Posted: September 14 2006 at 12:03 | IP Logged

In about a month it will be time to take poor Trogdor into storage, and I had an interesting conversation with the service manager at Marine Max. 

He said that Mercury was suggesting the use of a new product that would stabilize the ethanol in metal gas tanks, and that they were still suggesting that owners fill their tanks before winter to deter moisture.  Earlier in the year they were seriously considering having people empty their tanks for storage.

However, if you have a fiberglass tank, they are recomending that you drain the gas tank this year, because of the problems last winter with ethanol eating into the gas tanks!

The E-10 mixture breaks down into water and reduced octane gas in a very short amount of time, which is really nasty for your engine.  Boating World had a great article on that recently, and suggests that you add Startron Octane booster to keep the separation from happening.  The old Stabil doesn't work on ethanol, and they also have a new product supposedly coming out (like Mercury's) to specifically stabilize E-10.

The other disturbing comment from the service manager had to do with E-25 gas being sold next year.  Mercury has already told them that it will void any warranty if E-25 is used.  So watch out!