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- Newsgroups: rec.autos.tech
- Path: sparky!uunet!spsgate!mogate!newsgate!wdc!mark
- From: mark@wdcwdc.sps.mot.com (Mark Shaw)
- Subject: Re: Sudden and Drastic Drop in Gas Mileage
- Message-ID: <1992Nov14.005727.1165@newsgate.sps.mot.com>
- Sender: mark@wdc (Mark Shaw)
- Nntp-Posting-Host: 223.199.55.11
- Organization: Motorola Western MCU Design Center, Chandler Arizona
- References: <1992Nov10.134924.11873@engage.pko.dec.com> <97166@netnews.upenn.edu>
- Date: Sat, 14 Nov 1992 00:57:27 GMT
- Lines: 22
-
- In article <97166@netnews.upenn.edu>, george@mech.seas.upenn.edu writes:
- |> i know the experts will disagree, but i have seen a dramatic
- |> decrease in milage since the nov.1 switch to gasahol.
- |> I noticed the milage change _before_ i realised they switched
- |> the gas, btw.
- |> ( '87 fuel injected buick 3.0 )
-
-
- This has been reported by others, but it is small. A drop from 30 to 20
- mpg is something more drastic or the odo is screwed up. The other compounding
- problem with the switch to MTBE (or alcohol blends) usually occurs in the
- winter months when gas mileage tends to go down anyway due to the lower
- warmup cycle resulting in richer mixtures and more open-loop control on
- electronically controlled engines.
-
- Back when I lived in Indiana my VW's would drop from about 26 to 24 mpg
- in town do to this phenomenom, and this was long before the oxygenated
- fuels arrived. I agree that an alcohol blend version of oxygenated fuel
- will cause a slight decrease due to the lower specific heat content in most
- alcohol blends.
-
- Mark
-