[onebadmerc]

What happens to gasoline as it get old, I have been told by a couple of people that it loses octane the older it gets. These same people told me that gas go bad in 6 months and is no good. This morning I had to move my 67 F250, it has been sitting since Oct of 2003 and it fired right up and ran fine. The gas smelled bad but it run ok. So if gas loses all of its octane then why did my truck fire up and run? I am just wondering what really happens to gas as it ages.
BTW I ran the truck until it empied the gas tank, I figured I would burn all the old crap up and put fresh stuff in it tommorrow.

 

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This site seems to know what it is talking about. All that can go wrong with it really is for some of the lighter components to evaporate off or it become contaminated with water and/or dirt and rust. The latter two are fairly easy to eliminate by simply decanting and filtering the gas. If the former happens, it will either ignite or it won't. There isn't anything that can happen to it that would harm your engine, just may not run.

 

[camaroman7d]

The container it is kept in makes a difference too. If you keep the sunlight away from it (dark container) it will last longer too.

I have never seen gas go bad in 6 mos.

I have seen it turn to "varnish" after it has been sitting for years in a carb.

Royce