Hi all. We've had a bit of chat about fuel recently - petrol vs EV, new levels of ethanol, storage of cars - and just thought I'd add something.
A little over a year ago (in March 2020) I put my car back on the road after her winter hibernation (active storage and all that......) with the intention of using her over the summer. As we know that didn't quite pan out and a few weeks later she was laid up again. I had filled the tank up with low ethanol petrol (E5 but think it's the low end of that) and only used a smidge so as I had no idea how long she would be off the road I added a fuel stabiliser. I ended up going for this stuff as it seemed to fit the bill:
Fast forward a year and 2 months and today was the big day - MOT day!
Obviously she passed, she's fettled and tinkered with so much the mechanic doing the test said it's always boring doing my MOT as he can never find anything to ping me for (although she has failed a before - bulb had gone over the rear number plate, think it made his day......) but what I really wanted to see was how the emissions looked with petrol that had been in there that long with stabiliser in it. I could have topped up the third of the tank that was empty with fresh but decided not to and I'd just hold that in my back pocket if she failed on emissions.
I was pleasantly surprised:
I'm not a petrochemist but my call is the fuel can't be in that bad shape to give emission numbers like.
She always burns pretty nicely, as I say I do a fair amount of fiddling and some of it might even be productive :laugh: and she's got a very free-flowing inlet/exhaust setup, but that's pretty much on a par with what she normally gets, albeit the Lambda had slipped out of dead middle by 0.01. Hadn't done an ECU reset prior to the test though which I normally do as she's been off the road.
After a year and 2 months I'd say the Stabil Storage seems to have pretty much done it's job. Based on that I'd recommend the stuff if you're taking your motor off the road for a bit.
Only thing to add is she's kept in a temp and humidity controlled environment which isn't going to hurt keep things like condensation in tanks away and moisture out of the petrol generally. Not sure but I think I may have mentioned about using a dehumidifier before............. :grin:
A little over a year ago (in March 2020) I put my car back on the road after her winter hibernation (active storage and all that......) with the intention of using her over the summer. As we know that didn't quite pan out and a few weeks later she was laid up again. I had filled the tank up with low ethanol petrol (E5 but think it's the low end of that) and only used a smidge so as I had no idea how long she would be off the road I added a fuel stabiliser. I ended up going for this stuff as it seemed to fit the bill:
Fast forward a year and 2 months and today was the big day - MOT day!
Obviously she passed, she's fettled and tinkered with so much the mechanic doing the test said it's always boring doing my MOT as he can never find anything to ping me for (although she has failed a before - bulb had gone over the rear number plate, think it made his day......) but what I really wanted to see was how the emissions looked with petrol that had been in there that long with stabiliser in it. I could have topped up the third of the tank that was empty with fresh but decided not to and I'd just hold that in my back pocket if she failed on emissions.
I was pleasantly surprised:
I'm not a petrochemist but my call is the fuel can't be in that bad shape to give emission numbers like.
She always burns pretty nicely, as I say I do a fair amount of fiddling and some of it might even be productive :laugh: and she's got a very free-flowing inlet/exhaust setup, but that's pretty much on a par with what she normally gets, albeit the Lambda had slipped out of dead middle by 0.01. Hadn't done an ECU reset prior to the test though which I normally do as she's been off the road.
After a year and 2 months I'd say the Stabil Storage seems to have pretty much done it's job. Based on that I'd recommend the stuff if you're taking your motor off the road for a bit.
Only thing to add is she's kept in a temp and humidity controlled environment which isn't going to hurt keep things like condensation in tanks away and moisture out of the petrol generally. Not sure but I think I may have mentioned about using a dehumidifier before............. :grin:
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