1990 VW Jetta idle problem

This message is a reply to an archived post by Allan In NE on November 03, 2011 at 08:46:14.
The original subject was "Re: 1990 VW Jetta idle problem".

I know exactly what this problem is. My son has the exact same car. 1990 Wolfsburg edition, German built, 5 speed manual Jetta. Great little car. A friend of mine also has a 1990 Mexican built automatic Jetta. Both cars have the same engine and are quite similar with just a few little nuances. Both are daily drivers.

Well last year my son and I were on a long cross country trip in his Jetta and it started to do the same thing. I replaced the fuel filter but to no avail. Sometimes it would clear up and sometimes it would bog down to the point that we could not maintain 40 MPH on the highway. It acted like fuel starvation and that is exactly what it was. Root cause, Ethanol in gas.

VW expressly states in the owner's manual to avoid all alcohol blended fuels. But who reads the owner's manual? After I got home I opened the gas tank, wiped it out as best as possible and re-filled with clean pure non-ethanol or E0 gas. Problem cured. The car ran 85 MPH on the hwy with no issues and gas mileage jumped 10% to 15%. Since then all we run in all our vehicles is E0 gas.

E0 gas is hard to find but you can locate it on Pure-Gas.org. Not only will it get your better fuel economy and performance, it will also prolong the life of your fuel system. Ethanol is corrosive and very detrimental to your vehicle. Likewise it does not lower emissions but rather raises NOX readings.

The problem with that earlier car is that the gas got old in the tank. E10 gas has a very short shelf life, six weeks at best. The other poster who said water in the gas is exactly right. E10 gas will draw moisture right out of the atmosphere and screw up the operation of the engine. I have a 1989 dodge pick up truck that suffers that problem if there is E10 in the tank.

And as for my friend's 1990 Mexican Jetta with the automatic transmission, that car now gets 28 to 30 MPG and runs great on the hwy.

The EPA wants us to willingly ruin our vehicles by using E15. Don't do it. Unfortunately E0 has become a boutique fuel in some parts of the country but it is well worth the extra cost in order to preserve your vehicle. Just remember Pure-Gas.org.
 
I beg to differ with you. I have used ten percent in my GM products since it came out. NO PRBLEMS! I use it in all my equipment, H IH, lawn mowers, snow blower and others. I also have it in the tanks from one season to the next and have never had it get old or sour. It pobably has moisture in it but I have had no problem with it. Now in No. Dak. and Minn. and some other states you can not buy regular WITHOUT 10%. The only gas without ten percent is premium if you can afford to buy.
 
My cousin has a 55 Chevy running 100%. The only thing that he did different, was to put a manual choke on it. I can usually go to about 45% with my Toyota before the check engine light comes on. Mileage will drop to 18. In my antique Deere tractors, I have gone to E0 with Marvel oil and stopped some problems.
 
Really, you will blame everything on ethanol? I run E30 in both my 04 and 12 passats and have had no issues in over 300k miles. I think you have other issues. I think you have another agenda, pretty much trying to get people to go to your cult website.
 
I think my commenets have been mis-understood. The primary point I was trying to make is that ethanol is not the cure all that it has been promoted to be. If it works for you then great. However for those of us that it doesn"t work well for then why should we be denied the simple choice of buying clean E0 gasoline? Ethanol has been forced upon us with little or no choice in the matter. Clean gasoline without ethanol has become a boutique fuel and in some parts of the country virtually unavailable.

I used to be an ethanol booster. I listened to Paul Harvey as he promoted expanding ethanol production. I bought into the notion of growing our way out of "foriegn oil dependence". In the 80s & 90s when I traveled through the midwest I made a point of buying E10 "gasohol".

But the fact still remains that Ethanol is corrosive. It eats rubber components in fuel systems. It lessens fuel economy. It eats fiberglass gas tanks found in many boats and motorcycles. It absorbs moisture especially if exposed to a humid climate such as what I live in.

The Pure-Gas.org website is not some cult site. It is a site devoted to one thing, making available a list of every non-ethanol gas station, marina, and airport in the US. The only agenda is the right of choice, nothing more.

All I know is that I have three distinctly different vehicles that have suffered from bad ethanol fuel. Two of them the owner"s manuals expressly say not to run alcohol blended gas. Once I started running E0 then the problems cleared up. I"m not a novice mechanic. I"ve been tinkering on cars and trucks for 40 years. I have several friends and family members whose vehicles ran just fine on E10 but when they ran E0 found that their gas mileage jumped 10% to 25%. If the goal was to use less fuel why then are we forced to buy fuel that costs us worse fuel economy? No one has been able to answer that question, not even the EPA.

As for me my agenda is simple, I want the freedom to purchase the best fuel for my vehicles without ethanol. I want the same for you even if it means you want to buy ethanol blended fuel.
 
Jonathan,
I was too blunt with my response and I apologize. I only disagree with the comments about corrosive nature of ethanol. It isn't anymore corrosive than the MTBE that the ethanol replaced. Actually MTBE is a larger problem to the environment than ethanol.

There isn't an issue with ethanol being corrosive. Its a solvent. It isn't much different than many petroleum products and it is renewable. Once again, I apologize for being blatant in my original response.
 
I completely agree with Dalet that MTBE was harsh on the environment. It needed to be eliminated from our nation's fuel supply.

But from what I've learned ethanol carries its own environmental impact. It takes huge quantities of fresh water and energy to produce ethanol, more energy than is gained. Much of the ethanol is produced near the corn growing areas of the upper mid-west. That region is dependent on the Ogalla Aquifer which needs to be preserved for fresh drinking water and food production. Likewise corn is highly in-efficient in the production of ethanol as compared to sugar cane.

From what I've read the small airplane pilots will not use ethanol blended fuels because of its detrimental effects on the fuel system. Many of them would prefer to use un-leaded fuel instead of the low lead aircraft fuel but they are finding in increasingly difficult to buy clean un-leaded gas and grossly expensive to buy low-lead because it has to be imported into our country now. Their solution is to have a relaible supply of E0 fuel widely available.

Also because of its nature ethanol can not be piped. It must be transported by rail or truck which again is a more expensive means of transpotation. Another in-efficiency in the system. Although the railroads are quite happy about it.

It is my opinion that we really do not need either MTBE or ethanol in our nation's fuel supply because automotive technology has advanced so far that emissions are the lowest they have ever been. However there are those that want to buy ethanol blended fuels and I'm not advocating its total elemination. I just want the choice to buy either product rather than being forced to only buy one.

Marathon makes a fine low sulphur E0 90/91 octane gas that meets EPA air quality standards for large metro areas. My vehicles run very well on this product and have no problems passing emissions.
 

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