The complaints started with boats and lawn-mowers shortly after the blend of gas at Hawaii pumps changed to include ethanol, an alcohol based alternative fuel. Now auto repair shops are seeing a surge in car engine trouble.

Mechanics say they have seen a sharp rise in the number of auto engine replacements within the past year. At $4,000 to $6,000 a pop, many drivers want to know… what's going on?

At least one isle mechanic thinks something in the gasoline is to blame.

Kenneth Morito’s '96 GMC pickup had been one reliable truck. But over the past year something started going wrong.

"The first thing was the really poor gas mileage,” he said. “It really dropped quite a bit."

He was filling the tank three times as often.

"From a dead start, going, it would hesitate. It would catch," he said.

Then came the knocking the sound.

“Clack clack clack clack… if you hear that sound, that's death to the engine," said Kalihi mechanic George Nitta, who has been working on cars since the 1960s.

"The thing erupted like a volcano when I was driving," Morito said.

Four thousand dollars later, he's back on the road. But he's not alone.

"A year ago, we didn't have many customers coming in with broken engines,” Nitta said. “Today they're coming in like dime a dozen."

Nitta has gone from doing one engine replacement every few years to one a month. Engine repair shops are seeing the same problems since last year, around the time ethanol went into local gas blends.

"We're just having all kinds of problems,” Nitta said, “and we never had those problems before.”

Problems like eroded fuel lines and rubber gaskets, gunked up fuel injectors and cracked pistons. If ethanol alone were to blame, Nitta says a demonstration on much thinner plastic would show it fast.

"This is ethanol, pure ethanol," he said, pouring the liquid into a plastic cup.

In another cup, he puts a gas-ethanol blend you'd find at the pump.

Within 2 minutes, the gas dissolves the cup. After 10 minutes, the one with just ethanol is unaffected.

Tesoro says gasoline being a solvent would explain erosion of plastics such as the cup; Nitta said longterm gas would have the same effect on plastic and rubber based gaskets. Nitta contends this didn't happen with the old gas.

"The old gas did not affect the car or the lines or anything at all before, but now something is in there," he said.

Whether there is something else, or even if gas is to blame for recent engine problems, has not yet been thoroughly studied. Those who've lost an engine, and those who fix them, say someone should take a closer look.

Under state law, distributors must put at least 9.2% ethanol in their product. Each distributor can blend in other additives to the Tesoro or Chevron fuel that is the basis of all gas in Hawaii.

Tesoro says all additives are the same as those in their gas before last April.

If you're having similar engine problems, we'd like to know. Call action line at 591-0222.