Flex Fuel

While I was out and about in Sacramento today, I saw E85 Flex Fuel at the Shell station. My daily driver is a 2005 Chevy Avalanche which is supposed to take the Flex Fuel but I have never seen it available before. Has anyone out there tried it? Have you gotten better or worse mileage or performance? It was $1.99/gal so there is some significant savings if it has similar performance to regular gas. Inquiring minds need to know!!

"A gallon of E85 results in 81,800 Btu's per gallon. The identical amount of regular unleaded fuel (typical) provides 114,100 Btu's. This is why you will experience less power and worse MPG running on ethanol versus reg. unleaded fuel."

It is fine for around town possibly or even highway. The POWER may not be an issue depending upon your set-up but it really needs to be quite less expensive to really be worth it in "my previous set-up."

Marybeth, I use E-85 in my minivan. Well, not all the time but only when the price of regular unleaded gets too high, Like it is right now. E-85 is 15% regular unleaded and 85% ethenal and is 105 octaine. I loose about 2 MPG using it, but If I save 70 cents per gallon it is worth using. 18 MPG verses 20 MPG will save about $8 in 300 miles. In our cold winter months here in Wisconsin it is a little hard starting when the temps go below about 10. That should not be an issue in Cali. You have nothing to lose by running a few tanks full and testing for yourself.
Let us know the results.
Peace
Dave

We did a study on using flex fuels in police cars and determined it was not worth it. Not only did we lose power, the cost savings wasn't there when you figure in lower mileage.