If fuel stabilizers were a joke then companies like the mighty Stihl would not be putting them in their high dollar oil they brand. If stabilizers were harmful to small gas engines then engine makers and branders would not mention them in their books under storage. Nor would they all sell one with their name on it.
Fanatic, just do what you did last year. It worked one time it will more than likely work again. Fuel quality and weather is to poor here to use fuel that way. Leaving fuel in lawnmowers for even a few months will have pudding in the float bowl in my garage. Six months in metal containers and they are green inside and out. My dealer will have string trimmers in a pile on his bench every day of the week from April through June. Another pile being picked up by the scrappers outside. Carb trouble from bad fuel. Every May weekend boaters will have boats popping and cracking all over town trying to get them to run but they give up and take them to a shop fifty miles away. The shop has a very nice fuel system that removes the fuel, removes the water, removes the gunk, and test it for use. If it passes it goes back into the boat. If not. Then it gets hauled away to where I do not know. The hauling away is as expensive as the cleaning. Then they start on cleaning the boats fuel system. If non ethanol fuel was not a better product in small engines and old engines then every town near every lake would not be selling it hand over fist for 30 to 50 cents per gallon over any other grade because folks are just as stingy here as anywhere.
Sea Foam. I have never used it. But I know many folks who do and have. It works. It is a good product. My dealer sells a case of it for about every bottle of Stabil or some other brand. Old timers like it. They have used it to put away outboards, ice augers, lawnmowers, string trimmers, chainsaws, motorbikes, and every other engine for longer than many of us have been alive. When I was a boy the oldtimers would tell you they used it for every power source but their horse and their steam engines. Those fellows still rolled their own smokes, made their own booze, raised their own food, and carried almost all their money in their wallet.
