Comment by LordDragonfang
1 day ago
> unless you have stockpiled gas
And are regularly rotating that stockpile, because gasoline has a shelf life measured in months
edit: Apparently this leans more technically-true factoid than fact, thank you replies
You're not wrong but this is commonly exaggerated: half a year with a stabilizer is entirely doable under reasonable conditions.
Be sure and use a clear liquid stabilizer! The one I used had red dye in it and it gummed up the carburetor. Also, I never use any ethanol fuel in my generator.
Amuses me hear this - I ran a moped from a large tank of multi-year old petrol, and it got by fine. But maybe a modern car might be more picky?
Last year, I let a fairly new portable generator with low hours on sit with gas in it for 6 months and it would not fire up. It wouldn't even sputter.
That was surprising to me because it was working quite well when parked, and I'm used to doing things like leaving lawnmowers outside continuously (including over the winter) without much trouble, but that's what happened anyway.
I drained the old fuel out and replaced with fresh, and it fired up on the first subsequent half-assed pull of the starter rope.
(Which reminds me: It's been six months again already. Time to see if it still works.)
3 replies →
I just did this as well. Fired up my moped on 2 year old stabilized gas. Runs fine.
We use the (inboard) engine so rarely on my sailboat I'm sure we've gone 2 years on a tank without issue before.
HN is full of maintenance purists, and I do know I should do better, but... A Corolla will work fine after sitting for a year or so and it’s once-or-twice-per-decade oil change seems to work ok.
Unless you are trying to race your car at the drag strip with charged air and hit your best times, that isn't true at all and I don't know why people keep saying it. You think everybody empties their lawn mowers, snow blowers, snowmobiles, generators, etc. every year of gas or before trying to start it up again the next year? No way.
Simpler gas equipment like mowers and generators don't have enough compression to really care about anything but ancient gas, and if you run any vehicle that is multi-fuel capable it can detect and adjust compression based on a fuel's capabilities.
Ive been repairing and fixing junkers of cars, mowers, ATVs, generators, and more for 30 years and not once has bad gas stopped something from running. I only remove it if it was clearly having water raining into the tank. In every other case where I couldn't start something after sitting around for 5+ years, it was from the gas gumming up in the carb or the shitty diaphragm pump, which generally means there is little to no gas left to start with.
I wouldn't even suspect gas of ever being bad unless it was atleast a few years old. If the tank was open it could have evaporated, if the tank was closed it probably ain't great gas but I bet it would still run in anything but a high compression application.
> detect and adjust compression based on a fuel's capabilities.
Spark, not compression.
The spark timing determines how much compression is in the cylinder at the moment the fuel/air mixture is ignited. So, while it's technically true that it's the spark timing that's being adjusted, the thing that is being controlled for is the compression.