Is there a way to know if a few gallons of gas has gone bad or not? other than the time it has spent sitting someplace.
the correct way is to take a sip, and swish in around ur mouth, letting hit on all four taste centers.... let it dance on ur pallet, then spit it back into the tank.... use ur own discretion as to the freshness...
with todays gas, if its been in a can for a couple months its gonna stink weird! Wether that means its bad or not i dont know. Im sure its not the best but low performance engines will still run fine on it tho!
If in doubt throw it out......If you have at least half a tank in your driver mix it in.I have seen too many cars that ran rough because they used up their old boat gas etc in their cars.I wouldn,t even consider using it if I had my doubts about its quality.
I deal with this on a daily basis. It's lawn mower season!!!! About 90% of what I do relates to old gas. 2 ways to check, smell, and stick your finger in it, it should tingle and start to evaporate immediately. If it smells bad or doesn't evaporate it is bad. NEVER, NEVER used old gas in a small engine!!!! You wouldn't believe the problems it causes a small engine! Labor rates right know on a fuel problem are 65.00 plus parts.
I know how you feel, I work for the parks department, and on our larger mowers some are gas and some are diesel. The ones that run on gas don't get used all that often and sit for months at a time sometimes with a full or half tank and then it's my job to drain them and refill them. It fucking sucks but that goes without saying.
when you smell the bad gas there will no doubt in your mind its bad. its one of those smells that you can not ever forget or get rid of kinda like gear oil........eeeewww.