between the high and the low MPG dates.
Driving condition (city vs highway percentages) variances between the high and the low MPG dates.


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## Boca Ratman (Jun 6, 2018)

ntcindetroit said:


> I was getting only about 25 mpg filling up my OR1E with E85 at various gas stations in metro Detroit.
> 
> First, It ran initially, then I noticed engine is lacking of power, then hesitation and knock or misfiring.
> 
> ...



Are you sure that car is made for e85?


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## Atavar (Aug 11, 2018)

shoreview said:


> Case closed. Ethanol has become the norm.


You forgot to mention how handy ethanol is for de-icing fuel lines and door locks. But it still reduces mpg and rots plastic and rubber parts.
If anyone wants to test the ethanol level it is easy. Just put some gas in a clear glass jar, preferably one with fine volume marks. Then fill the jar with water, shake it up and leave it overnight to settle.
‘The ethanol will mix with the water and pull out of the gas. The amount that the gas level goes down indicates how much ethanol was in the gas. This way you can verify the ethanol blend from the gas station.
There are real world reasons why you can’t run ethanol fuel blends in aircraft.
I get an extra 50 miles per tank from my motorcycle running E0 vs E10, and that’s just a six gallon tank. Of course that is a high compression high rpm engine which exacerbates the issues.


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## Boca Ratman (Jun 6, 2018)

Heisenburger said:


> Despite all the previous dialogue being solely focused on fuel mix, that kind of difference in MPG isn't fully explained by fuel composition/type. Other factors:
> 
> Weather (*average* ambient air temperature) variances between the high and the low MPG dates.
> AC usage level (constant, frequent, occasional, never) variances between the high and the low MPG dates.
> Driving condition (city vs highway percentages) variances between the high and the low MPG dates.


He addressed 2 of these. 

It's the fuel













Ethanol


Ethanol is a renewable, domestically produced alcohol fuel that can help reduce oil dependence and greenhouse gas emissions.




www.fueleconomy.gov




.


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## Heisenburger (Sep 19, 2016)

ntcindetroit said:


> I was getting only about 25 mpg filling up my OR1E with E85 at various gas stations in metro Detroit.
> 
> First, It ran initially, then I noticed engine is lacking of power, then hesitation and knock or misfiring.





https://www.justanswer.com/toyota/1lk0t-2009-corolla-filled-85.html





https://support.toyota.com/s/article/Can-I-use-E85-fuel-in-7749?language=en_US


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