I’m sure most scooter riders will have been keeping an eye on what exactly you’re putting in the tank of your cherished machines, especially over the Bank Holiday weekend where you’ll have noticed a change in pump labelling.
E5 has been replaced with E10 as the regular unleaded petrol, that means the ethanol content has doubled and us classic vehicle enthusiasts need to be extra careful.
From today, September 1st 2021 all regular unleaded pumps will be changing over to a 10% mixture of ethanol, or E10. As you can see from the sticker above, if your vehicle was made before 2011 (or you ride a motorcycle) there’s every chance your scooter won’t be compatible with the new fuel. The Gov. website has a compatibility function but at the minute it’s pretty useless for anything scooter/bike related. We’d not recommend using E10 fuel IN ANY two-stroke scooters IF AT ALL possible. There are likely to be occasions where there’s no other choice though so we’d also advise you to carry a fuel additive.
Garages are carrying on supplying super unleaded for a period of five years to help us petrol heads. If you have a choice, use that rather than E10. My local Asda fuel station (pictured above) only has E10 or diesel on the forecourt, there’s no super unleaded choice. There will be plenty of other fuel stations who also have no supply of super. If you cast your mind back twenty-one years to when leaded fuel was being phased out, some garages still had a pump for leaded fuel but quite quickly it got harder and harder to find. Interestingly, Algeria has recently used up the last remaining supply of leaded pump fuel in the world.
Get protected
Of course, the rest of Europe have been running on E10 for a while now. Personally, I’ve been taking an ethanol protector/octane booster/lead replacement additive with me on Euro trips since riding to Ibiza in 2018. Our group of seven Vespas and Lambrettas all used it and made it to the party island and back safely. I’ve since used it on every foreign scooter trip.
Admitedly, I melted a crank on my Quattrini back in 2019 but I later put that down to the scooter running excessively hot, rather than fuel or additives.
The brand of additive I’ve been using is Millers Oils VSPe. It’s a 3-in-one fuel additive that protects against the effects of ethanol up to E10, improves octane by two numbers and replaces lead. It also helps to prevent detonation, contains an antioxidant to improve fuel life (useful for those winter months) and it prevents corrosion in your fuel tank, as well as protecting fuel lines/seals etc.
One 500ml ‘Multi Shot’ bottle treats 500 litres of fuel so that’s 100 fill-ups at 5-litres a time. You just use 1ml per litre so I found using a teaspoon is the easiest way to measure for 5 litres.
It’s worth noting that the 250mm bottle of ‘One Shot’ is diluted so it uses 5mm per litre so you’ll only get 10 scooter fill ups out of that one.
Buy from SLUK
We’re stocking VSPe in the SLUK Shop, it costs £33.49 per 500ml bottle, you can buy yours here. We can only send this within the UK though.
Will ethanol kill my scooter?
ScooterLab have been talking about ethanol and its effects for a few years now. Sticky wrote a very comprehensive piece about it a while back. He gives some tips and advice for setting a scooter up to run on E10. It’s well worth having another read of that and feel free to share it on social media when the E10 question gets asked for the millionth time. You can read all about it here.
Share your E10 thoughts
I’m sure many foreign SLUK readers have been running classic scooters and tuned scooters on E10 and will hopefully be able to put our minds at rest. Please feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below, wherever you are in the world.
Although many of us are feeling worried about the future of our chosen mode of transport we’ve still got a few years left to enjoy it so let’s make the most of what we have and adapt a bit to keep our scooters running. You never know, there may be a complete turnaround in the next few years and environmentalists will be ditching their electric hoverboards and jumping back on a smokey old Lambretta.
Iggy
HI I live in France and use E10 all the time with my 2 stroke mix with not problems so we have in France 95 and 98 and use generally 95.
Been using E10 on a Quatrini M200 and M1 for a couple of years without issues. Before that a Polini 130 and even RT 195 on the Lambretta. No additives used and no problems to date
Teaspoon #SLUKSPOON … Excellent article ….
I was born with a SlukSpoon in my mouth
How the fuck can 500ml of this stuff warrant a price point of £33.49…???
Will it give me a blowjob after every 50 miles…???
What exactly can E10 damage, I have a couple of vintage cars and the doom mongers were saying it would rot the steel petrol tank, I asked won’t it rot the large steel storage tanks at petrol stations, they then switched the danger to rubber seals, well most of my old vehicles don’t have rubber seals on the fuel system, I don’t see a problem
E10 has made no difference to my scooter if anything runs better been using it for weeks hundred miles a week. probably damage seals etc but so will e5 eventually also matter of course changing seals and rubber parts anyway.
So why worry
Main difference between fuel with and without ethanol is that ethanol one is not giving enough power. It’s proved that engined consumes exactly as much more of fuel as much ethanol is added.
Simply cheeky governments are making us to consume/pay more for fuel because they taxing it. As consumption is higher there is no any environmental benefit. This is simple hoax.
If you’ve got a modern carb, and new seals have been put in recently, then it’s more than likely that your scooter will run fine on E10 (though you should retard your timing a degree). That being said, original bikes, especially ones made before the year 2000, will have seals (especially in the carb) that get damaged by ethanol, as well as potentially having carbs made out of materials susceptible to ethanol.
I personally have a smallframe with a modern Polini carb, and new seals put in recently. I have filled up with E10 on several occasions, and my motor is running as good as ever. It’s E85 you gotta look out for…