Engine Problem with Alcohol???

[Frank P]

I have been driving a couple of years 50/50 on my wife's Olds, and then got a 2000 Toyota Camry that I converted less than a year ago, all running great with no problems.

About 5 or 6 months ago a friend with an early 2000's Saturn started using a blend, building up by one gallon each fill-up until she reached 50/50 mix.  Last week as she was driving to work on the freeway her engine lost a lot of power and ran rough.  She took it to the dealer (her mechanic) and they told her that some valve/sensor was plugged up with carbon, and replaced it for over $600.  Then it was still not good so they check compression and found that two of the 4 cyl were low compression.  The car does have high miles, but I can not think that Alcohol had anything to do with the compression problem, but wanted to check with you to see if there is any way it could.  If it was gradual it would be more understandable, but it happened all at once.

Thanks for your wisdom.  Oh, she took it to a friend of a friend that is an honest mechanic who is rebuilding the engine for just under $3,000.  I told her now she needs to go ahead and get the conversion kit and I will install it for her.

Thanks again for any thoughts any of you mechanics have on this problem,

Frank

[Jeffre W Lindow]

If alcohol had anything to do with this it was probably that which was consumed by her mechanic. LOL. Did they check the fuel system? Alcohol has two characteristics that can have a negative effect on a system. It is not a good lubricant, and it is a great cleaning agent. We, just yesterday, had to put a new fuel pump in our 2004 Sebring. We usually run between 20 and 50% ethanol so it would be easy to pin the blame on that. Reality is that lots of them have the same problem at about the same mileage and 50% gasoline should be enough for lubrication. The manufacturer says its common. Attached is a picture of the thing we had to replace. What we needed was the pump. It only comes as a module with the filter, the gas gage sending unit, the presure regulator and the float. And the whole thing is inside the gas tank.

Let us know what happens