For those not following my saga I had got a decent tuneup happening on the street and was getting ready to start suspension tuning. Then my daily driver got totalled and music stuff was still non stop so I let the GTX sit again. Well I screwed up big time and forgot to put stabilizer in the gas, 3 months later...varnish smell.
Flushed system with stabilized gas and got it running with spare carb.
Need to order a kit and go through the carb that was on it....as it's blowing raw fuel out
The exhaust with the one that got the bad fuel. When warm 20w50 drains like apple juice it's obvious
Some fuel got in there. Still kicking myself for forgetting.

My Buddy the 30-something year marine mechanic says he's seeing pump fuel go bad in as little as 30 days.

What kind of shelf life are you guys getting from pump gas?

Wow, I've never seen fuel go bad that quickly. My truck sits for a few weeks at a time but I usually fill up with gas at least once a month or once every 6 weeks. Never seen a problem with fuel. The gas for my lawn mower often sits for several months until it is used up.

Unbelievable the kinda crapfuel they supply to folks in the US sometimes.
Overhere, more than once I've let my cars sit for well over a year in the garage and they start right up every time.

Using a overdose of Sta-Bil,I get quite a long life with fuel. I use double the amount for 5 gallons of fuel.

Not saying it dont happen, but I never ever use any fuel additive, stabilizer and have never had an issue and I let junk got 1.5 years at times.

This tells me its not the gas, its the crap people are tricked into buying to add to it.

Just got my Caravan running again after 15 months with a half tank of gas setting in it. Fired up in 5 seconds of cranking and ran smooth as silk. I've put about 125 miles on it now and I'll fill it back up tomorrow. No problems at all so far

My cars set for 8 months while I'm out of state. I don't put in any additive , just have close to a full tank. Haven't had a problem in 5 years. Starts right up and run they fine. These are carburetor cars also. Yesterday the hurricane was coming so I figured I should see if the generator would start and run, haven't used it in a couple years, put on the choke, one pull and it fired right up. Just cheap 87 octane.

Seems pretty quick for fuel to go bad, my 78 D300 only gets a taste of fresh fuel 3-4 times a year, no problems BUT, it's a stock low compression 400, don't take much to get spark.

I've been using ethanol free in small engines that are finicky (honda generator) or old (87 yamaha warrior) that has no tolerance for ethanol.
It's worked so far, both start and run like they should.

Ed

The last comment I would trust from a oil company rep. was that most pump gas has a 90 day shelf life in the car in area that have a 20 + F swing from day to night temps.
As far as yours stinking like shellac in that little time makes me wonder how old it was when you bought it
I have some old non ethanol 91 octane Oregon pump fuel sit in our snow blower from winter three years ago to last winter when it did snow again enough to get it out and it still started and ran decent It sits in a non heated garage and the winter to summer temps out here vary from low teens in the winter to high 90s in the summers

i bought a junk 2002 caravan for the transmission that had sat for almost four years. it had 1/4 tank as shown on the gage, so just out of curiosity, decided to see if it ran. put a good battery in it, and it didn't take over four revolutions to get running ! took it down the road and the transmission was working perfectly, but most surprising, the engine ran great and no smoke ! put about five miles on the test drive, and not a hiccup.

Thanks for the replies. Sounds like it's probably rotten luck.

Maybe it was already old when I bought it....that's my current thought.

There's really no reason for the varnish smell to happen so quickly, other than it was no good in the first place...

There might be regional considerations too, not sure, I know they blend it differently for different weather but not much beyond that.

Went and stocked up on stabilizer and will just try a little harder to remember use that whenever it sits, from now on. It sat for four years with stabilized gas and fired right up.

Stop getting your lead additive from the tap water.

"Speed secret revealed"