Is Ethanol fee gas still available?

[Fisherman]

25 minutes ago, captpierre said:

This is today in Bobcaygeon. 
Sign says ethanol free. 
Other sign spelt wrong 🤔

Have to ask, did you actually ask the marina or just hoping the sign is still valid. 

[captpierre]

2 hours ago, Fisherman said:

Have to ask, did you actually ask the marina or just hoping the sign is still valid. 

Just cruis’n by. Didn’t ask. 

[Dara]

Beats me. I know that 20 years ago snowmobile manufacturers went to 4 stroke engines to comply with emission regulations, and also etec type 2 strokes. It baffles me that manufacturers can't make an engine that accomodates ethanol . Hope this doesn't bite me in the ass but I have a 60 4 stroke outboard 12 years old and a 135 hp snowmobile the same. Always ran the cheapest gas I could get and never an additive. Shut them off at end of season with whatever gas was left in the tank and started again next season and rode away. Did annual maintenance  and took care of stuff but thats it. 30,000 km on the snowmobile and runs like new, no idea on hours on the outboard but a few

[Another Canadian]

I was at the Gen 7 station at Curve Lake to fill up with their Marine 91 ethanol free fuel on the long weekend.  The  pump at the side of the station is now a regular 87 pump.

There was a gas station attendant cleaning the pumps so I asked what happened to the marine fuel?  His response was that the supplier of fuel to the first nations stations will no longer sell them ethanol free fuel.  The government mandate and that they were not on the water supplying fuel to watercraft were the 2 reasons I was given.  He said the 91 should have less ethanol than the 87, but no guarantee on that statement,

I intend to try Otter Marine in Curve Lake to see if I can buy marine fuel in my 20L jerry cans at a reasonable price.  Marine fuel where I am located is a 30 minute boat ride and a 50% premium compared to the price at Curve Lake.

Bill

[captpierre]

9 hours ago, Another Canadian said:

I was at the Gen 7 station at Curve Lake to fill up with their Marine 91 ethanol free fuel on the long weekend.  The  pump at the side of the station is now a regular 87 pump.

There was a gas station attendant cleaning the pumps so I asked what happened to the marine fuel?  His response was that the supplier of fuel to the first nations stations will no longer sell them ethanol free fuel.  The government mandate and that they were not on the water supplying fuel to watercraft were the 2 reasons I was given.  He said the 91 should have less ethanol than the 87, but no guarantee on that statement,

I intend to try Otter Marine in Curve Lake to see if I can buy marine fuel in my 20L jerry cans at a reasonable price.  Marine fuel where I am located is a 30 minute boat ride and a 50% premium compared to the price at Curve Lake.

Bill

Do you know that Otter has ethanol free? Aren’t you able to drive down to Otter by car and fill up cans there?  
 

[Rattletrap2]

On 5/19/2023 at 8:52 AM, akaShag said:

OK guys, I used up all my testosterone making babies, growing hair all over my body, and learning how to hunt, fish, and shoot.  I did not have any left over for learning how to fix stuff.  Like, I might be able to check the oil in my outboard, but right now I don't think I have ever removed the cover.............

SO>>>>>what can a non-technical boat owner do to protect their outboard from the ravages of ethanol?  I did have a fuel/water separator in my big water boat, for the stern drive motor.  Should I have one installed on this one?  The motor is a fairly new (2020) Yamaha 40 hp 4-stroke with very low hours.  And is there an additive I should be using, all the time, to every tank of Shell High Test?

Advice would be appreciated.

Doug

Doug, I have the same motor, but in a 2017 version! Does yours have power trim and tilt? It was not available in the 40 HP in 2017, but I see it is on the new ones. The dealer I bought my boat and motor from (Chuck Howell , Howell marine in Chatham) was the one that told me to not use premium fuel. It had something to do with the spark timing and that 87 octane (regular fuel) was all I should ever use. You cannot just disconnect the fuel line and run this motor dry like I would with any other small engine. The fuel pump will make a heck of a racket if you do! I pull the filter bowl on mine every fall and dump out the gas. The good thing is these motors are fuel injected and do not have carbs. In my opinion, they are more tolerant of the ethanol. I would suggest that you run a good stabilizer in your last tank of the season, and then dump any remaining fuel left over from your boat tank into your vehicle tank.

[Rattletrap2]

Just another note about gasoline and brands.

I was told many years ago, that gas stations on the highway, particularly up North, most likely get their tanks filled by one supplier. Be it Esso, Sunoco, Shell, or whomever has the majority of stations in that area. It is just not cost effective to have different suppliers delivering to different stations. So, for the guy that says, "I would never run brand X or brand Y in my engines.....you may not be getting what you think you are! I feel that it is better to buy fuel from a busy station that has a high turnover in their tanks than to buy from an obscure station that has their fuel sitting around longer. Another scam I have heard about is that some stations don't actually have three separate storage tanks, yet they offer three different grades of fuel! Hmmmm!

I also used to buy gas for my car at a station on highway 10 when i was still going to work. For whatever reason, the attendant decided to show me a price sheet from his supplier, telling him what the price on the pump would be for each day of the coming month!!! Collusion??? Naw, can't be! Let's face it......Money and Bull makes the world go round, and we are just along for the ride!

[akaShag]

8 hours ago, Rattletrap2 said:

Does yours have power trim and tilt?

Yes indeed.  I needed this for my pooched back..............

Doug

[Spiel]

For what it's worth in regards to ethanol in fuel I have run only 87 octane fuel in my boat for years always using the appropriate amount of fuel stabilizer.
As I noted earlier in this thread last year I was running a good portion of the year on three year old fuel. So yesterday I changed the filter on the fuel/water separator that had approximately 100 hours of use over the last couple of years. Given the difficulty I had in removing it I will now most certainly change it annually regardless of seasonal hours of use. So the point of this post is that while the filter had seen only gas with ethanol and old gas at that I truly expected to see some water in the fuel I drained out of it. The pictures below were taken this morning after settling for some 20 hours and there is no sign of water but there was plenty of sediment/dirt/crud at the bottom of the container. I presume, hope that it came from the input side of the filter thus showing water or no water it's a definite asset to have a good fuel filtration system onboard.

 

[porkpie]

On 5/24/2023 at 10:48 PM, Rattletrap2 said:

The good thing is these motors are fuel injected and do not have carbs. In my opinion, they are more tolerant of the ethanol. 

I hope you are right.  We have 2 older ATV's with carbs, and I run them dry every time we aren't going to be using them for a bit as a matter of course.  We also have a late model Honda UTV and a Honda ATV that are both fuel injected. I never worried much about it before as we have a large tank and it's still half full of ethanol free fuel.  Once that's gone, and we are on the corn gas full time I really hope it's not an issue because the bikes don't get run every week.

[DRIFTER_016]

Have a look here to see what's available.

https://www.pure-gas.org/

[Fisherman]

I'm almost sure without calling, people post up there's a "no ethanol sticker" on the pump which should have been removed.

[Fisherman]

Much to my surprise the Yamaha F30 and 40 have a gas water separator with alarm built in at the rear of the motor.  I thought it was just a filter.