One of my cars has a completely full tank of mixed 2 and 3 year old E10 in it. No Stabil or any other additives were added.
1) Car was parked in April 2011 with 1/3 tank of E10 - no additives.
2) Started and drove car for half an hour in Summer/Fall 2012 (gas was on the order of 14-16 months old at this point). Car ran like a top. I drove it to the gas station and filled it up the rest of the way. I do not know for sure if the gas station that I used had E10 at the time, but I would assume so (I know what gas station it was, and it's not listed on pure-gas now so I am assuming E10). Again, car ran perfectly fine with 14-18 month old E10 in it. But now it has a mix of 3 year old gas and 1.5-2ish year old gas.
3) Fast forward to now, I plan on getting the car started this weekend. I am mostly worried about fuel injector and fuel rail clogging. Siphoning and/or otherwise removing the gas from the tank is not a big deal, and I'll do a fuel filter on it and observe (both by sight and smell) what comes out of the fuel line/siphon line but I am worried about the condition of the fuel rail and injectors at this point (worried about gumming/varnish/whatever else). Fuel rail and injectors were brand new essentially at the time the car was parked.
Any advise on other steps that should be taken, or whether I need to be worried at all. Most of the car people (I'm one of them, but I've never dealt with old gas before) I've posed this question to have basically told me they wouldn't be worried about prepping, try to start it and see what happens. If it starts and runs fine then I'm good to go.
1) Car was parked in April 2011 with 1/3 tank of E10 - no additives.
2) Started and drove car for half an hour in Summer/Fall 2012 (gas was on the order of 14-16 months old at this point). Car ran like a top. I drove it to the gas station and filled it up the rest of the way. I do not know for sure if the gas station that I used had E10 at the time, but I would assume so (I know what gas station it was, and it's not listed on pure-gas now so I am assuming E10). Again, car ran perfectly fine with 14-18 month old E10 in it. But now it has a mix of 3 year old gas and 1.5-2ish year old gas.
3) Fast forward to now, I plan on getting the car started this weekend. I am mostly worried about fuel injector and fuel rail clogging. Siphoning and/or otherwise removing the gas from the tank is not a big deal, and I'll do a fuel filter on it and observe (both by sight and smell) what comes out of the fuel line/siphon line but I am worried about the condition of the fuel rail and injectors at this point (worried about gumming/varnish/whatever else). Fuel rail and injectors were brand new essentially at the time the car was parked.
Any advise on other steps that should be taken, or whether I need to be worried at all. Most of the car people (I'm one of them, but I've never dealt with old gas before) I've posed this question to have basically told me they wouldn't be worried about prepping, try to start it and see what happens. If it starts and runs fine then I'm good to go.