Put about 1,200 miles on E85 over Thanksgiving! I was happily surprised to find E85 along my route through Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin! Most of the large gas stations seem to carry a bunch of different fuels up here. Even a good amount of CNG in Wisconsin which was cool to see.
Overall, I averaged 10.7mpg on E85 with mixed driving but mostly highway miles. That is a big difference from the 17-18 on 93 octane. Again, I can report that the engine really likes running this fuel. E85 is cheaper than gasoline, but the price has jumped to about $3.50 /gal up here. Even $4.50/ gal seems more economical per mile on 93.
Cold starts aren't great. Woke up to 7F on Thanksgiving. Went to warm up the truck remotely. I do understand that ethanol has issues in cold. She fired almost immediately, but then stalled. Even after more than a week of running E85 and about 800 miles it had not learned idle that well. In normal temps it would idle down to about 500 rpm and shake like it was about to stall. It just stalls in cold. I had to go out there and manually start the truck. It died a few times before it would actually idle. It did the same thing the next morning in freezing temps.
Looks like I won't be running E85 in the winter. Bummer.