Supposed to get 3 - 5 inches of snow today so I decided last night to make sure the snow blower fires up. I neglected to drain the fuel tank this spring as I normally do so I took a couple of minutes to do that before attempting to start it. I usually buy my last 5 gallon can of "garage fuel" in October. This gets me through the last of the mowing season and leaves me enough fuel for the snow blower. I always treat this fuel with red Sta-Bil when purchased so the last few runs of my equipment for the season are with treated fuel. Both fuel samples in the picture are from the same station, 87 octane, and non-ethanol. Again, both treated with the appropriate amount of red Sta-Bil. The sample on the right is from the snow blower and would have been purchased in October of 2010. The sample on the left was purchased in October of 2011. Sorry for the crappy iPhone pic.

So is it safe to use? I would hate to see whats in all of my machines.

Looks like you drank half the Coke in the right bottle and peed in the left

???

Corrected. Thanks for pointing that out.

Couple of things to consider, I never treat the gas in my 4 stroke weedwacker and the gas sits all winter long. Come spring, 6 months later it is a bit discolored but nothing like that. It has a "clear/white" plastic tank. Depending on the age of the snowblower and what is in the tank, I have heard of the gas breaking down older black tanks and lines. In doing that they can absorb the color as well. Just an idea....

No problem!

Good point. I remember snowmobiles having a recall a few years ago because the gas lines they used were getting eaten away from the inside.

I needed that this morning!

The snowblower is a John Deere 724D that is @ 8 - 10 years old. It has a black, hard plastic fuel tank. I pulled the rubber feed hose to the shut-off valve off the tank so the fuel you see did not have any contact with rubber hose. It did not smell like varnish and the blower started on the first pull after sitting 10 months. It ran for a little bit on this fuel since I did not drain the fuel lines and carb. I was just surprised how dark it was.