Fuel Stabilizer Recommendations?

[PaulSmith]

I took this picture of a carb bowl from a zzr400 I was servicing for a lady friend. This bike was fuelled up just before xmas a couple of years ago and left in a dry garage until beginning of March when it was started up and then decided to misfire on all cylinders and generally run like crap.
This is what you risk getting in your carbs if you leave a bike for a coupl of months without using preserver or draining the carbs. And no, it isn't caused by water ingress in the tank/carbs, it's fuel gone 'off'

That is a stunning mount of gunge in the carbs. How much of it was already there before the bike was parked up for the winter?

[Simon.Pieman]

That is a stunning mount of gunge in the carbs. How much of it was already there before the bike was parked up for the winter?

That would be hard to say, but the bike was running fine before it was laid up. I'm not sure if this sort of thing is accumulative or not. It was interesting what Noj said in his post that the microbe infestation doesn't go away unless treated.

[keithfzs1000]

just gone picked up brothers trike from ex gilrfriends she has had it in locked garage 14 mths, (owner dispute) got here put spare battery on and tried to fire up took some doing but it did

moral of the story

14 mths of half a tank of petrol stood idle in a garage it didnt go off 
buy the stabilzer or not while bike sleeps a month or two hhhmmmm i think not never have and cant see a reason to change my mind all those who have been caught by the gunge etc well i would suggest there is other circumstances that have helped to cause it

[Simon.Pieman]

14 mths of half a tank of petrol stood idle in a garage it didnt go off 
buy the stabilzer or not while bike sleeps a month or two hhhmmmm i think not never have and cant see a reason to change my mind all those who have been caught by the gunge etc

Why risk it for the sake of less than a fiver?
Your trike might still suffer, there could be globules of microbial growth sitting in your float bowls silently waiting. All it takes is one to go up a main jet and you could be looking at a major carb clean/rebuild.
For peace of mind all that's needed is a fivers worth of the right chemical, turn of the tank petcock and drain the carb bowls. Done.

[Noj]

It's true you may never have an issue with water or microbial. However this problem is often started with poor fuel husbandry and promoted with an environment that helps growth of microbes. In the UK we have high quality fuel for now. Till we add more bio fuel! ie ethanol

Once you have an issue, it can be a real issue to clear with out cleaning, dismantling and flushing, which in my mind is not cost effective, as it could be your local supplier that has the problem, that is re contaminating you.

Worst case just treat if you get a problem.

[Ianboydsnr]

I never bother with fuel stabiliser,


only bike I had issues with was a bandit 1200, if you didn't use it for a few weeks it would cough and splutter,


some bikes I have had running on 2 year old fuel, without problems  :eek