09-13-2011, 03:22 AM
A 1997 car isn't really old. I have a 45-year-old carbureted boat engine which uses a 60-year-old design (a Universal Atomic Four, it's called) and it's been running ethanol gasoline since it's been available.
I left my boat out of the water one summer and the fuel in it was well over a year old, though having been treated with Sta-Bil, and it ran normally. If you burn the fuel within a year everything will be just fine.
The problems start when the fuel sits around for a long time, starts to go bad, and the ethanol separates into an orange sludge. Or if you have a fiberglass fuel tank, but no car has that.
I left my boat out of the water one summer and the fuel in it was well over a year old, though having been treated with Sta-Bil, and it ran normally. If you burn the fuel within a year everything will be just fine.
The problems start when the fuel sits around for a long time, starts to go bad, and the ethanol separates into an orange sludge. Or if you have a fiberglass fuel tank, but no car has that.