Alcohol is a wonderful thing in bottles with a decent Château's name on them but in our petrol tanks this is another matter.
I came upon this heartening extract from OBD system strategy.
The ECM assumes the engine will run on petrol and, by default, sets the air-fuel ratio (AFR) to 14.6 which is stoichiometric.
It looks at the O2 sensors after you refill the tank to see if there's ethanol in the fuel and resets and remembers the AFR accordingly. However, to quote -

As the vast majority of vehicles are expected to be operated with gasoline, the initial value of AFR is set to
gasoline. This is the starting point for the AFR after a battery disconnect and will allow for normal starting. Some
vehicles may have E85 in the fuel tank after having a battery disconnect, and may not have a good start or drive
away. The startability of alcohol-blended fuels at extreme cold temperatures (< 0 °F) is difficult under normal
conditions; these vehicles may be required to be towed to a garage for starting if a battery disconnect occurs.

isn't that great?

 

Just wonderful....

 

Steve,

I hope this post isn't a consequence of your -6 deg C today.

When in France, I try to avoid E85 blend but 98 is becoming more difficult to find, particularly between the Channel and Rouen.

Are you using E85 exclusively and have you had any issues as a result?

Graham

 

I'm running on 95 which is the only alcohol free stuff Carrefour sells.

 

E85 is Europe? That's 85% ethanol. I'm surprised. I though you had only E5 or E10.

Jag limits our cars to E10 (10% ethanol) so there is no issue with the scenario outlined above.

 

There are a lot of E85 pumps around now in Europe. There's one a few kilometres from me and at €0.95/litre someone's going to try it!
The problem is that the car won't actually vomit it back out of the tank.

 

Which cars do you have that can actually run on it? It took a lot of mishaps and education here in the colonies for people to realize that 'normal' cars CANNOT use E85.

Many owners of actual 'flex fuel' vehicles here have also figured out that there's not enough price difference to make operation on E85 economical so end up using gasoline exclusively. The extra $4-5000 they paid for the dual fuel capability just goes to waste..........

 

We have 95E10, 98E5, RE85, Biogas. Also there is an alcohol free one for small engines.

 

Our other cars are diesel.
The only thing I willingly put alcohol in is my stomach.
Our tractor diesel now contains 10% ethanol, costs the same as the old 'Red' but reduces the engine power by about 10% which makes complete sense to me.
The extract was from a Ford document on V8 ECM strategies so my guess is that our ECMs do contain AFR mapping for E85 (but I don't know and don't intend to find out)

 

Ah- I meant to ask which cars are available for sale in EU that are E85 compatible, not your own fleet. Sorry.

Even if our ECUs have E85 mapping by default, the rest of car was not built to deal with it so it would be a huge mistake to attempt any use of it.

The comments in your orignal post about cold weather starting would apply to only E85 flex fuel vehicles, not to our cars.

 

Since ethanol has less energy per unit volume, you burn more fuel (lower mpg) the more ethanol you use. Most gas stations in the US sell 10% ethanol, which I use when I have to (but I do notice a drop in mpg) but there is one gas station, near where I live, that sells straight gas with no ethanol that I normally use. Is there a significant price difference in the E85 and E90 fuels that makes it economical. I really don't see much of a difference in price between the stuff with ethanol in it and the straight gas here in the US.
Mark

 

E10 has 3% less energy than straight gas, so expect a 3% loss in fuel economy. Many places now charge extra for pure gas, but if it's more than 3%, don't bother.

E85 has about 30% less energy than gas so again expect that sort of decrease in mileage. Unless the price is 1/3 less than gas, it's a counter productive choice.

 

YGPM, neighbor!