It appears that Petrocan has recently bumped it's ethanol content for the summer months.

The Ontario regs call for 5% eth
Since it's an annual total volume reg, they bump the content for summer to get the total % up.

Since this change I've been getting some cold start symptoms...
- cranks over longer before firing up
- after start I had a stall stumble then OK.

I changed to Shell V-Power & the symptoms disappeared.
Shell manages their content regs differently.
Bronze up to 10% eth
Silver up to 5% eth
V-Power ZERO eth

Soooo if your getting any performance issues lately it may just be the gas.

 

What about Sunoco? I use 94 octane only.

 

Sunoco is up to 10% eth....
Sunoco has been into ethanol for a long time.....
In your situation, the 94 is probably the more important factor though.

 

Wow, good to know. Never been a big fan of PETRO CAN in the first place. I've been using the Sunoco forever too. I knew that about the 10% ethanol in the 94. How come the 10% doesn't have the same performance issues then? Does the higher octane compensate somehow?
Al

 

It really seems to be engine dependent....
I know someone else that's experiencing the same thing with Sunoco.

Ethanol doesn't carry the same energy punch as gas either.
Some have noticed a milage drop recently as well.

 

Ian - this is very interesting to me. I literally perked right up when I read this. Why? I was using Sunoco 94 and noticed about 2 months ago I was having much longer cranking times. I switched to V-power and the car fires right up now. I thought it was coincidence, but I had to get 94 the other day and wham, longer cranking times again. I definitely think there is something to this.

As you probably know longer cranking time is the first symptom of the higher pressure fuel pump failure on the 335i, so a lot of guys have presumed (wrongly) that they had failing pumps, when it was probably just the gas.

 

This is a well documented issue with the S54.
M3 guys have had this issue for a long time.
It's definitely ethanol related.

 

Yeah I've noticed a mileage drop as well, oh wait........that's because I have a lead foot.

I haven't notice any drop in performance since using Sunoco but then again I have always used Ultra 94.

 

this tempts me to try using shell v-power instead of sunoco94....

 

Damn it, bound by the Petro Card.

 

Me too... direct painless billing.
I have to expense any others.

 

I have never purchased Petro-Can gas. My town only sells Crappy Tire, Esso (rip-off prices) or UPI, so I get Crappy Tire 91. If I'm out of town I get Shell or Sunoco 91.
I believe with Crappy Tire gas you get whatever they got to fill their tanks, it could be any brand, at least that's what I've heard.

 

^^Oh no! ....what to do on the 16th????

 

I could check with the Airport, and see if you could fill up there .
I have one friend who lives in a nearby town and it cost him almost half a days pay just to drive to Kincardine and back (37kms one way ) . He uses aviation fuel and his car runs in the 10's in the quarter.

 

LOL, Wayne, just what Ian needs: a little '108' -- that should cut his travel time down from 15 minutes to about 5.....

All joking aside, I use petro-can too and like the points and occasional free gas and bonuses that buying petro-can affords.

Ian, have you got a link to that info? I'd like to learn more about ethanol gas and its affect on performance, mileage and on our engines.

Isn't all gas in the states now some level of ethanol mix?
I wouldn't be surprised to learn that ours is or will be too.

TNX for posting.... I too have noticed a decrease in mileage overall....performance is harder to measure....Likely it's down a tic or 2 also.

C.