It's fine to assume the cause of a problem based on experience and knowledge but one always has to follow through to confirmation of the assumption. I would assume (there I go again making assumptions) that the increase in holed pistons has to do with sky high compression ratios, leaner fuel mixtures and advanced ignition timing in search of better fuel economy and meeting ever tightening emission standards. Mark

You forgot the garbage they sell us called gasoline. The quality, performance, and BTU energy of which pale, in comparison to fuel we bought a decade ago.

Not to go too far off topic, but have you seen the EPA funded Mercury Marine engine durability study that was done in 2012 on E10 vs E0? Holy cow, apparently the higher combustion chamber temperatures caused by lean mixtures lead to hardening of valves and piston tops, bearing galling and eventual catastrophic engine failure on all but the 2 stroke 9.9 horsepower engine. And they're pushing to go to E15 for newer engines. No thanks.

Also, I saw a letter to the WSJ from an ethanol industry talking head who said the ever increasing amounts of ethanol that must be blended by law with so called gasoline can't be the cause of increasing E10 costs when E85 costs $.50 per gallon less than E10. Yeah, but E85 contains only 70% of the BTU content of E10 so it needs to cost about 30% less than E10. So with E10 at $3.50 E85 should cost about $2.45 per gallon. By my reckoning that's $1.05 less per gallon than E10, not $.50.

These people think we're dumb. Mark