ethanol blame game on plastic

[pdxrmccgs]

Ducati owners cry! Does ethanol effect anything on the GS?

Excerpt of letter sent to MC Consumer News
From http://ducati.ms.com
"I own a 2006 Ducati Paul Smart 1000 which I purchased new in 2006. The bike is suffering from deformation of the fuel tank, most likely due to the ethanol intolerance of the polymer used to mold the tank. The top surface of the tank has become dimpled and the tank's shape has twisted such that its two front mounting points have lifted out of their brackets--leaving the front of the tank essentially unsecured to the bike. This is not a safe situation, and it is not what we expect to see in the most visible component of an expensive motorcycle.

Hundreds of owners of Ducati Sport Classics and some other Ducati models with plastic fuel tanks have reported similar problems. I attach here 2 links to the ducati.ms website, where there there has been a very active discussion underway on this problem for several year

The supplier to Ducati of these fuel tanks is Acerbis, and while no official explanation has been issued by the company, it seems likely that either someone at Ducati or someone at Acerbis forgot that US riders are stuck using fuel blended with as much as 10% ethanol. Thus they didn't ensure that the polymer formulation used in the tanks was tolerant of ethanol in the fuel, and the tanks experienced swelling and twisting as a result. Sport Classic owners in Australia, where no ethanol is used in gasoline, are not reporting these problems, suggesting that this may indeed be the explanation."

[smartin108]

Soon going to 15%

[schuppi]

Hello

>>Ducati owners cry! Does ethanol effect anything on the GS?<<

That shouldn't be a problem for our bikes. Happy to be a BMW owner.

Read this statement from BMW-Motorrad Germany to use E10.


The E10 fuel was introduced in the U.S. in 1998.
We could attest directly, because of the long-term experience with the bio fuel, the E10 capability of BMW motorcycles .
The analysis of recent field experience and further research by our engine development have also shown that all BMW
motorcycles of all model years can be operated with E10 fuel .



At least the engine required octane number (RON) are observed.

[Hennepinboy]

Ethanol ate the fuel tank for my B&S powered Snapper lawnmower, the fuel line for my Poulan chain saw, the oil injections system for my 30hp Johnson outboard, and the BMW braided fuel lines on the 92 R100GS. I now pay the premium price for fuel without ethanol for all my small engines.

Thank you our friends at Archer Daniels Midland and Cargill for giving us this wonderful fuel additive.

[marc]

Then how come folks in California haven't been having similar issues in any large numbers? There was a fuel line issue on various vehicles when MTBE was first used as an oxygenate. Not much since. Once in a while you hear of the problem. But with over 30 million registered vehicles you'd think ethanol problems would show up here in a major way. Hasn't happened.

[pdxrmccgs]

Marc has an excellent point. According to consumer reports
peeps are seeing a big engine/small engine dichotomy.

http://blogs.consumerreports.org/hom...r-engines.html

Warning...contains graphic picture