Buying E10 fuel (a mixture that contains 10 percent ethanol) from a hose that also supplies E15 fuel (a mixture that contains 15 percent ethanol) must buy at least four gallons to protect customers following behind. Ethanol is hard on engines and less efficient than regular gasoline. E15 can even cause engine failure in smaller or older engines. So if you’re using a blender pump to buy E10 that sells both E15 and E10, the residual amount of E15 left in the hose from the previous customer could cause significant damage to those smaller and older engines—unless you purchase at least 4 gallons.
Why force companies to buy pumps that blend when you can force all liability onto the customer?
Gas stations can get away buying cheap blending pumps and if it breaks someone’s older car just shrug and say it must have been the previous customer’s fault, we’re not liable.
It’s probably administrative law associated with DOT regulations. So yes it is a law but not quite in the same way you think of when Congress passes a law. Instead Congress passed a law that said DOT we give this agency the power to regulate these specific things. Go create a working committee and create some regulation. Administrative law is a bit more like civil law than criminal law. In general violation is just fine and they are handled by administrative law courts. Part of what makes them so different is they do not fall under the justice department they are contained within whichever agency has jurisdiction over that area of regulation. They’ve been affirmed to be functionally the same as federal courts, but can only sanction the guilty party in the exact manner the regulation says. Otherwise when the case is concluded and a party is found guilty is then referred to a federal court for sanctions.
This seems like it’s flipped around backwards. The picture says you have to pump more than 4 gallons if you are getting E15, but the explanation seems to explain why someone pumping E10 would want to pump more than 4 gallons.
I bet the real reason is that someone could pump a couple of gallons of cheaper E15, knowing they’d actually receive E10, leaving the next person to actually get that gas.
Customer B buys 1 gallon of E10 from the same pump.
Customer C buys 1 gallon of E10 from the same pump and puts it in his chainsaw. If that gallon ruins Customer C’s chainsaw, it’s legally Customer B’s fault? What the fuck?
Forcing B to buy more gas than he might want, to protect the customer after him, because of the customer that came before him, is some horseshit.
In the given example, is the gas station not forcing Customer B to purchase more gas than they may want or need? What if I have a chainsaw with a 1 gallon fuel tank? Now I need to not only buy more gas than I can use, but a container to safely store it in. (It’s also illegal to dispense gasoline to/from an unauthorized container!) Now if I use my chainsaw once or twice a year, I also get to dump out that extra gasoline because it’s gone bad by the time I need to use it again.
There’s actually a really good explanation for this.
This is a mixing pump. It mixes ethanol into the fuel. Because the mixing happens before the part of the pump that measures how much is being dispensed, you need at least a few gallons to fully flush things out and get somewhere close to what you’re actually buying.
Nobody is going to come arrest you if you buy 2 gallons of gas. But the gas you get me not be the mix you wanted.
1: It’s not.
2: The pump charges a minimum of 4 gallons.
3: The pump dispenses at least four gallons, and won’t shut off before then.
4: A cop watches every time a person fills up.
Personally, #3 would be the most fun, from a distance.
Fucking 15% ethanol now? So they basically just raised the price of gasoline 5%, and reduced the fuel efficiency of everyone’s vehicle, without so much as a peep. Where is this?
E15 is a different blend of fuel, it’s not at all gas pumps and regular 87/89/91 octane level fuel is still available (because not all cars can use E15 like the sticker says). Sheetz stations sell it in my area around Raleigh, NC.
Would you prefer they ban driving? we simply cannot keep going as we are, things have to change and you can either change your habits alongside it, accept that you have to pay more, or whine as you keep pumping poison into the air and contribute to your own early death from climate change.
I would expect it to also be less expensive but they don’t show us that information.
I personally wouldn’t mind if my fuel mileage goes down if the cost is also proportionally lower.
Also, ethanol has a energy density of roughly 2/3 that of gasoline, so yes e85 would have 5% less energy than gasoline with no ethanol, not e10, which is what I see as the listed price in most places. When doing a price comparison, it should be against e0, not e10 if you are expecting a 5% energy difference.
Thank you for sharing the link. Here’s the relevant bit from the article:
Most gas stations don’t want to install new tanks just for E15. Instead, they’re installing blender pumps, which mix the ethanol and gasoline together in the right proportion depending on which one you want. But there’s a problem: if you pump E15 into your car, about a third of a gallon remains in the fueling hose when you’re done. If someone comes along, switches to E10, and buys a single gallon for their lawnmower, they’ll get a third of a gallon of E15 and two-thirds of a gallon of E10. That comes to about 11.7% ethanol, and that might be enough to set your lawnmower on fire.
So the EPA produced a new rule: if you sell E15, you have to require your customers to buy at least four gallons of gas regardless of what blend they’re buying. That’s a big enough purchase that the residual fuel in the hose is too small to matter
Sounds like the warning label is about all they will do. Guess it’s one of those situations where if you ignore the label or don’t read it you might be penalized?
It also gums the fuck out of fuel injectors, and you’ll notice a drop in gas mileage Dependant on the blend. Its pretty awful shit. I don’t know why the hell it exists.
I think it exists because people have an unreasonable price sensitivity when buying gas. They will drive miles out of their way to save a nickel a gallon. I also think they don’t really have a good understanding of mpg factors. I was told by one guy purchasing it that he gets better mileage on it(which we know isn’t true)
Does this pump also dispense marked fuels through the same hose?
In my province of residence gas stations near farming communities often sell “marked fuel” (fuel with an added red dye in it) that are taxed less, and which are intended for farming machinery, road work equipment, boats, and other non-highway use only. If you’re caught with red-dyed fuel being used for any other purpose you can be charged with an offence, and levied fines or other penalties.
If you dispense a small amount of regular gasoline after another purchaser had bought marked gasoline, the dye in the fuel remaining in the lines likely isn’t diluted enough to tell the difference — and you could (hypothetically) then be charged with possessing marked fuel without the proper paperwork.
(Anywhere I’ve ever seen marked fuels sold usually has a separate hose for the marked fuel to be dispensed from to prevent this from happening — but I don’t know your gas station or where you live, so maybe they rely on dilution rather than separation to differentiate?)
The rural area i live in has pumps thst give non-ethanol fuel but is not dyed and costs more than the e85 they sell. No placards anywhere stating any federal fueling minimums either. I routinely fill a 2 gallon tank of nonethanol for my old yard equipment and have never had an issue
It is not uncommon for semi trucks and other heavy haul vehicles to be checked. They can frequently hold several hundred gallons of fuel. So there’s a real cost saving using off-road diesel. Though if I remember correctly fine is $10,000 for the first offense so that wipes out your savings pretty quickly.
Yeah last time I checked off-road diesel was about 50 cents cheaper than on road diesel. So 50 cents times 100/200 gallons, can save you some money. Especially if you do it regularly. And I totally didn’t check to see if it was worth running in my diesel truck, you have no evidence.
Oh and for when they check, it is usually at DOT weigh stations. If they decide to do a random check or they see something wrong with your truck. They will do an inspection and usually dip a tank. Or at a traffic stop, it is usually only a state patrol that bothers, but if you’re unlucky enough to get pulled over in a semi truck. It is not outside the realm of possibility the officer will decide to dip your tank.
Yep it’s very unlikely that they would ever dip a tank on a private vehicle. I’ve heard of a few people getting their diesel pickups checked, but it’s very uncommon. It’s also much harder to do you can’t directly dip the tank because of anti-siphon devices. You have to open the petcock on the water separator/fuel filter. So you have to know where that is you have to have a little container to catch the diesel in and you’re much more likely to get messy. It is not worth a police officer’s trouble really.
I’m definitely put off road diesel in my pickup truck a few times. Mostly when I was short on fuel and needed to get to town. Though I have known a few guys who run it regularly without consequence. Though it was mostly due to convenience opposed to tax invasion. They’re already on the ranch there’s already diesel fuel there and sometimes the boss is letting you fill up for free or more likely they are the boss.
I definitely wouldn’t pull up to an off-road diesel fuel pump and just pump it into my truck. That’s a little too obvious.
I can’t say for Canada but in the USA I have never seen or heard of off-road gasoline. And I worked enough farms and ranches that at least one of them would have been using it if it existed. So I highly doubt this is an off road tax reason.
Edit - it seems some people maybe thinking I am talking about off road diesel. I am not, I am specifically referring to only unleaded gasoline.
It’s not uncommon, but not as common as died diesel of various types. A marina in Orange Beach Alabama sold a died diesel called locomotive diesel that is apparently different in composition from agricultural diesel.
Sadly the tax advantages is absorbed by the vendor as they are located in the water.
Looking up locomotive diesel. It didn’t switch to ultra low sulfur for 5ish years after over the road diesel. I would bet it has a higher Cetane, probably some closer heavy fuel oil.
I talked to a farmer in Kansas (near Colby, iirc) who had his own gas pump for farm/off-road use only, so it does exist here. Probably only found on pretty big farms though.
No, it exists in the States. I used to be a truck driver, and we used marked fuel in our refrigerator units all the time since those engines are not powering a highway vehicle.
Really where? I’ve straight up asked farm fuel delivery services and they said it was not something they could provide. Interesting, I wonder if they were being lazy or it has to do with state taxes or what.
Edit - your reefers weren’t diesel? Most of the reefers I’ve ever seen had those little three-cylinder Perkins in them. But I’ve never worked as a trucker so I wouldn’t know for sure.
Yes, they were diesel. I don’t think it’s as common nowadays as it was when I was driving because I don’t see the separate off-highway pumps at truck stops anymore. It was always a common thing at smaller, independent truck stops, and those are all but extinct, it seems.
So you are talking about off road diesel not off road gasoline. Correct? I am very familiar with off road diesel, but I can’t find any reference to off road gasoline
Off road gasoline is rare and varies by district, here in Canada I grew up in BC and we had “purple gas” and “red diesel” but purple gas was only sold at very specific stations, usually near parks where people would put it in ATVs and boats.
Now I live in SK and we only have “dyed diesel” which is your standard red farm stuff. You can get a discount on gasoline delivered to a farm tank, but there’s no colorant added and almost nobody does it anyways, since gasoline goes stale and isn’t used in farm equipment.
Myself I converted my remaining gasoline equipment to propane and run heating propane in it. The only gas burners left are lawnmowers, quads and a farm truck.
Yep definitely not questioning your assertion. I try to do my best to not tell other people how their country works when I don’t live there, I’m mostly successful
I’ve seen a cop show in the UK, they had a long stick they put down your fuel filler and it captured a tiny amount, they pull it out and can tell by colour. Normal fuel is clear/yellowy and marked is usually red.
These signs also exist in the Netherlands, and the reason is because pumps are calibrated to a certain accuracy (say, 1%, for convenience).
But in the real world, you can get a lot of variation from temperature, to how long it’s been since a pump was used, to how full the underground tank is. They all made a difference, mostly at the start and end of pumping.
So you get a law in percentages, and you get a real world deviation in volume. Obviously, if your pump is short 50ml on 1 liter, you’re off by 5% and breaking the law. But of you slap a sticker on, telling everyone they “must” get 5 liters, you’re off 50ml on 5L, a perfect 1% deviation and entirely within the limit.
In Canada ours have a sticker that says the amounts are calibrated to a certain temperature (15C I think), so I assumed it took that into account. I try not to think about how much it costs so didn’t over analyze it.
Or they were just taking it home to store. Which, y’know, will likely result in that gas eating the plastic bucket in a couple weeks because gasoline is incredibly good as a solvent.
It’s 10% in the winter and 15% in the summer (at least that’s the legal limit), although I think that’s changing. So I guess they just said what the hell and put on both stickers?
So there’s a shit load of caveats. One there’s only a few places i know in the state that sell it. It’s supposedly only for small engine purposes, and it’s illegal to pump into a car. There’s daily limits imposed by the gas station and weekly and yearly limits imposed by the state I think, but I never looked them up.
And invented a bed with a bunch of wires and pullies for people who are crippled (after he got polio). Oh a good idea from the worst man ever you might think, NOPE this invention was also deadly and after a malfunction killed him.
Thomas midgley. He invented CFCs to replace the previously most commonly used refrigerants: Sulfur Dioxide and Ammonia which are both pretty nasty and should have been replaced… just not with CFCs. Leaded gasoline was invented to help prevent knocking and increase fuel efficiency. Today we use other additives and are better able to reform low octane hydrocarbons into higher octane ones with modern catalysts. Then as another commentater mentioned, he contracted Polio later in life and invented a sling and pulley system to help him out of bed.
Ethanol is wildy bad for the environment and is raising the cost of food.
I read somewhere awhile back that it takes something like 3 gallons of gasoline (through running farm equipment and transportation) to make 4 gallons of ethanol. That coupled with ethanol being less efficient that gasoline and causes more wear and rear on vehicles probably means that if we ditched it altogether we'd probably the same carbon emissions wise.
Also, for every acre of corn raised to go into ethanol, that's one acre not going into feed corn or other food crops so we're effectively raising the cost of food via limiting supply and competition.
The only people that benefit are farmers that recieve substantial subsidies to grow it and government personnel who administer said subsidies and elected officials that campaign on taking money from you the tax payer and funneling it into these programs.
The cost to all of us is diffused, probably no more than a few tens of dollars taken from us via taxes so nobody is gonna go stand up to these people and demand that we end this subsidy. The benefit to them is very focused and large so they have every interest to keep the cash flowing their way. Every interest to take money from all classes of people but most damaging to the poorest of people since those dollars mean more to them than richer peoples.
This wildest part is that you who is reading this right now is probably outraged that this program is in place but the even crazier part is that you can substitute this with practically any and all industries and they are all doing the exact same thing but for the things that you agree with, are perfectly fine with keeping those subsidies flowing. After all, it's only the other people that are greedy. The only real solution is to completely end all federal subsidies but I'm sure you'll disagree and say that XYZ is necessary because it's your special interest.
You’re not wrong about the whole corn subsidy switch to E85 being terrible. It was purely about getting Midwest votes specifically winning Iowa in the primaries. It is worth noting though that E10/15 is not intended as a replacement for gasoline like E85 is. The ethanol in E10/15 is both a fuel oxidizer and an anti knock agent. So it reduces tailpipe emissions by helping make a more complete burn and increases the octane of gasoline by two or three points meaning the gasoline has to be less refined.
Ethanol replaced MTBE, it is not clear how and at what level MTBE is toxic. But it is extremely water-soluble and has the ability to leak out of sealed underground tanks. This of course led to very easy contamination of groundwater and aquifers with MTBE. Which was probably a bad thing.
For anyone who cares MTBE replaced Tetraethyllead. And if I have to explain why lead is bad to anyone they’ve had too much lead exposure.
It either violates federal law or it doesn’t. May is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. Not to mention there are signs for both up to 10% and up to 15%…
If the purpose of the warning is to make sure people get the blend they want then just say that.
My RV200’s tank only holds 1.7 gallons, and my CH50 will only take one. I guess I’m meant to just dispense the remaining three gallons onto the ground, then…?
Running your bike on E15 may cause your engine to run hot and could possibly damage your bike's catalytic convertor as well as cause crud buildup on your valves and pistons.
I feel you. E10 is the lowest content we can get anywhere around me. I have to ride about 90 miles to get to the nearest station with non-ethanol fuel.
There is Sta-Bil 360 which allegedly mitigates the effects of ethanol at least in storage. I always use it in my bikes overwinter, and I haven’t had any issues… yet.
Several stations around me have removed their mid grade option to sell E85 in that pump slot instead. You can have E10 regular, E10 premium, E85, or fuck off. I have seen a few shiny new stations on the interstate that only offer E15, which seems to happen most often out in corn country. I get that there’s only so much oil in the ground, but you’re right – there has to be a better way. It’s just probably not as cheap…
Yeah, if the theories about fuel from previous customer still residing in the hose impacting next customers % is true, I’d put responsibility on the gas station. They chose not to have a pump dedicated to E15.
“May” violate law, doesn’t say which law or who is actually violating it. I would ignore and carry on as normal. This feels like one of those " the average Americans commits three felonies a day" things because our system of laws is so archaic and inflexible.
You wanna tell me how you know when you’ve got damage caused by this and can prove a specific gas station has anything to do with it? It’s really easy for a gas station to just monitor it’s pumps.
No, it’s working precisely as intended. There are so many layers of byzantine laws and ordinances in the US on multiple levels – federal, state, county, municipal – that anyone who really wants to is guaranteed to be able to find something to harass and/or arrest you for, no matter what. Probable cause can be rendered meaningless by making a humongous array of trivial things technically illegal.
Does your window tint meet the specific requirements for this county? Is your stereo 0.01dB louder than our municipal maximum? Are your license plate and registration sticker acceptably clean? Do your tires have the correct tread depth? Do you have a radar detector installed? Do you have an air freshener hanging from your rearview? Are you carrying your written prescription around with your pills? Is your pocketknife blade too long? Do your cigarettes have the wrong state’s tax stamp on them? Did you remember to sign the back of your registration card? Whoopsie doodle, this state passed a law mandating minimum headlight height from the road, too bad your car left the factory out of compliance. Could you step out of the vehicle for me, sir?
That’s not the topic of discussion though. They’re trying to put responsibility on clueless consumers when it’s the gas stations that pump different fuels through the same hoses.
If you want to talk leaded gasoline, this would be like hammering people who buy it and ignoring that gas stations are selling it.
While I agree with your premise, I don’t like that your list is what came to mind when you thought of unnecessary laws. Those are some of the best laws we have. It sucks being hypersensory and trying to live a real life, and literally 25% of the population is. With hyposensory people (another 25% of the population) just acting like we are all whiners for experiencing every sense as much as 4x as strongly as they do. “No one could possibly be that annoyed by something that barely affects me, they are just too sensitive”. Well, yes. Technically that is the problem, but our sensitivity is physical and not by choice.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn talked about exactly that in the USSR in Gulag Archipelago.
He said that in the entire time he was in the gulags, he never met one single person who hadn't been legitimately tried and convicted of an actual crime. And the key was exactly what you describe - the Soviet laws were so extensive and byzantine that whenever any official wanted to disappear somebody, all they had to do was investigate them enough to figure out what laws they'd inevitably broken, then try them for that.
That's how authorotarian scumbags implement a police state while maintaining a superficial appearance of justice and the rule of law.
And it's guaranteed that American authoritarian scumbags know that.
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