E85 isn't for all vehicles, drivers are finding out

Motorists have learned to distinguish between the green diesel fuel nozzle and the black gasoline nozzle. But newcomer yellow is apparently confusing some drivers.

Colorado Springs’ latest E85 pumps, wearing bright yellow signs saying, “Stop! Not Gasoline!” opened this week at two Western Convenience stores. Not everyone filling up, though, has a flexible-fuel vehicle — the only vehicles the alternative fuel is designed for.

“We’ve seen people with older cars using it, and mainly newer cars are flex-fuel vehicles,” said Michelle McCarville, a manager at the Western Convenience on East Platte Avenue.

Employees try to catch the uninformed and hand out booklets explaining what E85 is, she said. E85 is a mixture of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline that should only be pumped into cars that have had the necessary engine and fuel-system modifications. Vehicle owners’ manuals indicate whether a vehicle can use E85 fuel.

A wide range of compacts, sport-utility vehicles and trucks made from model year 2000 and later are designated as flex-fuel. The U.S. Department of Energy estimates 5 million have been sold in the United States. For a list, see www.eere.energy.gov/ethanol.

“One guy said it didn’t do anything to his car, and it is a lot cheaper,” McCarville said.

The lower cost of E85 catches drivers’ eyes. At Western Convenience, E85 was selling for $2.09 a gallon Friday. Regular unleaded was priced at $2.75 a gallon and premium at $2.95 a gallon.

But E85 should not be used in cars that aren’t supposed to run on it, said Denny Lauer, owner of Acacia Park Service Center in downtown Colorado Springs.

“Ethanol will damage the engine of a vehicle not designed for flex fuel,” he said.

There was also confusion at the first pump Pester Marketing Co. opened in Colorado, in Aurora, said Renee Shellhorse, spokeswoman for the Greenwood Village-based company that owns Farm Crest 1st Stop stores.

“It won’t hurt your car the first go-around, if you do make a mistake, but you don’t want to do it on a regular basis,” Shellhorse said.

The company now installs plastic attachments on pump nozzles that alert the user that the product is not gasoline. Some of the E85 pumps at Farm Crest 1st Stop stores are separate fuel dispensers bearing pictures of corn, which ethanol is made of, and are not included in the same island as gasoline and diesel.

The number of ethanol pumps is slowly increasing in Colorado Springs. For six years, the city had only one E85 pump, at the Acorn Food Store at South Eighth and Cimarron streets. Gov. Bill Ritter’s initiative to add up to 40 new pumps throughout the state this year has resulted in more E85 outlets.

Still, some people aren’t aware of what the more environmentally friendly fuel is, said Eric Liebold, Chief Petroleum sales consultant. Chief Petroleum opened an E85 pump about a month ago.

“We’ve had a lot of people who have called and don’t know anything about it,” he said.

Sales have been steadily increasing at local stations that offer E85. Sales doubled overnight from 60 gallons the first day to 123 gallons the following day at the Platte Avenue Western Convenience, McCarville said.

The two Farm Crest 1st Stop stores in Colorado Springs that carry E85 are selling about 500 gallons a day, Shellhorse said, compared with about 6,000 gallons a day in gasoline.

CONTACT THE WRITER: 636-0235 or debbie.kelley@gazette.com