First post! Hi!
For various and health reasons, I had to let a car sit, not started even once, for 18 months in an unheated but attached garage. Due to poor planning, the gas tank has been nearly empty all this time. No stabilizer was used.
This year, I'm able to insure the car in May and thus plan to fire it up and immediately drive it over to a gas station (a few blocks away) and fill up the tank. The thinking was this: if the little amount of gas in the tank is now of marginal quality (due to sitting so long), the 25 gallons of fresh gas that it takes to fill the tank would "overcome" any deficiency and the gas would now be essentially 95% pure and fresh 94 octane fuel.
At least that was the original plan... Recently I read, on a non-automotive forum, some people saying that gas left so long in a tank is now unusable. And that it could even harm the engine. This left me a bit worried so I'd like to ask a few questions here, a forum with much more knowledgeable members:
1) is the gas in the tank indeed bad for the engine?
2) what should I do about it?
a) go to the gas station with a jerry can and fill the tank with 5 gals of fresh gas before attempting to start it and drive over and immediately fill it
b) siphon as much gas as I can out of the tank and fill it with 5 gals of fresh gas and take it to the station to fill
c) proceed with my previous plan and just start the car with the little (and 18-month old) gas that's in the tank now and go fill the tank with fresh gas.
d) something else I haven't thought of? Please expand.
If it matters, I should say that winters are not very cold where I am. It rarely gets below freezing . This year, outside, I don't think it dipped below freezing even once--and thus it would have been warmer inside the garage. Battery has been on a smart-charger.
The engine is a normally-aspirated multi-valve modern engine (2006, Bosch Motronic controlled) that is high performance and highly-tuned (temperamental) even when left stock (the engine is stock).
For various and health reasons, I had to let a car sit, not started even once, for 18 months in an unheated but attached garage. Due to poor planning, the gas tank has been nearly empty all this time. No stabilizer was used.
This year, I'm able to insure the car in May and thus plan to fire it up and immediately drive it over to a gas station (a few blocks away) and fill up the tank. The thinking was this: if the little amount of gas in the tank is now of marginal quality (due to sitting so long), the 25 gallons of fresh gas that it takes to fill the tank would "overcome" any deficiency and the gas would now be essentially 95% pure and fresh 94 octane fuel.
At least that was the original plan... Recently I read, on a non-automotive forum, some people saying that gas left so long in a tank is now unusable. And that it could even harm the engine. This left me a bit worried so I'd like to ask a few questions here, a forum with much more knowledgeable members:
1) is the gas in the tank indeed bad for the engine?
2) what should I do about it?
a) go to the gas station with a jerry can and fill the tank with 5 gals of fresh gas before attempting to start it and drive over and immediately fill it
b) siphon as much gas as I can out of the tank and fill it with 5 gals of fresh gas and take it to the station to fill
c) proceed with my previous plan and just start the car with the little (and 18-month old) gas that's in the tank now and go fill the tank with fresh gas.
d) something else I haven't thought of? Please expand.
If it matters, I should say that winters are not very cold where I am. It rarely gets below freezing . This year, outside, I don't think it dipped below freezing even once--and thus it would have been warmer inside the garage. Battery has been on a smart-charger.
The engine is a normally-aspirated multi-valve modern engine (2006, Bosch Motronic controlled) that is high performance and highly-tuned (temperamental) even when left stock (the engine is stock).