Elsewhere I have discussed the reality of today's gas going bad in a very short time. OEMs have documented three weeks. Three weeks! Before varnish starts forming. (Remember, this has nothing to do with ethanol, so get that out of your head). On motorcycles whose carbs are a job to remove--the Honda CBX1000 comes to mind, and several other Honda models such as most of the V4s--this stark fact is a wake up call for proactively preserving your gas with a preservative such as Sta-Bil. Sta-Bil works, which is not a given with things in its category, making it the hands-down champion.

However, while it will preserve fuel for up to 18 months in some conditions (the label says one year), Sta-Bil makes no claims to be an after-the-fact restorative. So proactive is the word. Something else I have observed, and an important variable, is heat. Just as CBX carbs evaporate their fuel in warm weather very quickly, similarly, gasoline goes bad faster in hot environments. The bike in a summer garage, for example. Or gas stored in a gas can in a shed. So the worst time is the warm season, and the best the colder months, which incidentally is why you can experience the 18 months mentioned earlier--low temps add to the protection of the gas.

Something else I have witnessed. Using premium fuel adds another twist: it goes bad even faster, even more aggressively. Maybe it is already going bad in the gas station's storage tank. And maybe this is because extremely few vehicles require it today, so it is replaced a lot less often. I am cogitating about this because this past year I have twice observed premium gas going bad very rapidly, even with Sta-Bil added, which tells me it was already bad when it was used and the Sta-Bil therefore was no help. I am fairly certain this is what happened.

Food for thought?