I am writing this blog post, “Warning To Women About E85 Gasoline”, because women probably need to be warned about this the most.  All of the women’s magazines like Cosmopolitan, Elle, Vanity Fair, and Vogue should periodically have articles on this subject, but they don’t.

Women, please don’t make the mistake of putting E85 gasoline in your car.  At a gas station, they will sometimes have E85 gasoline directly beside the regular gasoline that you normally put in your vehicle, but they shouldn’t, because it is too easy for there to be a mistake.

E85 is not exactly gasoline, it is about 15% gasoline, the other 85% is ethanol.  Ethanol is very corrosive and destructive to rubber fuel hoses, rubber seals, and engine parts made of aluminum and magnesium.  Putting E85 in your vehicle fuel tank, can cause a great amount of damage to your vehicle.

Whether you have an $80,000 Mercedes, a $40,000 Chevy Suburban, or an $8,000 Honda, you can ruin the engine in your vehicle by accidentally fueling it with E85 at a gas station.

Here are some important things to remember:

1. Do not put E85 fuel in your vehicle.
2. If you do begin putting E85 fuel in your vehicle, stop as soon as you realize it.
3. If you have put E85 fuel in your vehicle, don’t start it.  Call your husband, boyfriend, father, or mechanic.

Some of the solutions to accidentally putting E85 in your vehicle:

1. If there is any room left in your vehicle’s fuel tank, adding as much regular gasoline as possible to the tank to dilute the E85.  Then driving the vehicle immediately in order to be able to add 2 gallons of regular gasoline at a time, to dilute the E85 more and more.
2. Siphoning all or most of the E85 fuel out of the tank, and adding regular gasoline.

The sooner that you get the E85 fuel out of your vehicle, the better.  The worst thing to do, would be to let this fuel stay in your vehicle for more than a week.

E85 fuel, which is 85% ethanol, is only supposed to be used in vehicles that have been manufactured and labelled as “Flex Fuel” vehicles.  These “Flex Fuel” vehicles, have special fuel hoses and engine components that can handle the ethanol without deteriorating.

Sometimes, even engineers and mechanics, have made the mistake of putting E85 in their vehicles because they weren’t paying attention, and it is right there with the regular gas at the pump.  They soon realized what they had done, were horrified, and quickly tried to correct this mistake, because it can be so damaging to an engine.

But the people who are even more susceptible to making this mistake are teenagers, inexperienced drivers, women, and the elderly, because they might not have any idea how damaging 85% ethanol can be to an engine.

If steps are taken immediately, to continuously dilute the E85 fuel by adding regular gasoline every time the fuel tank can hold another two gallons, this is probably the least expensive and adequate solution to fixing this problem.