Car killing fuel mix

Whenever you buy gasoline for your car, chances are you buy fuel that has 10% Ethanol mixed in with the gasoline. What many car owners don’t realize is that this cocktail mix can be destructive for your car. Yes there have been a number of car owners who have experienced minor to major problems with their cars and after days of pulling their hair and cursing the car manufacturers, many owners receive the evaluation that their car was ruined by “Panis na gasolina” or spoiled gasoline.

Most of these cars especially the rarely driven — expensive models are all built so well that you can diagnose the entire car just by plugging them into lap tops running analytic programs. Unfortunately they are not made to “drink’ or operate on “poison”.

In case you’re wondering, the poison I’m referring to is the result when you leave an ethanol/gasoline mix in your gas tank for more than a week. According to several experienced individuals in motoring here and abroad, the ethanol separates from the petroleum product when left standing. The ethanol will then bond or attract any humidity introduced by air bubbles during the pumping process, thereby becoming acidic. In other words your petroleum has now deteriorated.

The minute you run your engine the foul fuel will foul up your computerized fuel delivery system, contaminate your fuel lines and essentially have the same results as mixing water with your gasoline or worse. In the old days of carbureted cars, all you would need to do is dismantle the carbs, wash them in gasoline, reassemble and install. With today's highly sophisticated fuel management systems, the tolerance for bad fuel is so small that foul fuel often destroys them or dents your wallet.

In some cases, I learned that the “acidic” nature of the foul fuel caused rusting and leaks along metallic fuel lines as well as deterioration of seals and rubber hoses. Most owners would accuse the carmaker and brand as being lousy or of poor quality because most people don’t know or are not informed about the lethal cocktail for cars.

The bad news is that some bureaucrats are apparently moving heaven and earth to fully implement the law on “mandatory 10% ethanol mix” on all fuels. In other words, they also want ethanol mixed in with fuel products such as Petron’s “Blaze 100” or Shell’s “V-power” gasoline. This effectively takes away pure gasoline from the pump and choice, from the consumers.

It would be interesting what research would reveal as far as the impact of the 10% ethanol mix has been for a controlled group or from motorists abroad because I know that motorists in the UK have fought hard to stop government from increasing the ethanol mix from 5% to 10% mix because it has cost them more money at the pump, more problems with their cars, and no tangible benefits to motorists.

When a special interest group lobbied for the law they promised that the Ethanol mix would be cheaper because it can be produced locally and organically from plants such as corn or sugar. The lobbyists also promised that it would reduce toxic chemicals as well as result in cleaner air.

Several years after being implemented, we now discover that the lobbyists in the Philippines could not plant, harvest and produce enough of the ethanol in order to make a difference and because of this, petroleum companies actually import a lot of the stuff which is expensive therefore nullifying the claim that the ethanol mix would be cheaper.

In the meantime, the only solution available to consumers and motorists is to minimize the quantity of fuel in their tanks to an amount they can surely use up within a week or to find a can of expensive additive that prevents the ethanol from deteriorating like they have in the UK. But in the long run the after effects of ethanol will ultimately hurt the motorists and their pockets in repairs.

I just hope that there are still enough people in the Senate during elections to keep an eye on this really bad idea that profits some but hurt the rest of us.

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I’m glad to see that Customs Commissioner Ruffy Biazon and his people are finally hauling in the results of their efforts to go after smugglers. The BOC chief has also come to terms with the fact that he has to “Show and Tell” the public about their accomplishments even if he’s not so keen on publicizing their arrests.

Unfortunately the BOC is just one major link in a chain of government offices that fights the smugglers and they can arrest all they want but that in itself is not the end of the story.

According to an asset within the bureau, tracking the smuggled goods, making the confiscation and charging the smugglers is the first phase. But while everyone has their eyes on the BOC, my asset asks who’s watching the performance of the Department of Justice in terms of actual prosecution and conviction. Does anybody know or say how many cases are submitted to fiscals and how many actually go to trial?

In the meantime, I received tips from two different sources about a particular group of smugglers using their NBI association or connections. It seems there is an ongoing tit for tat between the so-called “NBI boys” and BOC agents where threats and claims of corruption have been made allegedly because the BOC agents seize or stop containers being facilitated by the “NBI boys”. In one instance, after a seizure was presented to the media, I am told that a senior officer of the BOC found “NBI” boys in his office conducting an “entrapment”.

Perhaps all eyes should now be on the DOJ and its attached agencies instead of just the BOC. 

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