Hi all Here in Australia we have a variant of fuel called E10. It contains 10% ethanol and 90% unleaded petrol, and so is a whole lot cheaper. The manual says to use Octane 90 or higher, unleaded. Not sure if Octane refers to the percentage of petrol vs "other" fuel content. I'm wondering if it's safe to use in my 659CC Copen? I drive my Buzz for a living, so I cover a lot of km each week.
octane is not a direct measure of petrol v 'other' components. You can have, say, 95 or 97 octane number with just conventional petrol, while Tescos have sold 99 octane number petrol with bioethanol in it. Octane number is a measure of how similar a fuel is to pure octane (octane is a hydrocarbon with 8 carbon atoms and 18 hydrogen). Petrol is actually a blend of many different hydrocarbons and that blend will determine if the octane number is 95, 97, etc. I do not know what impact different octane numbers will have on turbos. However, high bioethanol blends can have an impact of some of the materials in some fuel systems. http://www.theaa.com/motoring_advice/news/biofuels.html
