Stopped at the Wexford (north of Pittsburgh, Pa) GetGo station and filled a blend of around E22 today in my stock 2005 Escape Hybrid. The spread of 04% ($2.55 E85-$2.65 E0) was terrible but this the closest E85 pump (almost 27 miles) to my location. After resettiing my scanguage II and Ford trip odometer I drove home. My Ford dash reading indicated a 33.2 mpg average (mid 40F temperatures) which is no different than driving on E0. I later had to run some errands and drove no longer than five miles at a time dropping my mileage for the day to 31.8 mpg. Short trips do drop mileage. Of course a better figure is to compare cost per mile of E0 with E20.

I image some of you are asking how I determine the percent of ethanol blending in my tank. I normally figure for every 10% increase in ethanol blending, the scanguage II LFT increases 4.5 points. Even simplier math is to just double the LFT values by 2. Today's scanguage II long term fuel trim hung around +10-12.5 during steady state driving on level sections.

I have been using ethanol blends in my FEH for nearly two years now. I normally attempt to have between E20-E30 blends but because of the lack of local E85 pumps I sometimes can not fill my vehicle with these blends. This does mean I sometimes will bring a "red" Jerry Can to the E85 pumps and transport E85 back home for use.

It is interesting to note, a published study out of Minnesota utilize two vehicles identical to mine and found no difference between E0 and E20 for mileage. This year long study also included other cars and trucks with similar findings.