Police Cars Switch To Pure Gasoline

The majority of gas stations in Oklahoma continue to sell cheaper, more environmentally-friendly gasoline-ethanol blends, but Edmond Police officers are filling up elsewhere.

News On 6 reporter Alex Cameron reports the Edmond Police Department recently noticed some of their cars weren't running normally. They said their engines were knocking and not running as smoothly as they have in the past.

"We got word from our city garage, probably part of the problem is that we're using fuel with 10 % ethanol in it," Fleet Manager Sgt. Jim Teel said.

The officers decided instead to fill up with pure gasoline only.

"It's not a mandatory thing, but what we've asked, if you can't go out to the city garage and refuel with 100 % fuel that you go out to one of the fuelman stations here in town that does sell 100 % fuel," Teel said.

Mohammad Choudhry owns two Valero stations in Edmond.

"I have one station with ethanol, one is non-ethanol," Choudhry said.

He said despite the bump from police, business at the Valero selling pure gasoline is down. He claims, with the economy down, motorists are more concerned about price than performance.

Pure gasoline costs more than the ethanol blended fuels.

"Most people don't know they have ethanol or not," Choudhry said. "They just see the price and pump the gas."

Edmond Police said even though they're paying more for pure gas, better gas mileage more than makes up for the lost money. More importantly, their cars are running better.

"If our cars aren't running the way they're supposed to be, we can't get to where we need to be in a timely manner," Teel said. "In the end it affects our response times and it's just hurting the people we're sworn to serve."

It's generally accepted the gas mileage recorded while using ethanol blends is not as good compared with that of pure gasoline. Gas stations are now required by law to label their pumps if they're selling ethanol.