A 3 year old engine and the manufacturer hadn’t engineered it for ethanol? Ethanol has been part of our fuel years longer than that.
I think your disgust is aimed the wrong direction.
Ethanol, good, bad, or indifferent, is what that engine was going to use, and for the engineers to pretend otherwise was immoral, unethical, and I’d say damn near criminal.
I’d raise holy hell with Mercury.
I actually agree with you. And I probably will. Just got the boat back.
The problem is that most places that sell pure gasoline tend to be marinas or around bodies of water, so they have a measure of deniability. The problem is that they’re all about a 100 miles apart.
I’ll have to read the manual and see if they covered themselves with a warning about ethanol. If you’re a lawyer, do you think there’s a case?
“A 3 year old engine and the manufacturer hadn’t engineered it for ethanol? Ethanol has been part of our fuel years longer than that.”
Corn juice works OK in fuel-injected engines because they are high-pressure systems. Carburetors have float bowls where some of the gas is “stored”. Most small engines and plenty of outboards still use carburetors. Corn juice will kill a carburetor within weeks even if the engine is used regularly.
The solution? Unadulterated real gasoline. Don’t use additives. They are expensive and in my experience all they do is delay the inevitable damage for a short time.
An even better solution? Get rid of ethanol and abolish the EPA.