I recently found (in my garage) a half gallon of diesel fuel that has been stored in one of those red plastic gasoline containers, (it's only been used for diesel fuel though). The cap has been tightly closed on it too. I figure this fuel is about a year old. #1-is it still OK to use? #2 What is the shelf-life of diesel fuel in a sealed container? #3 Does it ever turn into something not useable-like gasoline does into varnish?

The tall ship ELISSA (Galveston, Tx) sits for months at a time with several thousand gallons of diesel in her tanks. I'm not aware of any particular precautions or actions taken to stabilize the fuel or if it's even necessary. Of course, she also has a battery of filtering and water separation devices too.

My concern would be I would be possibly innoculating an otherwise clean auto tank with algae spores.

OTOH, if you can see inside the jug and it's still clear (no black crud) it is probably OK to use.

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Never a dull moment at Berry Hill Farm.

Shelf life of untreated diesel fuel is about a year. If I were you I wouldn't use it.

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2004 VW Jetta TDI (manual)

Past MB's: '96 E300D, '83 240D, '82 300D, '87 300D, '87 420SEL

Use it in your homemade smokescreen

I recently purchased a 1976 300 D. The inspection sticker was dated 2001. It started fine and drove it 6 miles on the fuel that was in the tank. Maybe I was lucky? The owner told me that it wasn't started in years, so I'm guessing the fuel was at least 10 yrs old.

Diesel will last as long as you want it to. One of the old marine terms is fuel "polishing", which is simply pumping fuel out of the tank, filtering and separating the water, then returning the clean fuel to the tank. But to me, that half gallon would be good for parts cleaner.

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daBenz - 1970 220D

"Diesel will last as long as you want it to." R Leo is right. If there is no water in it it will last for years. I have seen fuel used out of double bottem tanks on tugs that had been in there for more than ten years. It was really DARK but it got us home.

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1985 Euro 240D 5 spd 140K
1979 240D 5 spd, 40K on engine rebuild
1994 Dodge/Cummins, 5 spd, 121K
1964 Allice Chalmers D15 tractor
2014 Kubota L3800 tractor
1964 VW bug

"Lifes too short to drive a boring car"

Pour it in the tank! Top off with fresh diesel and don't give it a second thought. These things run on kerosene, jet fuel, cooking oil, motor oil, trans fluid, lamp oil, just-about-damn-near-anything! RT

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When all else fails, vote from the rooftops!
84' Mercedes Benz 300D Anthracite/black, 171K
03' Volkswagen Jetta TDI blue/black, 93K
93' Chevrolet C2500HD ExCab 6.5TD, Two-tone blue, 252K