Does petrol 'go off'?

[Poddington]

Hi everyone,
Just a bit concerned about the fuel in the van...

My van runs on LPG, which I have been using all summer but there is £5 worth of petrol thats been sloshing round the tank for 6/7 months now - is the petrol going to be ok to run on after this length of time?

Cheers
Ross

[Ian Hulley]

You're supposed to run on petrol a few miles each month to lubricate the system and make sure the petrol pump etc still works.

As for petrol going off ... I've heard it does but can't say definitively.

Ian.

[Mocki]

unleaded does "go off" , BUT freshen it up with a fivers worth( so you have two thimble fulls) and it willbe fine.

as Ian says, you are supposed to run it on fools gold everynow and then, just make sure the pump still works and you can if you need to use it..... if its been that long i would make sure i was looking at the pipes in the engine bay first, making sure they were still ok, then finding a bit of straight clear road and switching over at about 60mph, to give it a goodly chance of switching over and running...... its a long way to suck allthe cobwebs out of

[lloyd]

As stated above, petrol does degrade. New stuff degrades much faster it did a few years ago.. probably because its ethanol blend now.

[Poddington]

Cheers for the info,

Looks like I'll be finding a downhill stretch of motorway, flicking the switch at 60 and hoping for the best!

Didn't even occur to me until the other day - you live and learn!

[eatcustard]

Goes off after about 3 months (ish)

add another £5 worth in and dont flick switch at 60, do it at low revs