Quoth GeorgeSanJose,'I’m still left wondering how the OP keeps the battery charged’
I disconnect it. I also use an external battery for the first start after a long time. This most recent start took 40 seconds of cranking. After that it started without delay. Maybe it was the old gas. I should probably prime the carburetor with starting fluid.
Quoth Yosemite, 'I had left gas in a pressure washer over the winter a few years back.'
It wouldn’t surprise me if lawnmowers, generators, chainsaws, pressure washers… have a different experience, especially 2-strokes in which one mixes oil and gas. This is cartalk, not small-enginetalk.
Quoth Yosemite, 'The OP is the kind that just wants to see people argue over his threads.'
I wanted to start a discussion. I didn’t expect everyone to agree. I don’t think my experience is the experience everyone will have.
Quoth Yosemite, '“I made it home on bald tires all winter in Upper Michigan…what’s your problem”'
Bald tires are obviously dangerous. The alleged problems of old gas aren’t. I didn’t write on the basis of one experience but 10 years.
Quoth dagosa, 'How do you know it hasn’t gone bad ?'
Because the car ran well and passed an emissions test with numbers as good as the day it was made. The compression is the same as the shop manual says it’s supposed to be.
Quoth dagosa, 'there are those of us who believe that the ability of a gasoline to delay combustion by it’s higher octane content can allow the motor to extract more enegy per volume when the computer in most cars makes the necessary adjustments.'
That may be the case for some engines. Lots of people with ordinary engines the manufacturers of which recommend regular think it makes a difference in their cars when it doesn’t.
Quoth the same mountainbike, 'RT, I accept your explanation’
Thanks. You seem like a good guy from what I read in this forum.
Quoth the same mountainbike, 'I also have to point out that the terminology you use and the way you describe others shows distain and disrespect for them.'
2 were former neighbors who had run their own pickups into the ground with their poor maintenance. One of them owned 2, one of which never ran (he had it towed away) and had its bed filled with old tires; the other took minutes to start, backfiring, missing, shrieking, belching smog. The other always needed someone else’s help to start, often mine; it also ran poorly. The third was a guy working on a home in the neighborhood; his pickup looked roughly-handled.
Quoth the same mountainbike, 'As to your assertion that gas doesn’t go bad, that there’s no such thing as “bad gas” anymore’
I didn’t say that. I offered my experience as a datum that it’s probably blamed for a lot more problems than it causes.
