Gas station in town just got E15. Surely there are some opinions on here about it.? Of course it is cheaper but gets worse MPG. Thoughts on affects on vehicle damage or not?

I buy regular gasoline.

E = junk (imo)

I wouldn't buy it, cheaper or not.
In fact if I had the choice I'd pay more for Reg. gas that had no ethanol in it.

Modern vehicles can handle it, older stuff, lawn mowers and other stuff with small engines not so much.

I buy ethanol free for lawn mowers chainsaws boat motors. All our vehicles are designed for ethanol added. They get better fuel mileage with ethanol free but per mile cost is higher.

I'll burn ethanol in my truck, but never put that stuff in small engines.

Mid grade gas for vehicles. Rec 90 for smaller engines.

I know people say ethanol causes problems, but I can't say, in the almost 20 years I worked on cars, that i ever replaced a part that failed due to ethanol. Very occasionally, I saw some Chevys, usually trucks, that ran like garbage or had a check engine light with a rich code stored, because the computer, for some reason, thought the ethanol percentage was way high, when it had regular or E10 in the tank, but resetting the computer fixed that, no parts required.

Small engines, and really anything carbureted, are a different story, of course. Regular gas only in those.

History:
Ethanol caused rubber parts to swell, age early and disintegrate. This was especially observed in carburators. Rubbers have been formulated with better additives to resist the attach from ethanol and the introduction of fuel injection has aided even further. Additionally ethanol burnt hotter and caused burning of the exhaust valve seats resulting in poor combustion chamber sealing. Most motor manufactured have solved that issue by adding valve seats inserts with higher temperature resistant materials. Small engine manufacture are always having to make the compromise between best function and cost to the consumer.

Energy:
Ethanol has less energy available than octane. Thus mixing ethanol with octane reduces the amount of overall energy in the mix, reducing mileage per gallon. But ethanol does burn cleaner than octane due to the differences in chemical makeup.

Cost:
Ethanol actually cost more to produce than gasoline. However the government has determined that ethanol blended gasolines are better for the environment and subsidize the production of ethanol, lowering its cost and therefore the overall cost of blended gasoline to the consumer at the pump. With the elimination of lead compounds from gasoline, other lubricants where required which blends with both octane and ethanol, but that is an entirely different discussion.




In newer gas automotive engines (~ 2020), other than reduced mileage, there will not be any detrimental effects other than the usual early failure rate that plaques all parts; which isn't connected to higher blend ethanol gasolines (E15). I would not use any ethanol blended gasoline in any small engine or old powerplant/engine; although new engines will fair better with ethanol than older engines.