|
In the Evo world you needed to change the fuel pump, fuel lines and fuel rail to handle how corrosive e85 is. Since nobody has run e85 in a f30 for prolonged periods (presumably) I don't think we can say whether it is harmful for the car. One variable we don't know is how flexible the BMW ecu is - can is recognize the mixture of regular fuel/e85 and adjust on the fly?
As for warranty I think the likely scenario is this - you take the car in for a problem with how it is running. After searching for and not finding obvious fault codes or defects, BMW directs the tech to take a sample of the fuel and test it. If there is a way for BMW to blame the running condition on the fuel, they will. Whether that voids the warranty, or simply leads to a denial of a warranty claim for that individual fault, it is tough to predict.
I ran into this issue with my parents' e92 335i - it was going into limp mode regularly and BMW tested their gasoline (I watched them do it) and blamed the limp mode on their use of low quality gas. The only way BMW eventually replaced HPFP's and injectors was after the car went in for service with good gas in the tank and it was still having issues (this was very early in the hpfp debacle). It is not tough to see the same happening with e85.
All I can say is I really hope our cars have sufficiently robust fuel systems, flexible ecu's and can run e85 with no mods!!!!! I want it!
|