Not an Ethanol fuel bash, a question

[desy]

Can vehicles still freeze up with Ethanol blended fuels.
During these winter cold snaps have heard of a few guys with vehicles that won't start however they turn over fine etc.
Wait until the next day or have added fuel by Jerry can to the tank and voila they start no issue.
I thought ethanol killed gas line freezing problems or do you its something else?

 

[LTC8K6]

Ethanol makes it harder to start in the cold. I wouldn't think 10% would make much of a difference, but 85% would.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel#Engine_cold_start_during_the_winter

You will often see ethanol powered vehicles with a small gasoline tank for starting the engine when it's cold out, I think below about 60F, it can become a problem with pure ethanol.

Ethanol also absorbs water.

Note that the new ethanol engines in Brazil that don't require the small gasoline tank are simply flex fuel vehicles.

 

[JulesMaximus]

Come on, let's bash ethanol.

I hate that stuff... it's the devil.

 

[desy]

Yes this would be your typical E5 E10 stuff not E85

No bashing! been done
In fact the one was the car started they drove off and it died like half a block so it looks just like a fuel line block but not possible?

 

[LTC8K6]

Could be moisture in the fuel. You could try some fuel line anti-freeze like HEET or ISO HEET.

 

[darkswordsman17]

Another thing to check is oil. Due to family I've unfortunately seen a couple instances of low oil coupled with very low temps keeping an engine from running.

A few years back they had a big screwup when the state (or maybe it was just the city) switched to biofuel and, I'm not sure exactly what the deal was, but they didn't have the proper "winter agent" to put in, so a cold front comes through and a big snow storm and they couldn't get the snowplows going.