My personal thesis on the negative effects of ethanol

[+subby1]

Just this season alone, I am seeing things never seen before....problems resulting from ethanol in outdoor power equipment-

 

PART 1- PROBLEMS WITH ETHANOL

 

1. Scaling- this ia a problem that is now occurring with the ethanol in today's gasoline. "Scaling" is what we refer to as a film of junk that is lining plastic gas tanks on riding and push mowers. I have used every method known to clean the tanks, yet, as the scaling erodes into the fuel, it sinks to the lowest level- at the carburetor. If I take the gas line off the carb and let it flow out, there's about 1-2 oz of what I call "tea" (darkened gasoline) that will flow out after only one night of the machine sitting with a full tank. SOLUTION?? After you finish using your mower for this season, DRAIN every drop of gas from the tank (and dispose of in a proper manner).

 

2. Screen mesh "melting". This is the first year I have ever seen this. On small 2-stroke engines (weed eaters, blowers, (anything that runs on oil mixed with gas) there is a small screen that filters out particulates inside these very small carburetors. Well, we are pulling out screens this year that you cannot see light through. The screen mesh is actually melting into a single metal disk that is blocking out the gas flow. It used to be trash or gum that could easily be cleaned, but now it's turning the screens into a solid piece of metal, that obstructs fuel from ever entering into the carburetor. Bad stuff, folks!!

 

3. Rubber or synthetic rubber parts are being eat up by the effects of ethanol. While most automobiles have are now using synthetic rubbers that are not affected by this, small engines are NOT. The parts are the same as they were 10-20 years ago. The needles and seats that control fuel flow into the carburetor are swelling which restricts fuel flow. This is probably 95% of carb problems we fix on a daily basis. SOLUTION- always use a good stabilizer in your outdoor fuel cans, unless you are fortunate enough to find ethanol-free gasoline. Good luck with that!

 

4. Ethanol allows WATER and moisture into the fuel. This causes problems not only in carburetors, but also allows the water to rust and ruin the piston rings, which ruins the entire engine. I am seeing LOTS of 2-stroke engines come into the shop with very few hours on them, only to find scored and scratched up cylinder walls. At first, I thought this was a case of people not using enough oil to mix with the gas, which will quickly destroy a 2 cycle engine. However, through much research, I have found this is also a case of rust building up because water can bind with the ethanol and creates rust. Imagine taking a nice, smooth cylinder and scratching it all up with sand paper. This is what rust does. SOLUTION? Use the stabilizer as mentioned, and drain the tanks before storing over the winter.

 

PART 2- WHAT TO BUY?

 

If you are in the market for new outdoor equipment, BUYER BEWARE!!

Rule of thumb is still consistent as always- YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR!!-

 

If you find a Ryobi weed eater at Wally World for $100, expect it to last for about half a season. Before I took a trip to the scrap yard, my back yard was FULL of these cheaply built junkers. Some lasted only 5 minutes before a meltdown. If the pull cord breaks, you may as well toss it in the trash, because these cheap machines are built in such a way as to keep your friendly small engine mechanic spending up to 2 hours on simply replacing the pull cord. Choose an Echo or Stihl product (or equivalent) for your weed eating and blower needs. The pull cord assembly is attached solely to the back of the unit, making a re-string a snap. The cheaper versions require tearing the entire machine apart, just to replace something as simple as a pull cord. This IS intentional by the manufacturer, as it forces you to buy another piece of junk from them, since the labor costs more to fix than to buy another one. Incidentally, Glenn's Mower & Small Engine Repair will be phasing out the replacements on broken pull cords. It take more time to fix this problem than to perform a full carburetor rebuild, by another 30% in time/labor costs.

 

Also understand that 90+% of all weed eaters, blowers, and other handheld units are all made by the SAME company. Once you remove the pretty plastic cover, underneath lies the identical same machines as Craftsman, Poulan, Snapper, Ryobi, Weed Eater, and many other brands on the market. This also applies to most push mowers and riding mowers....almost solely owned my a company called MTD. Even great names like ECHO have given third world countries the license to build their lower line products (mostly hand-held units), so in the end, when you think you just bought a great name product, there's a high probability that you just paid for a name, only to receive the same cheap junk as the others I mentioned.

 

Outdoor equipment over the past few years has become a monopoly for 1 or 2 major companies, although they have purchased the names of what used to be known as the best in brands. They simply use the names, then slap on a pretty colored plastic hood or cowl that most Americans view as "cool or sleek" in design. IN the end, they are mostly all the exact same junk. This applies to mowers, chainsaws, trimmers, blowers, etc.

 

I hope this information will help the consumer in choosing a product that is service friendly, and known to last a long time. Should you need my personal assistance in helping you out, I am simply one PM away!

 

Glenn

Glenn's Mower & Small Engine Repair

678-315-8794

[rockster]

On board with that. Bought some fuel stabilizer to add to my gas tanks for either riding mower, trimmers and such, MUCH less marine engines

[+subby1]

On board with that. Bought some fuel stabilizer to add to my gas tanks for either riding mower, trimmers and such, MUCH less marine engines

 

Marine engine mechanics saw this before we did, by about a year or so. Plus marine engines are a bit more complex, and require more labor, so they are the ones screaming the loudest. Imagine what 5% MORE of this crap will do???? (E-15, coming soon!)

[Sugail]

Thanks for the info.

[+subby1]

From a mechanic's standpoint, as far as gaining more business, this would be in our favor. From a decent man's view (as a small engine mechanic myself) I think it's only FAIR to share this info with the consumer. I may lose some work over it, but I would rather have REAL work than jobs that come in, knowing that the consumer had no idea. BTW, my policy is to educate every customer on the pitfalls before they leave my shop. While I love having their business, it gets worrisome when I have to fix the same machines every year because of this. It's not fair to the customer, but I can't warranty work over 30 days because of this problem, and a few others I elaborated on earlier.

 

In other words, I KNOW my business and this trade all too well. So, it makes us look bad when people don't adhere to our advice. It's not our fault that these problems are becoming so common....it's the crappy gasoline that the customer has no control over. STA-BIL is a great product. People should use it, religiously!! It counters the problems associated with what I am talking about, by converting the ethanol into a different substance on the molecular level, by making it innate, at the least, or by helping it bind to the actual gasoline. Either way...converting the ethanol into something else that does not allow water vapor to enter into the system.

 

Perhaps, I should post some good links for those of you who want to know the "rocket science" behind all of this....? Good idea.

[Thoughts from the Evil Galaxy]

What you're seeing Subby is part and parcel with what's going on with nearly all products made and sold today. It's becoming nearly impossible to work on your own car these days because they have been engineered to fail at certain points AND been machined to make it too difficult or expensive to either repair by the consumer or simply be cheaper to replace rather than repair. It cost me $2500 dollars to replace the transmission in my truck and come to find out that all the transmissions in my trucks brand fail at 75000 miles. They can't be repaired unless you pay triple the amount in labor, it's cheaper to just replace it. I can't even change the spark plugs or the break pads on my truck because you must have special tools to remove those items and they only sell the tools to licensed mechanics...

 

Another gimmick that's coming down the line involves tires. The auto companies want to rig the lug nuts so people can't change their own tires, you'll HAVE to call a tow truck and take it to a tire place that has the specialized wrenches to remove it. Then the tire company (they do this with the spark plugs as I found out) will only replace your tires with premium tires (for your "safety" of course) or they won't change the tire. Just one more thing to make Americans wail in dispair...

 

Now how about to the creepy crawly front. Bug spray. Anybody notice how the store brand stuff just doesn't work like it use to? That's because the people who make the store brand stuff also make the professional stuff. The Pest/Exterminator Industry got the manufacturers of the pesticides to water down the consumer stuff to the point of ineffectiveness so people would have to call the bug man more to keep the bugs out of the house. The average consumer can't buy the professional strength stuff in the store, they have to have a license. So either pay the pest guy his over inflated prices or get overrun with ants and roaches...

 

...and to add insult to injury. All of the aforementioned products are manufactured overseas at rockbottom/slave wage prices to insure maximum profits for these f*%king bastards... Insane... :angry2:

[AcworthDad]

What you're seeing Subby is part and parcel with what's going on with nearly all products made and sold today. It's becoming nearly impossible to work on your own car these days because they have been engineered to fail at certain points AND been machined to make it too difficult or expensive to either repair by the consumer or simply be cheaper to replace rather than repair. It cost me $2500 dollars to replace the transmission in my truck and come to find out that all the transmissions in my trucks brand fail at 75000 miles. They can't be repaired unless you pay triple the amount in labor, it's cheaper to just replace it. I can't even change the spark plugs or the break pads on my truck because you must have special tools to remove those items and they only sell the tools to licensed mechanics...

 

Another gimmick that's coming down the line involves tires. The auto companies want to rig the lug nuts so people can't change their own tires, you'll HAVE to call a tow truck and take it to a tire place that has the specialized wrenches to remove it. Then the tire company (they do this with the spark plugs as I found out) will only replace your tires with premium tires (for your "safety" of course) or they won't change the tire. Just one more thing to make Americans wail in dispair...

 

Now how about to the creepy crawly front. Bug spray. Anybody notice how the store brand stuff just doesn't work like it use to? That's because the people who make the store brand stuff also make the professional stuff. The Pest/Exterminator Industry got the manufacturers of the pesticides to water down the consumer stuff to the point of ineffectiveness so people would have to call the bug man more to keep the bugs out of the house. The average consumer can't buy the professional strength stuff in the store, they have to have a license. So either pay the pest guy his over inflated prices or get overrun with ants and roaches...

 

...and to add insult to injury. All of the aforementioned products are manufactured overseas at rockbottom/slave wage prices to insure maximum profits for these f*%king bastards... Insane... :angry2:

 

I've never had a problem with lug nuts and while I have had tranny problems, they have always been after a lot of miles.

 

Maybe your problems are unique.

[Canyon Ridge Gal]

Just had to have my Mother's Kawanski Mule rebuilt, mechanic said the ethanol was the culprit. It is bad that you can't really buy anything but the stuff. Thank you government regs.

[AcworthDad]

Just had to have my Mother's Kawanski Mule rebuilt, mechanic said the ethanol was the culprit. It is bad that you can't really buy anything but the stuff. Thank you government regs.

 

Ethanol being forced on us by the ignoramuses in congress and the EPA is just one more reason to evict the government out of our lives and our individually determined well being.

[Thoughts from the Evil Galaxy]

I've never had a problem with lug nuts and while I have had tranny problems, they have always been after a lot of miles.

 

Maybe your problems are unique.

 

The lug nut issue hasn't come to pass yet. That was from a watchdog group.

 

My transmission went out at 68,000 miles. I started researching the issue to get an idea on how much the thing would cost to fix and I was surprise on how many times the transmissions were failing. I came upon complaint after complaint about Dodge transmissions. The guy I had the transmission changed at told me about the engineering of the series and how it was cheaper to replace the whole thing rather than try to repair it. He said he was covered over with business. It's not just the trucks. The mini vans are the same way. Some believe it was deliberately engineered that way to keep parts and tranmissions flowing from the company.

 

My problems are far from unique...

[T2CUTTER]

Thanks for the info Subby, Just had to replace the gas tank on my John Deere lawn mower couple of weeks ago.

It had a hair line seam come loose in the bottom of the tank and I wondered why and this must be it.

$70.00 for tank and they said they have sold 5 or 6 this year so far.

[smitty]

I tried to "Promote to Article" but I got this message: "[#10CCS6] You do not have permission to promote posts to articles."

 

[+subby1]

Thanks for the info Subby, Just had to replace the gas tank on my John Deere lawn mower couple of weeks ago.

It had a hair line seam come loose in the bottom of the tank and I wondered why and this must be it.

$70.00 for tank and they said they have sold 5 or 6 this year so far.

 

Folks, before you drop a load of money on something like a gas tank for a mower, please check with me first. A used (but still good) tank from me would have cost you around $20. This is in part by the helpful people on pcom who have me come haul their broken mowers off their lots. They get the thing out of their way, and in many cases, it provides good, used parts for my customers.

 

Ethanol being forced on us by the ignoramuses in congress and the EPA is just one more reason to evict the government out of our lives and our individually determined well being.

 

That's why I encourage every one to use a good product like STA-BIL in their gas. I have been using it ever since this began, and all of my equipment starts on the first pull or turn of the key, even after sitting all Winter long. It DOES work!! Use it!!

[ridge rd retiree]

Thanks, I appreciate you sharing this info with us . I also appreciate the responses

[+subby1]

Thanks, I appreciate you sharing this info with us . I also appreciate the responses

 

You're welcome! While these problems keep us busy, I would much rather fix REAL problems, than to have to rebuild someone's carb every single year because of this. It's not fair to the customers, so as long as they follow the simple rules and solutions, this can be avoided. You don't have to travel to AL or Milledgeville and buy E-free gas...just use the stabilizer. And DRAIN the tanks at the end of every season to avoid the scaling problem on the tanks.

[SouthernScarlett]

Thanks Subby for giving me the info: on the STA-BIL today. I will be getting some for sure.