OH Musky - 4/3/2019 3:10 AM

Here in Ohio one of the biggest additives is Toluene, more so than any other state or so it was. I worked in the Harley Davidson industry as a master tech. We ran into a myriad of fuel system problems for several years and couldn't figure out why. Brand new bikes would start, stall and not restart. Change out the internal and external fuel lines and they worked...for a while. Eventually enough dealers had problems that H-D finally sent some engineers out to test the fuel around the state. Turns out that Toluene was the culprit. In high enough concentrations it would cause the rubber components to soften, swell and eventually block the fuel system. This forced H-D to upgrade all the rubber fuel system components across their entire fleet.

So, while ethanol is not good for many of today's engines and fuel systems, there are other additives that can be far worse.