Gasoline Shelf Life and Lesson’s Learned

My hands still smell like gasoline even though I’ve washed them twice, I suppose it’s always been that way.  I just completed my gasoline rotation routine, having dumped three 5 gallon cans in one vehicle and then taking those cans to the gas station in order to refill them with fresh gas.  I might have let this task wait for another day (it’s raining and not all that nice out) but based on what happened yesterday my motivation was a bit higher than normal.

My wife and I decided to take the motorcycles out for a spin yesterday since the weather was nice.  Usually it’s nothing crazy, maybe 50 miles total through the scenic back roads with a lunch stop built in between.  I have already ridden this year but my wife had not, and I don’t think she had ridden in at least a year if my calculations are correct.  I got the bikes prepped (lubed chains, checked tension, wiped down fairings, tire pressure etc) and staged them on the driveway.  We did a comms check as we both have bluetooth headsets which I installed into our helmets, this would prove a very valuable tool.

We weren’t a mile down the road and she told me that her throttle wasn’t responding very well, I thought maybe the bike just needed the cobwebs blown out of it so we motored on.  No more than 1/2 mile later she tells me that her bike just shut off, mind you we are going about 60mph with traffic behind us.  Thankfully we were on a hill and I told her to pull the clutch in a coast down to an area where we could pull off.  Long story short, and at least 10 more stalls and limping it to the gas station, the culprit turned out to be bad (old) gas.  Thankfully there wasn’t much gas in there and after adding 3 gallons of premium the bike ran like new, although I suspect the carbs might not be in pristine condition.

Here’s the thing, I made a point to put the proper amount of Fuel Stabilizer in the tank last year and have even run the bike at least 5 or 6 times, including a couple times of riding it around our neighborhood for a few miles.  Even though it had been about a year since a fresh tank of gas was added to the bike I thought, given my previously listed efforts, that everything would be good to go. I was wrong and thankfully this was only a minor inconvenience.  What if the power was out and my generator wouldn’t run because the fuel I thought would be good….wasn’t?!?

I suppose there are quite a few variables here and obviously your experiences may vary, but the lesson (at least for me) remains the same.  Gasoline must be rotated and frequently (which means more frequently than I previously used to), even if fuel stabilizer is used and the motor is started occasionally.

 

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    • NRP on June 1, 2015 at 10:14 AM
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    Interesting you mentioned a Gen-Set, I don’t trust any “gas” only item that will be depended upon when TSHTF. I just picked up a duel fuel 7500 watt gen. Price was great at $749 and feel very confident it will do the job quite well. Also been working on the solar more.
    I’m rebuilding a smaller (2500watt) gen that had gas in it to long, it’s totally “gunked” up and no way it’s going to have gas stored in it again for more than 2 months.
    Gas storage with this “new and improved” gas is wayyyyy beyond ridiculous. Even with “stabilizer” in it one year max????? Makes ya wonder if this great and wonderful slouverment had anything to do with that?
    I believe that gas stored will after a SHTF should be used very first, additionally everyone should think more and more about storing propane instead and using propane or solar for most everything.

    • Horse on June 1, 2015 at 10:55 PM
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    Plooy, the gas I used recently was from october 2014.
    I used one 5 gal tank that was from late 2013 back in march.

    Sta-bil works great especially if the fuel is stored in a temperature
    stable location, OFF the ground..
    I hear the other brand is even better PRI-G but it costs more so I haven’t tried it.

    I only use *premium* with stabil none of that ethanol crap, so I’ll assume that’s why I never had issues.

    I try to rotate every 8 months and never had any issues at all, been doing this since.. 2004 and with the generators I run them for one hour with load every month aside of the one I use for projects here on the property.

    I date mark every tank so I know when it was last filled and currently have 11-5 gal tanks with 2 in use at any given time.

    Yesterday I put 15 gallons gas from november 2014 in my car and two different generators.

    In past days I have had to deal with the carelessness of others and old sticky gas residue in a few small engines, that is a pain.

      • PJ on June 1, 2015 at 11:10 PM
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      Good stuff, glad you’ve had great results. Lots of people get the whole premium vs regular unleaded stuff mixed up, have you read about it?

      There is little difference in energy content of regular versus premium gasoline. They both contain about 111,400 British Thermal Units of energy per gallon.

      The price difference, however, between the fuel grades is anywhere from 20 cents to 40 cents, depending on where you live in the United States. The experts’ consensus goes against the long-held belief by thousand of drivers who fill up with premium only, or on every third or fourth trip to the pump. The idea is to fill up with premium every so often to clean out the engines or rev up the performance of older engines.

      But according to the experts, this practice is like tossing quarters in a wishing well, since most engines are designed to operate on relatively low-octane regular unleaded gasoline.

      Octane is defined as a fuel’s resistance to knocking. There is no benefit if the octane is higher than what the engine needs. Engine knock occurs when fuel in a combustion chamber ignites before it should. This disrupts the engine’s operation. But electronic knock sensors are now common and have nearly eliminated engine disruption.

      The American Petroleum Institute says if you find that your car runs fine on a lower grade, there is no sense switching to premium. The Institute recommends following manufacturer’s recommendation, but even those manufacturers say that it is more of a suggestion than a command.

    • Horse on June 2, 2015 at 10:19 PM
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    There is no mix up.
    There is plenty of proof ethanol is bad for small engines.
    http://www.clarkhoward.com/ethanol-proven-kill-small-engines

    http://www.nbcnews.com/id/25936782/ns/business-consumer_news/t/mechanics-see-ethanol-damaging-small-engines/

    http://www.drivenracingoil.com/news/dro/training-center/articles/protect-yourself-ethanol-is-killing-your-carburetor/
    There are three links of the many I found.

    Most of my stored gas is for the power tools/generators.
    But I am going to install a dual fuel propane unit on my
    favorite generator soon.

    I only put it in my car to use it up when I want to rotate the tanks
    faster.

    Besides the fact it has always worked for me paying a little extra is no issue at all, my stuff always starts and normally I don’t put premium in my car when I fill up I also would never trust ethanol in storage more than a month myself.

    Here’s another:
    I moved last june, brought my pickup up here in july and it sat unmoved never started for 10 months.
    Two weeks ago I put the battery in it and it fired right up, no issues at all.
    Why? My guess is premium with sta-bil- I filled the truck tank last year to rotate two of the 5 gal tanks before moving and parking.

    If anyone wants to cry about the high gas prices.. stop smoking, drinking or wasting all that cash eating out, oh you bought a 4′ flat screen tv?? new laptop, ipod, smartphone…really.
    Be reasonable and you’ll have lots more money to play with.

  1. I used Stabil until I found PRI-G. Now I sell it at the gun shows in Montana. Everyone agrees that it’s many times better than Stabil.
    I lost a carb on a string trimmer because I put in regular gas with ethanol in it over the winter. PRI solves that problem.
    With small engines it’s better to use premium with no ethanol if you can find it. If you can’t just get regular E10 and put PRI-G in it. Problem solved. I have 400 gallons of gas that is 4 years old and still going in everything. I add a littel PRI once per year, but only about half of the first dose. They recommend 1 ounce of PRI with each 16 gallons of fuel. So one quart treats 512 gallons of fuel. http://pri-fuel.com/

    • Michael Vickers on May 21, 2020 at 10:23 PM
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    Ethanol is not in LL aviation fuel because it’s so unstable. That’s something to think about.

    Scores of prepper web sites recommend buying premium for long term storage. It will store longer than regular or ethanol blended fuels. Better yet, if you intend to store gasoline buy it during the winter months. Gasoline is blended differently for summer and winter and the winter fuel blend will outlast the summer blend in storage.

    I’m sold on Pri-G. It’s mixed into all my small engine fuels and the gasoline I store for SHTF. I did the math and put 2ml Pri-G per gal. or, 10cc in with five gallons of gasoline. I find a 5ml. medical syringe is perfect for dosing fuel cans. Any feed store can sell you one for well under a buck.

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