Fuel blend, already implicated in high food prices, linked to rise in repairs.

Rick Kitchings has been a small-engine mechanic for about 30 years, and he’s been busier than ever lately.

Recently, a customer came into his shop in Savannah, Ga., with a string trimmer that had barely been used. “It looked like it just came off the showroom floor, but the motor was absolutely shot, absolutely worn out,” Kitchings said.

The owner had fueled the trimmer with an gasoline-ethanol blend, which is becoming increasingly common thanks to a federal mandate to convert to biofuels.

Although the Web is rife with complaints from car owners who say ethanol damaged their engines, ethanol producers and automakers say it’s safe to use in cars. But smaller engines — the two-cycle utility engines in lawnmowers, chain saws and outboard boat motors — are another story.

Benjamin Mallisham, owner of a lawnmower repair shop in Tuscaloosa, Ala., said at least 40 percent of the lawnmower engines he repairs these days have been damaged by ethanol.

“When you put that ethanol in here, it eats up the insides or rusts them out,” Mallisham said. “All the rubber gaskets and parts — it eats those up.”

The sludge problem
Auto mechanics say the same thing takes place in car engines, where debris dislodged by ethanol in gas station fuel tanks can gum things up. But car engines are highly sophisticated; especially in later models, they’re equipped to comfortably handle the fallout of ethanol-blended gas, mechanics said.

The Renewable Fuels Association, a trade group for ethanol producers based in Washington, says there’s no evidence that ethanol can damage smaller engines, either.

“Tests completed on lawnmowers, chainsaws, weed trimmers and blower vacs with ethanol fuels showed no engine failures, no unscheduled maintenance and good performance,” the association said.

But mechanics across the country insist that as gasoline blended with ethanol takes over in more gas