Quote:
Originally Posted by dharper
The gas tank is sealed and pressurized to prevent spoilage. Here is a blurb from the owners manual:
Fuel Maintenance Mode (FMM) tracks average fuel age. Old fuel can cause engine problems. If low engine usage causes average fuel age to exceed approximately one year, FMM will run the engine to use up the old fuel. The engine will run until enough fresh fuel is added to bring the average fuel age into an acceptable range. Allowing more old fuel to be used up by FMM and adding a larger amount of fresh fuel will maximize the length of time before another fuel maintenance mode is needed. During FMM the engine may turn on and off.
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Just to be clear for people that don't link up this post with dharper's previous one, he's talking about the Chevy Volt. If you plug in the Volt every night and don't travel more than about 85km per day, the gas engine will never come on. That's why it has to keep track of how old the fuel is and run the engine if the fuel gets too old.
So GM seems to think that fuel can last for a year in a sealed tank.
But the tank has to be well sealed. The Volt does a pressure test of the tank every so often to make sure it is, so this is obviously an important piece of the picture.