55 Gallon Drums: I know what youre thinking, Wait a minute, doesnt oil come in those 55 gallon drums? Yes, it does, sometimes. Gasoline is significantly more volatile (read explosive) than the light sweet crude, therefore having that much of it without some form of vent is genuinely dangerous. Even when it is properly vented those vapors are highly flammable, so when the sealed container that the vapors are escaping into is your car, youre going to have problems! Dont believe me, ask the bloke who burned down his Hummer!
Styrofoam Coolers:This one made us laugh. Admittedly we first saw it in the form of a meme, but then we saw people actually do it! This will probably land you on some sort of list, in addition to ruining whatever vehicle you put it into- because this is the basic formula for napalm. The gasoline starts to break down the styrofoam, it becomes more of a gel than a liquid, and you have big problems in a hurry.
Plastic Bags:When it comes to bad ideas, this one is the winner. Except maybe that one lady who was putting her gasoline into a laundry hamper. Again, gasoline is highly corrosive, so it can break down the relatively thin plastic of a plastic bag in a hurry, thus leaking into the ground/floor of wherever you were keeping your molotov water balloon.
Why Hoarding Gasoline is a Bad Idea in General:Gasoline has a way shorter shelf life than people think. Try getting a car running that was full of gas when you parked it the last time two years ago. It wont want to run. That is because the gasoline that was stored in the tank (in optimal conditions) has gone bad. It is closer to varnish than it is to something that can run your car.
Injectors, fuel pumps, fuel lines, spark plugs: you name it under the hood of your car, it wants good gasoline.
Also, if you think the state is overbearing when it comes to COVID stuff, just wait until you see how overbearing they are when you have several hundred gallons of an environmentally toxic, highly flammable liquid in improper holding containers. The Karens of the HOA will be the least of your worries when the EPA forces you to pay for the environmental remediation if some of this stuff is found leaching into the ground.
Oh, and also, it explodes.
E85:With the scarcity of gasoline we have seen multiple posts about people trying their luck at running E-85 in their vehicles. While not as widely available as gasoline, it is still comparably cheap because of government subsidies and the fact that we make more corn than just about everyone. If E-85 becomes the fuel of the future were not mentally ready for Nebraska to turn into Dubai.
The weird part here from a purely chemistry standpoint is that E-85 is actually a little bit more shelf stable than regular 87. The alcohol in the fuel absorbs the water that has a tendency to foul regular gas. The important thing to remember here is that not every car can run E-85.
Luckily, because of the aforementioned government subsidies, there are a lot of cars that can run E-85, either stock or with minor factory or aftermarket modifications. The 2021 Chevrolets that can be purchased with this FlexFuel” option to run E-85 are the Silverado 1500, 2500, and 3500 work trucks with the gasoline engine. The better bet actually is when you start looking at used trucks and SUVs. All of the Silverado 2500s from 2010 to 2019 model years had FlexFuel capability as standard. Owners note mostly a slight drop in fuel economy, but a pretty big pickup in torque.
For some of the smaller displacement V8s, the aftermarket is loaded with options for people looking to run their vehicle on E-85. There is a good reason why a lot of people who have built their GM V8s up with tuning and forced induction use this as their fuel. It makes a lot of extra power.
We will be getting more in depth on E-85 in a later post because there is a lot to explore and as gas prices continue to rise here in good ole Rochester we have a feeling this is going to be a hot topic in a few months.
So if you have put long-past-due gas into your car because you just haven’t been driving as much during the pandemic, or because youve been stockpiling gasoline this entire time, you might want to schedule an appointment for us to check it out. Some symptoms to be on the lookout for are strange sounds when the car is running, the car randomly misfiring (sometimes accompanied by a check engine light) or your car may not want to start at all. You really can’t miss the smell of bad gas.
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