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Gas Map in WI?

redclfco

New member
sometimes I feel I plan trips here in MN based on where I can refuel with non-additive non ethanol premium. I presume Wisconsin is the same? Anybody out these with info on good gas locations? websites?



Red
 
I do not have an answer for you but a question. Is there an issue with ethanol that we should be concerned about, as far as the bikes are concerned?
 
No real issues. I don't like it but Mn has mandated that fuel has a 10% blend of Ethanol. Wi has no such law, but doesn't have to post at the pump if it is or isn't an Ethanol blend For your money you get less mileage, and lower octane. You can buy 100% hydrocarbon at some stations that designate the fuel for "off road, recreational, or farm use only. heck the farmers don't even like it!)
I never use the blend for small engines or long term storage. I've burned it daily for years in cars, trucks and motorcycles.
Ethanol is hygroscopic (sp?) it attracts H2O. Which in turn makes it corrosive. That is one reason refinery's cannot send it via pipeline. It has to be "splash blended" at the spot where the semi-trucks purchase the gasoline, then trucked to the gas station.
I have unloaded railroad tank cars of the stuff and it really does a number on 'em.

Sanders
 
You are somewhat correct. all gas in big city areas is 10 %ethanol. I live further out in Waukesha County so I go west and I can get pure gasoline. No guarantees though.I believe around Madison and Milwaukee (Metro areas) all they have is the blended.
 
So, will the use blend in the tank a few times harm anything????

:dunno


Ah yes, now the question finally surfaces...

I have been for four years scared to death to put in one drop of this fake petrol into my bike due to BAD memories of being stranded once in the boonies of eastern Colorado due to a bad mix of gas, then haunted repeatedly afterward with a bike that ran like crap afterwards until I managed to rebuild both carbs;

Was this related to the ethanol? unknown, but the memory stung me and I am terrified to run anthing but pure gas, and would like to know from "the experts" who troll through this site on a seemingly minute by minute basis if ethonol gas makes any difference at all? I would love to stop being so paranoid about gas, but as I said..IVE BEEN BURNED!!!

Will Ethanol hurt the beemer?

Red
 
I agree;

My numerous rides across the USA have produced results, regarding the Ethanol based stuff in my tank. The E gas definately causes less fuel mileage per gallon in my bikes. KLT and R100, both. Sometimes quite a marked difference too, at around 15-20 percent less mileage. I have always checked my mileage in every tank since the '70s in all my vehicles. Just a habit . I have opinions, like everybody and I think the Ethanol thing is a fleecing of the public, for clean air, which by the way has improved dramatically, without Ethanol present. I know the Etrhanol has cleaner burning tendencies, but at what costs! It is as clear as dirt you walk on, that the fuel from crops is a scam of huge proportions and if you simply have been awake, you've seen the drop in fuel mpg's and consumption of this stuff going up at the same/more cost than the previous pure gas...We buy more and get LESS. Does not make any sense to me, other than somebody is getting rich in farm country. I have to use it, as everybody else, but who is going to explain the questions arising here? :usa
 
We have had it here for around 7 to 10 years. As long as your floats are alcohol proof, there is no engine damage I have seen with it. I don't check my mileage often but I would agree there is probably a mileage difference.
 
Politics aside . . yes I know we're just shoving around our collective carbon footprint, ok . . . I really have no choice as ethanol blends are all that is available locally. I try to stick to one petrol station and also am somewhat loyal to that particular company for no other reason than I'd like to think I get near the same product regardless where I stop. (Who knows)

On the road weekend after next (GR3), if I need to stop I will prefer to stop at that particular company's station, barring that I will stop at something I recognize which assures nothing, I'm sure.

Thank you everyone for your input, I did not know about ethanols corrosive properties, I learned something.

Peace.

Wez
 
Not sure if its still true, but the Milwaukee area gas stations (and also in surrounding counties) sell the oxygenated gasoline, at a premium price. It is argueable if oxygenated gas really has any bad effects on bike engines. Personally, I avoid if I can by filling up in the counties other than Waukesha, Milwaukee and Sheboygan that sell plain old gas.

Santa, you have any comment on this? You live in that area. Notice anything with your bikes and the oxygenated gas?
 
My guess it is not much of an issue, as the the BMW motorcycle riders in Milwaukee, Racine and Chicago area have been using it exclusively for 10 years. I am superstitious, I avoid RFG, and I fill up in Fond du Lac County when possible.

oxygenated gas
 
PolarBear wrote, "Sometimes quite a marked difference too, at around 15-20 percent less mileage. I have always checked my mileage in every tank since the '70s in all my vehicles. Just a habit ."

Makes me wonder if we are trying to reduce our carbon footprint by 10% but we increase our consumption by 20%, is there really a benefit?
 
Makes me wonder if we are trying to reduce our carbon footprint by 10% but we increase our consumption by 20%, is there really a benefit?
Note: When an oxygenate, such as ethanol, is used, there is less carbon monoxide in tail pipe emissions, but more carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is the greenhouse gas that causes global warming and carbon monoxide is a primary cause of smog. Choose your poison, but ethanol doesn't reduce the carbon footprint. Ethanol burns to carbon dioxide and water.

I am not an organic chemist, nor do I play one on TV, but I did have a class in organic chemistry and do have a degree in Zoology.

tb
 
Not sure if its still true, but the Milwaukee area gas stations (and also in surrounding counties) sell the oxygenated gasoline, at a premium price. It is argueable if oxygenated gas really has any bad effects on bike engines. Personally, I avoid if I can by filling up in the counties other than Waukesha, Milwaukee and Sheboygan that sell plain old gas.

Santa, you have any comment on this? You live in that area. Notice anything with your bikes and the oxygenated gas?

I thought I covered this with my post but I live in Waukesha, right next to Milwaukee.
No I didn't notice. However, my county has both types so it is often mixed in my tanks.
 
Ethanol and your bike

I can't speak for the vintage bikes, but the newer ones built in the last 20 years of so, are not going to have a problem with Ethanol blended fuel.
If you record your gas mileage you will notice a loss of MPG. Other than that I wouldn't worry about it needlessly.
What galls me about the debate is the subsidies paid at both ends here in Mn. Cargill, and ADM are reaping a lot of $$$ riding this wave.
For instance, last summer Ethanol hit $4.50 a gallon and was driving the price of gasoline, which was around $2.60 a gal.
Up she go's and where she stops, nobody knows...
I wish people paid more attention to this stuff. The politicians by way of the lobbyists have shoved this Blended fuels crap up our arses because we're complacent...
Agggh:bolt sorry for the rant!

Sanders
(refinery inmate)

PS http://www.msra.com/NonOxygenatedFuel/NonOxygenated Fuel List 06.01.06.pdf

The above link is the only one I could find which lists stations in Mn and Wi that sell non-oxygenated fuels
 
Ethanol vs Octane

"For your money you get less mileage, and lower octane. "
As I remember, in the past, Indy cars rans on pure ethanol. They could run high compression without "pinging" and the engine ran cooler. I think that that indicates higher octane rating. Here in the GWN Sunoco 260 contains lots of ethanol. It doesn't knock and gives wonderful results on an e-test.
The need to fill the tank came frequently at Indy in the day.
Waaay back when- the first gas shortage- ethanol was new to gasoline. Gas tanks that had only ever seen all petrol fuel, had a little water mixed with rust in the bottom. The first tank of ethanol mix then incorporated that water and rust into the fuel. Carb rebuilds were frequent.
 
It's a spring thing!

I can't speak for the vintage bikes, but the newer ones built in the last 20 years of so, are not going to have a problem with Ethanol blended fuel.
If you record your gas mileage you will notice a loss of MPG. Other than that I wouldn't worry about it needlessly.
What galls me about the debate is the subsidies paid at both ends here in Mn. Cargill, and ADM are reaping a lot of $$$ riding this wave.
For instance, last summer Ethanol hit $4.50 a gallon and was driving the price of gasoline, which was around $2.60 a gal.
Up she go's and where she stops, nobody knows...
I wish people paid more attention to this stuff. The politicians by way of the lobbyists have shoved this Blended fuels crap up our arses because we're complacent...
Agggh:bolt sorry for the rant!

Sanders
(refinery inmate)

The funny thing I can never quite figure out is this: You make ethanol from corn, lobby every municipality to take on a ethenol plant the pollution, the road expense, the expansion of water services, etc, with the promise that it will make jobs, and sell excess corn.

So then the Farmer plants back way more corn than normal (upsets soy bean market) takes out loans on new equipment based on increased corn revenue. The ethanol owners (did someone say Bushy croonies?) don't tell ANYONE it takes more energy to produce it than energy it produces, AND that it has diddly squat to do with saving the enviornment, to the contrary, they promote the stuff based on envirnmental gains!

Then what do we do when it all goes south? When the public wakes up? the Farmer now has no excess corn income to pay for the new equipment and land GOES BROKE Beans are now being grown elswhere, and the farmer has no cash crop market to farm! (Baby Boomers think Sugar Beet Factories here!)

The consumer now feels the rub of the boot stuck way up his ass and knows he's been lied to AGAIN! And drives a way in his lead ass battery hybrid with baldy tires fronm the weight of those lead batteries!

The small towns who bought into ethanol plants are holding the debt of local ethanol bankruptcies, lots of lost jobs, and debt from the overexpansion of the utilities to service the plant! ECONOMY SUFFERS!

And the Ethanol owners (BUCHYS) walk away from another short term, high profit venture of the Rich and Famous at the expense and demise of the American Farmer, The American public, the American small town!

Huh! what is it good for? Absolutely Nothin! Huh!

Sorry about Reds Rant, but it's been on my mind.
 
Note: Choose your poison, but ethanol doesn't reduce the carbon footprint. Ethanol burns to carbon dioxide and water.

I am not an organic chemist, nor do I play one on TV, but I did have a class in organic chemistry and do have a degree in Zoology.

tb

However, corn removes CO2 from the atmosphere when it is grown and that is where the reduction in carbon footprint comes from. With that said, the new Minnesota ethanol requirement is essentially an agriculture bill not an energy bill. It's also not renewable in the sense that the amount of water that will be used in the ethanol plants now being constructed is going to deplete the aquifers in western Minnesota faster than they will recharge. I can see two major conflicts coming in the next decade or so, corn for food vs corn for fuel, and water for corn and ethanol vs water for everything else in western Minnesota.

The Minnesota street rod association has a list of stations that supply ethanol free gas for those who are concerned about it, they don't say what the octane ratings are.
 
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