You need to take special precautions if you store your car, motorcycle or any fuel-engine-powered hardware for a long period of unuse. Fuel that's kept in the engine for months can become progressively more viscous until your liquid fuel has become a gel which has lodged itself in all the nooks and crannies of your engine. Add a fuel stabilizer to your gas tank before storage to avoid this problem. Fuel stabilizers have ingredients that keep the fuel in your engine from aging.
Loss of moisture is one of the causes of liquid fuel becoming more gel-like. Ethanol is an old-fashioned fuel stabilizer. Without additional chemical treatments, ethanol has water-absorbing properties which help keep fuel liquid. Other alcohols are used toward this end as well.
Hydrotreated light naphthenic distillate solvent extract, known by a number of other names, including mineral oil and petroleum distillates, is a substance which makes up the majority of many fuel stabilizers. It works to prevent changes in the chemical make-up of solutions to which it is added. It is also used in anti-freeze, engine flushes, seals and lubricants.
In addition to alcohols and hydrotreated light naphthenic distillate solvent extract, most commercial fuel stabilizers contain what the companies describe as "proprietary" or "trade secret" formulas.
