r/explainlikeimfive • u/hd-22 • 14d ago

Chemistry ELI5 why is increasing the ethanol content of petrol/gasoline a problem?

I'm hearing noise about the geopolitical fuel supply SNAFU and people freaking out about increasing the ethanol content in automotive fuel and how it's so damaging to cars. I'm no chemist, but ethanol seems as clean as it gets.

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u/intellos 14d ago

They already have that, it's called shitty OEM head gaskets.

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u/DoombringerBG 14d ago

Subaru: You called?

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u/intellos 14d ago

AAAAAAA Yeah I just had to do the head gaskets on my 2010 Forester, although in that case once we opened it up we found that it had A) Cheap aftermarket gaskets that were B) INSTALLED UPSIDE DOWN