Perhaps your location (rural gas not having as much pollution issues as gas in some cities??), length of storeage and use (small engine versus vehicles) might be factors. I've heard that some regions have 15 or 17 different formulations of gas.

Folks on these forums say that small engines are much more sensitive to old/bad gas than are larger engines such as cars and trucks.

I put Stabil in my containers the day it is purchased for yard work -- mowers, chippers, trimmers, etc.

One thing that surprised, even shocked me. My dads truck sat in the garage for seven years with the same gas and no additives. It STARTED after seven years! Ran rough, but I did not expect it to run on that old gas.

My bad habit was to use left over Boat�s summer 50:1 in my mower (thinking it w/n hurt). It took a while to foul the plug. I knew exactly what caused it when I saw the fouled plug. The symptom was one pull to start went to three or more. A good cleaning went back to one pull to start. The left over 50:1 will still be used in 2 cycles and all is treated with Stabil.

IF I had left over 50:1, I'd just dump small quantities into the car/truck tank. Maybe 10% or less at a time.