bad gas

[wurm]

Gasoline, that is.

I had some old gas in a can that I wanted to empty in order to fill with new gas. It's old enough that I don't want to dump it in the car or bike and certainly don't want to further gum up the generator, mower or snowthrower. The next Hazardous Waste Day near me isn't until next Spring. As of right now, I'm using one of the suggestions I saw online which is to just let it sit in an open container so it may eventually evaporate, but I'm open to other suggestions if you have any.

Thanks.

[Racer X]

how much gas? 2 stroke oil added?

[wurm]

Racer X wrote:
how much gas? 2 stroke oil added?

Maybe a couple of gallons. Straight 87 octane, no oil mix. But now it's been dumped into an "unclean" container, so I wouldn't put it in any engine at this point. Come to think of it, I should probably toss my seldom used two-cycle mix, too.

[testcase]

WHO is responsible locally for recycling? Call that office and ask where you can responsibly drop off "stale" gasoline.

[Gareth]

wurm wrote: But now it's been dumped into an "unclean" container, so I wouldn't put it in any engine at this point.

Kind of irrelevant now, but how "old" is "old" to you? 6 months to a year, I probably still would have dumped in a car tank and filled it up with fresh gas and been done with it since I probably have gas that old in my cars anyway at this point since I've barely been driving. (Hmm... maybe I should put some stabilizer in some of them...).

[wurm]

Thanks, all. It was almost exactly a year old, and did have stabilizer in it, but it seemed more ridiculous to just run it through the lawnmower and pollute the air for no reason. At least I thought so until I realized the inconvenience of disposing of it properly.

[space-time]

And that is why I bought a dual fuel generator. I ra it on propane to break it in and make sure it works, and I plan to buy 3-4 tanks of propane to have ready just in case, and use gasoline only if I ran out of propane. I bought a kit to syphon gasoline out of our cars, if necessary.

[wurm]

space-time wrote:
And that is why I bought a dual fuel generator.

Me too. And it got quite a workout last week. I gave up on running gas in it after replacing the carburetor (twice) under warranty. Ended up making three trips to refill the propane tank over the course of three days, but it never skipped a beat. Meanwhile my poor younger brother never did get his gas generator going.

[Speedy]

I would have burned it in my cars for you. Except, like Garett, I don’t use much gas in my PHEVs.

[modelamac]

Take the gas to your favorite mechanic. He has all sorts of petroleum liquids he has to get rid of. He'd will know what to do.

Year-old gas that contains a stabilizer is good enough to run in a modern ICE.
To minimize your concerns, you could have added half now and the rest in the next tankful in your vehicle.