Biofuel damage to fuel tanks

Published 16 years ago, updated 5 years ago

A Los Angeles firm has filed a class-action lawsuit against US oil companies on behalf of Californian boater owners with fibreglass fuel tanks. Some fibreglass fuel tanks can be dissolved by ethanol enhanced fuel and the flow of the dissolved mixture then damages the engine, causing damage that can cost thousands of dollars.

The presence of ethanol in gasoline or methanol in diesel (biodiesel) is a serious problem for boat owners. Corn-based ethanol has been in the US since 2005 in an effort to lower vehicle emissions, and unsuspecting boat owners have been using this type of fuel.

BoatUS has published the results of tests on the impact of ethanol on fibreglass tanks. See:

http://www.boatus.com/seaworthy/fueltest.asp

Read and Post Related Comments

Related to the following Cruising Resources:


You must Login or Register to submit comments.

Click to access the login or register cheese