Last year the UK government decided that ?standard? premium unleaded petrol would go from being E5 to E10; that?s to say it would have an ethanol content of 10%, rather than the previous 5%. The expectation is that it should cut CO2 emissions by 700,000 tonnes. At the same time though, it has the potential to damage the fuel systems in thousands of older road vehicles; cars, bikes, the lot. In short, it?s because ethanol?s quite an aggressive solvent, so the higher ethanol content in E10 fuel can, if left, dissolve materials. Things like rubber hoses, o-rings, plastic parts and certain soft metals. Or that?s what we?re lead to believe.

Because, of course, you can still purchase the lower content E5 petrol, in the form of the higher octane ?super unleaded?. But of course that?s usually a good 10% more expensive.
But do we really need to" Does the extra 50ml of ethanol per litre of fuel really make a difference" Or is it just scare tactics from the government and the petrochemical industry who both stand to gain massive amounts of revenue when everyone with a 20 year old + car switches to the more expensive super unleaded fuel"

I?m keen to find out, so I?m going to conduct my own little experiment.

Hypothesis

My hypothesis is that although chemically, E10 fuel has the potential to be more harmful to a range of materials, in practice the difference between E5 and E10 won?t be great enough to cause any significant effect to anything that it mig...