E10 or higher

[tdko Lurker Find all posts View Profile Close tdko]

Hi guys wondering with all this hype bout E10 is it any good for my Prado? Woollies Petrol station down the road only has E10 and no credit debit excepted which sucks so now go to the Shell in the next suburb. Using their V Power petrol. Thanks for the replys!!!

[williade Avid PP Poster! Find all posts View Profile Close williade]

Re: E10 or higher

E10 uses 10% ethanol. Its nothing special, just the bottom of the barrel (or drum?) petrol.

Is it any good for your Prado? Well I wouldn't say its bad, it meets the Prado's minimum octane rating of 90. But the 5VZ is high compression engine, so it will see benefits in fuel economy if you persist with the higher octane petrol.

[croozza Avid PP Poster! Find all posts View Profile Close croozza]

Re: E10 or higher

E10 uses 10% ethanol. Its nothing special, just the bottom of the barrel (or drum?) petrol.

Is it any good for your Prado? Well I wouldn't say its bad, it meets the Prado's minimum octane rating of 90. But the 5VZ is high compression engine, so it will see benefits in fuel economy if you persist with the higher octane petrol.

Actually there is no real benefit performance wise using anything higher than 91oct in the 5VZ, if you can find 91oct without ethanol in it, use it. Unfortunately, the OZ gov'nt is not subsidising regular unleaded anymore, hence E10, the downside of E10 is that it has a lower burn temp than RULP, so you are actually using more fuel.
What I have found is-
To use E10, it is best when on long trips, (less stop start traffic), and around town I use 95oct or 98oct depending on price, (as sometimes you find 98oct at the same price as 95oct), as you will use less fuel than E10, on the open road there is no difference between any of them.
Hope you understand my Jibba Jabba!

[williade Avid PP Poster! Find all posts View Profile Close williade]

Re: E10 or higher

lcool

It says ~15% less fuel used/100Km with 98 RON. But you normally pay about 20-25% more for 98. So by my math, unless you are concerned about the planet (in which case you wouldn't drive a Prado) 98 is not worth it, no?

[croozza Avid PP Poster! Find all posts View Profile Close croozza]

Re: E10 or higher

lcool

It says ~15% less fuel used/100Km with 98 RON. But you normally pay about 20-25% more for 98. So by my math, unless you are concerned about the planet (in which case you wouldn't drive a Prado) 98 is not worth it, no?

Thats why 98 is better for stop start travel (city travel) and E10 is better for the long haul (highway).
If you were to use E10 in city travel, you would use 15-20% more fuel, and going by the price of E10, you dont save that much on price, it is only about 6-10% cheaper at the bowser.

[tdko Lurker Find all posts View Profile Close tdko]

Re: E10 or higher

thanks guys for all your comments... will take it on board and keep my eye on the oct 95/98. Thanks again.

[Clarky01 Lurker Find all posts View Profile Close Clarky01]

Re: E10 or higher

I'm finding in mine that 95 octane seems to be the best

[newtoy2 Lurker Find all posts View Profile Close newtoy2]

Re: E10 or higher

I am currently touring NSW towing 1900kg of caravan and thought I would see what difference 98 premium made over E10. So I have filled my sub tank with premium and run E10 in the main. Some of the hills between Tenterfield, Inverell and Gunnedah have been a bit taxing so on the steeper slopes, I switch over to premium, hoping to gain a little bit of power. :roll: Well, at least the idea sounded good, but in practice I didn't notice a scrap of difference. I can't comment on the difference in fuel consumption as I haven't been able to measure the premium properly yet.
Roger

[Taresk Member Find all posts View Profile Close Taresk]

Re: E10 or higher

The problem is the computer takes ages to adjust, so if you change from 91o unleaded to 98o premium you need to persist for about 5,000km before the engine is using it to full advantage, so no, you wouldn't notice a difference changing from one tank to the next, but if you stick with it, you will. I use BP Ultimate or Shell V Power in mine about 90% of the time, so it's well and truly tuned to 98o.

[Brett1979 Avid PP Poster! Find all posts View Profile Close Brett1979]

Re: E10 or higher

My 2nd car was a new 1998 Hyundai Excel and I ran it on the standard 91 octane fuel for about 2 years in which I was consistently getting about 550km to a tank when the fuel light came on. I then switched to 98 octane Optimax from Shell for the remaining 2 and a half years I had the car for. I was then getting about 600km to a tank consistently. At that time the 98 octane fuel was only an extra 7 cents a litre, so it was nice and cheap. About $1.05 a litre Optimax was I think. I then bought a new Hyundai Getz and got 20km less economy from a tank for both fuels than what I got from the Excel. I had that car for 2 years then flogged it off. I then stupidly bought a Hyundai Santa Fe brand new in 2004. I was getting 550km to a 65 litre tank in that car whent the fuel light was on and running it on vapours with 91 octane and with 98 octane I was getting about 580km to 590km if I was extremely lucky. But the former 2 cars were light ecomocal cars. With a heavy 6 cylinder petrol 4wd loaded with torque that sucks more than twice the fuel of a small car (and that's when your driving it ecomically), you're not going to notice any change in economy with the fuel you use. I've ran both 91 octane and 98 octane in my car for long periods of time each and I couldn't tell the difference to be honest. I filled up both tanks at a time for city/suburb use for over a year straight and was getting about 1060km for both types of fuels. There may have been 10km of better economy from the 98 octane, which when driving 1060km is virtually unmeasurable. On the highway when returning from Port Douglas, I was running the 98 octane with 10% ethanol blend and I got 1140km out of both tanks before I really badly needed to get fuel. That was with a loaded boot and 2 passengers. I also did some stints of kicking the gears back and overtaking at 140km/h to get past heaps of army vehicles doing 70km/h on the highway. They were driving everyone who was caught behind them insane with the speed they were doing, but they had some vehicles with them that could only do 70km/h max. There were some very long straight roads where I had a clear run for ages and overtook 6 or 7 army Landrovers in a row and they were spaced a fair way apart. Mine's a 1998 auto 3.4L V6 model Prado by the way.

[hutcho Lurker Find all posts View Profile Close hutcho]

Re: E10 or higher

I trialled using 98 octane for 7000km. I got 520km from my main tank on my 2000 Prado Grande. I then switched to e10 and I get 560km, on the main tank. Always remember that some e10's use 95 octane while others use 91 octane.

[Hutch Addicted PP Member Find all posts View Profile Close Hutch]

Re: E10 or higher

I trialled using 98 octane for 7000km. I got 520km from my main tank on my 2000 Prado Grande. I then switched to e10 and I get 560km, on the main tank. Always remember that some e10's use 95 octane while others use 91 octane.

Hi Hutcho, nice username!! What E10 r u using?

[infraredfotografy Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close infraredfotografy]

Re: E10 or higher

since I switch to A98 from A91, I noticed a rapid change of fuel use, although I just switch to A98 within 2000km.

it was about 850km with both local and freeway from both tanks with A91 (without A/C on).
but now it is about 1000km local driving with A98 (with A/C on all time at 2 level), and I expect it will be better than it is now.

[croozza Avid PP Poster! Find all posts View Profile Close croozza]

Re: E10 or higher

Ok, Talking to a Toyota Tech guy on the weekend, we got onto the subject of E10, and what he told me was, The computer in the 90 series Prado will not know what fuel you are using as it is not that advanced, (120 seies will however), the difference in fuel usage is the burn temp, E10 will burn at a lower temp, while normal fuel or high octain fuel (without ethanol), will burn at a higher temp, this will give you a better bang so you will infact use less fuel in the city, on the highway it is a different story.
E10 fuels will actually burn slightly before the piston is at TDC, so a slight loss in power is noticed, and in city driving the fuel consupmtion is higher with E10.
So the best time to use E10 is on long highway trips, and use fuel without ethanol for city driving.
hope this helps everyone.

[teza h Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close teza h]

Re: E10 or higher

Ok, Talking to a Toyota Tech guy on the weekend, we got onto the subject of E10, and what he told me was, The computer in the 90 series Prado will not know what fuel you are using as it is not that advanced, (120 seies will however), the difference in fuel usage is the burn temp, E10 will burn at a lower temp, while normal fuel or high octain fuel (without ethanol), will burn at a higher temp, this will give you a better bang so you will infact use less fuel in the city, on the highway it is a different story.
E10 fuels will actually burn slightly before the piston is at TDC, so a slight loss in power is noticed, and in city driving the fuel consupmtion is higher with E10.
So the best time to use E10 is on long highway trips, and use fuel without ethanol for city driving.
hope this helps everyone.

Yeh! Thanks for that croozza pretty much clears it up,,,,forget the computer,it's all about the fuel.