I got E-10 woes with "Charlotte"- water in gas and looking for a permanent fix!

Hello Mike,

I'm originally from IL where they have been selling E-10 since the 80's and I never had a running problem with any of my vehicles. It's humid as hell there too. I always bought name brand fuel and skipped the budget stuff. BUT, metal gas tanks would rot out pretty quickly there and rust in the filter, fuel pick-up sock and carb were a yearly maintenance issue.

Here in Colorado, they were using 10% MTBE but then they found that the stuff is deadly poisonous and doesn't degrade......ever. It's worse than lead, so it's back to 10% ethanol. The good thing is that it's dry as a witch's tit here in the southwest so water absorbtion isn't a big problem. Here's another big BUT though.... My truck will ping (10.2:1 CR) with 91 octane from the budget places but NOT from a Shell or Phillips 66. The price difference for a 28 gallon fill up is really less than 3 bucks so lesson learned. Get your fuel from a name brand place and pull your carb and check for water at the bottom of the float bowls.

On another note, my ex fiances' BMW X3 check engine light came on after a fill up from a no name truck stop on the way back from Kansas. She's a BMW master tech and hooked it up to the computer at work and found a bunch of lean codes (water in the fuel). She flushed the fuel system and filled it up with premium from the local Shell and no more problems..