Driving in time of COVID: Can gas go bad?
I have a question that may be relevant now during the COVID pandemic, while a lot of people are driving less. How long does it take for gasoline to go “bad” in a car’s gas tank?
I have a Kia Optima Hybrid and a Honda Fit. In normal times, I’d fill each one up every week or two, when it got half empty, so there’d always be some fresh gas in the tank.
These days I’m only putting about 3,000 miles per year on each car. I drive each car at least once a week. If I fill up both cars, I can probably go two months (or more) before fill-ups! What’s the best way to manage gasoline usage so it doesn’t go bad? Thanks.— Mark
I would take a very scientific approach, Mark, and make sure you fill up each car whenever it gets close to “E.” You have nothing to worry about. Most modern gasolines will easily store for a year.
You may know about the Chevy Volt, which was the first “plug-in hybrid” model on the market, debuting in late 2010. It had both a battery pack, which originally gave you about 35-40 miles on a charge, and a gasoline engine, which could take you a couple of hundred miles more.
We wondered, kind of like you’re wondering, what happens if I own a Volt and I drive less than 35 miles a day — like a lot of people do. In the Volt, you could easily go indefinitely on battery power alone and never activate the gasolineengine.
Well, it turns out the folks at Chevrolet thought of that, too. And they programmed the Volt’s computer so that once the gasoline had been in the tank for a year, it would automatically switch the car to the gasoline engine to empty out the fuel tank and force you to refill it. And they probably erred on the side of caution. So it’d probably be fine for more than a year. Certainly you’ll be fine for two or three months, Mark.
Ever since I purchased my Chevrolet Traverse LT, I’ve noticed that the transmission temperature gauge regularly reads around212 degrees at highway speeds. The engine temperature gauge reads normal or even a little cooler than normal — even when it’s hot outside.
I checked with the dealership and was told that this is normal operating temperature for this transmission. I worry that as soon as my warranty runs out, the transmission will expire.
Does this sound normal to you? I am constantly worried, while on long trips, that the transmission will give out in the middle of nowhere. — Ramiro
Don’t worry, Ramiro. It’s much more likely that something other than the transmission will give out in the middleof nowhere.
Actually, your dealer is right. This sounds perfectly normal. Here’s how your transmission stays cool: Whenever your engine is running, the transmission fluid gets pumped into the transmission cooler, which lives inside your car’s radiator. As the transmission fluid passes through the radiator (inside those transmission cooler lines), it essentially gets bathed in coolant. Once it’s cooled down, the fluid is sent back to the transmission to keep doing its job.
And do you know the temperature of that coolant that cools the transmission fluid? It’s about 220 degrees. It’s the same as your normal engine operating temperature, which is in the range of 210230 degrees. Since the stuff that’s cooling the transmission fluid is 220 degrees, there’s no way the transmission fluid can end up cooler than that.
Think about it this way: If you had the air conditioner in your house set to 68 degrees, and you left a pitcher of beer out on your kitchen table all day, there’s no way it’s going to ever get any cooler than 68 degrees, right? Though I’m sure you’d drink it anyway.
If your transmission fluid wasn’t running through that 220-degree coolant in the radiator, it could heat up to 350 or 400 degrees or more. And then it would cook itself and your transmission.
But it sounds like your transmission cooling system is doing exactly what it’s supposed to do, Ramiro. Hope that knowledge helps you cool off a bit, too.