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.