E85 fuel in a XJ

A friends father says he's using E85 in his 2002 Cutlass with no modification. Has anyone heard of such a thing? I've read and heard there needs to be expensive mods to use it. If it's possible and within reason cost wise - I'm going to use it.

if it's a flex fuel vehicle yes, it's possible to use it with no modifications.
No XJ was ever flex fuel, and can't be run on e85 without fuel system modifications.

Here is a site from the National Ethanol Vehicle Coalition that lists all the vehicles that run on e85 safely:

http://www.e85fuel.com/e85101/flexfuelvehicles.php

They should have flex fueled alot more vehicles, don't tell me they didn't know it was a viable fuel coming down the road.
The E85 in a non flex can do some serious damage to the system, starting at the plastic gas tank and moving forward. There is another E85 I was reading about yesterday that is no where near as corrosive as the stuff currently being sold that may only require a ECM reprograming.

RichP said:

They should have flex fueled alot more vehicles, don't tell me they didn't know it was a viable fuel coming down the road.
The E85 in a non flex can do some serious damage to the system, starting at the plastic gas tank and moving forward. There is another E85 I was reading about yesterday that is no where near as corrosive as the stuff currently being sold that may only require a ECM reprograming.

Click to expand...

Link to story you read? I'm trying to understand this E85 hype.

As I understand it E85 means 85% Ethanol. The most we saw before was about 10%. I thought E85 was E85 was E85. I pretty much have come to the conclusion that if it's not on the list of vehicles or a published Flex vehicle, it's not worth the hassle of destroying a fuel system of a perfectly running XJ to save maybe .25 cents a gallon. Our Jeeps are not the most fuel efficient to start with and a fuel with less efficiency and destructive chemical properties just does not make sense. I hear Ethanol absorbs water and can deteriate aluminum and magnesium which is why the fuel system has to be specificly designed for such.

you're pretty much right on that. it's corrosive and hygroscopic.

Here is a start for reading
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel#Ethanol_fuel_mixtures

This Editorial is interesting........

http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/?p=1629


Especially the responses at the end.....From every day people such as us.