Driving from California to Kentucky my check engine light came on. I thought nothing of it. When I pulled in to KY, I had the dealership check it out. Turns out, my catalytic converter is dead. Since the car has only 87k miles on it, the dealer will probably pick up the tab.
The dealer said a potential cause of the failure was the ethanol in the gas in California. Is this even remotely possible? From what I saw, there were plenty of Accords in Cali. Any Cali drivers care to chime in?
I don't live in Cali. but there are several places in the U.S. where there is oxygenated gas - not sure if we in the N.E. have switched from MTBE yet. Gasohol with 10% ethanol is approved by Honda and in itself could not damage a catalytic converter, IMO. There have been problems with gasohol:
even in storage tanks it pulls humidity out of the air - this is the reason the refiners add it in at the bulk plant load point along with the additive package.
First, ethanol has a high octane number, of approximately 111 for blending purposes, so it contributes greatly to the octane number of the final gasohol blend. If any water from humidity, or other source, gets above ~0.6% (depending on temperature and petroleum components) of the gasohol blend, the water separates out and takes most of the alcohol with it... leaving you with a much depleted octane number of the remaining petroleum portion of the gasohol. We're talking about 3-4points of octane loss, which could lead to serious combustion problems.
Note also that the tendency for water to separate increases as temperature goes down - it's more like 0.1% at 0°F IIRC so, e.g. if you did the trip over the mountains on Cali gasohol obtained at sea-level, the water could have separated as you drive. Did you have any drivability problems during the journey? Your car would, of course, try to compensate for any possible knock but 4 points is a lot to lose for octane
There is lots of controvery on gasohol at present. E.g. it is known that many (especially older) gas station tanks have water in them at the bottom and of course this can pull ethanol out of the delivered gasohol. Depending on how busy the gas station is, how often it gets deliveries, setttling time allowed and the level of the tank when you buy, IMO there is a serious increase in the risk of getting "bad gas" recently.
To sum up, the gasohol in itself is not the problem directly, the delivery system might have been but you can help yourself by being careful about your choice of gas station: stay away from stations which are down in a valley where the water table could be near the surface, stay away from off-brands unless you know the place is supplied from a reputable refiner, stay away from old places which could have old tanks with accumulated water in them and hope that you buy at the optimal time following a delivery. It's also not a bad idea to shove a bottle of (anhydrous) isopropanol based gas "drier" in your gas tank from time to time... even if not Winter.
I'll add my own semi-political(?) point here: the whole oxygenated gasoline thing is a fraud perpetrated by bureaucrats and their "scientist" cronies... with very little in the way of real scientific fact to back it up, in the way of measured reduction in airborne pollutants. The fact that it was "suddenly" discovered that MTBE was a serious hazard, from spills into the aquifers, speaks volumes on the competence of those involved in this scam. The fact that it takes ~70% more energy to produce a gallon of biomass-based anhydrous ethanol than you get back from it when burned is simply a reflection of the D.C. pork barrel (the name Daschle comes to mind) at work. Hell there's a reason that they have ethanol plants in petrochemical facilities - it's umm, cheaper to produce the stuff from petroleum... but still more expensive than to produce gasoline. "Environmentally friendly" ain't what people think it is!....
<harrrumph>
Rgds, George Macdonald
"Just because they're paranoid doesn't mean you're not psychotic" - Who, me??
