E10 or E5 Fuel - Which Should You Choose? Which Actually Costs Less?

when I drove to Scotland in my Sportage I always had to fill up at Carlisle. When I used E5 I got way past Edinburgh - so E5 it was for long trips - far more economical. Ive also started putting E5 in my lawn mower and it runs far better

I use E5 - it gives me better mpg and charges my electrons as well. 55 mpg is easily achievable in my 2010 Honda CR-Z.

The reason it says premium fuel minimum 95 RON is because in some countries they have 91 RON fuel and 95 so 95 is considered premium in those countries and 98 super or performance

In my 30+ year old V6 Fords, the premium fuels were cheaper per mile (V-Power), despite the extra expense per litre, such was the improvement in fuel economy because of the fuel. About 15% more efficient.

4:05 I think 95 octane is considered premium because 95 octane is pretty high. There are some places where one can find fuel that is less then 95 octane, for example in Russia you can find 92 octane fuel, which also probably equivalent to US's 86 octane (because they measure them differently)

'Project Farm' who tests everything from tools to lubricants,tested this. One test was to fill two, gallon glass jars, and place Rubber, Aluminium, Plastic into each jar and leave for 3 months. The E10 components were seriously damaged, while the E5 components were undamaged. So it isn't just price. My Kawasaki ZZR1200 gets better mpg on the good stuff and components suffer less than E10.

The higher octane fuel is less resistant to knocking, therefore it is better when driving on track which puts more stress on the car - as knocking can damage the engine. Tesco momentum 99 is the go to fuel for my Twingo RS Racecar.

E10 is bad news for some vehicle as it supposedly attacks some rubber components like O-rings etc. I also understand that it more readily absorbs water, so let your vehicle stand for a while and you might be in for trouble and expensive flushing/servicing. I'm sticking to E5 thank you.

I go for E5 cause I have a classic car, 1967, along with some lead replacement additive that has some anti corrosion to make sure my engine isn't corroded from the ethanol. If you drive a modern car that is designed for E10, I'd say just go for E10. (In future I may either replace the engine or overhaul the current engine to convert to unleaded fuel, but for now with the original fuel lines and engine, I'm limited to the minimum ethanol content and lead replacement additive)

Have used E10 since it come out, had no problems at all, use it on a 2008 Honda CRV, 2000 Nissan Micra, 1989 2.0lt pinto Mk3 Transit, 2004 Honda Jazz 1.4 and my lawn mower, just changed the older engines fuel pipe for ethanol fuel, as fuel prices are all over the place can really see no big hit on mpg.

My 300hp Spanish estate car with GPF runs ok on 95. However I run it on 97/99: 95 when I have no choice. Power delivery is better, no hesitation, smoother, quieter, better low down response. Car is nicer to drive than on 95. V Power is expensive but car loves it, noticeably so. I'd love 102 RON but I don't live in Germany 😂😂😂. Admittedy when I ran a TSI 150 Leon, 99 made very little difference except for reduced hesitation at lower rpm. But in my house we have also a Seat 3 pot turbo and it flies on 99.

I know one thing for sure. Brand fuel is better than supermarket fuel. I ran my Merc on Tesco fuel for a year and it would top out at 68mpg on the way to work (20 mile motorway run), i started using Shell and over the past 3 months it's shot up to 80mpg.

Long term corrosion issue with E10 remains an unknown quantity. Personally, I would not risk it and will always choose E5 if available, no matter whether or not I save money at the pumps. A well explained, helpful and fully agreeable video.

6:13 Wiki say a T-rex was about 7 tones, if we assume 1:1 rate for "dino fuel", this driving instructor burnt thru 4 x T-Rex worth of fuel.

Thanks for such an informative, well explained video.

Great video as usual!

general rule of thumb for petrol vehicles in the last 20 years, if you use the engine daily and will use the fuel up, use E10. if you use the vehicle not so often, use E5. still down to the car owner to work out what is best for their vehicle. i prefer to use E5 in my 2021 motorbike because i get more miles to the tank, have been on a ride once or twice and had to be careful as a petrol station shut and next one touch and go if i will make it there. i also use E5 for old engines in some of the equipment i use, petrol generator, whacker plate, chainsaw, powerfab digger and so on, as none of them are new engines or fuel lines.

Finally someone doing accurate figures, instead of your average Joe on the internet who says they get 20-30% percentage better fuel economy with E5 over E10. I’ve asked countless people to explain how a 5% difference in ethanol content can make nearly as much difference in fuel usage as it would if using E85 compared to straight petrol. When using E85 it’s well documented that you need about 30% more fuel.

Very informative video, thank you.

Hello, Richard. Great video as always. Very informative and well presented. Being a bit of a car-nut myself I have done a lot of research into E10 and it's drawbacks and everything you said reflects what I have learned over the years as well. Few notes I'd like to clarify. Having E10 fuel does not mean you have less energy in fuel. Yes, it is a fact that ethanol has less energy in it. But there are nuances. Petrol/ gasoline(murica) has to conform to certain standards. One of those standards is the evaporation rate of the fuel. Usually petrol is blended from refineries from lighter blendstock. This means the molecules are lighter and the density of the fuel is on the lower side. In EU the density of petrol/gasoline(murica) is supposed to be between 0.720 and 0775. And from my experience, usually, the ethanol free or even E5 comes in at around 0.730 kg/l @15c. This density usually satisfies the evaporation requirements as well. But when ethanol gets blended into petrol some chemical magic happens and the evaporation rates go up. To counter that, the blendstock for E10 petrol has to be on the heavier side and usually the E10 petrol density is at around 0.750 or more. Even when accounting the denser ethanol, the basic petrol before blending has to be at around 0.740-0.745. Why is this important? It's because density is the actual measurement of how much energy per liter of fuel you're really getting. The denser the fuel, the more you get. Granted, to make 98 octane fuel, the blendstock also has to be on the denser side. My experience shows that 98 E5 usually comes in at around 0.74 - 0.745. So even if you're getting the 98 octane with less ethanol, it will not guarantee at all that you are getting more energy from your fuel. I have also inspected a lot of dyno test results that are available over the interwebs. Even youtube videos are a great resource for that kind of information. Quick recap - E10 fuel usually makes very similar top power and torque compared to 98 or more premium fuels. There's a lot of murican test data available where they use their 87 octane E10 fuels, which would be equivalent of european 92 octane fuel and make similar power to racing fuels or 98 octane fuels. This is especially true for normal everyday cars. Yes, race cars and tuned engines will make a bigger difference on higher octane fuels but it's a moot point because none of us are using race engines in our everyday driving. Ah, yes. Ethanol is a great octane enhancer. Usually our european E10 fuels come with octane rating of 96 or more. I have had 95 E10 that had RON rating of 97.8. How do I know that? I am fairly confident that this is EU wide, but in my country the fuel retailer is required to present you with a fuel test certificate upon request. So I request it fairly often to see what I'm getting. Since I'm a lazy bastard I never go to the fuel station. Instead I e-mail the retailer's customer service and request a fuel certificate for an automated fuel station ( you know, the ones with no shop, just a card machine to pay for fuel ). They are required to e-mail me the certificate. I have a nice database of the 5 major fuel retailers fuel specs and quality in my country ( small country, not many fuel terminals. Data shows they all get their fuel at the same place one time or the other ). Final note - I have also logged my car's fuel consumption in over 100 000 kilometres. I have used E10 and ethanol free 95 and 98 E5. 98 performs the worst in fuel economy. E10 performs the best. Differences are minor and negligible. Basically a rounding error. So there's that :)