> unless you have stockpiled gas

And are regularly rotating that stockpile, because gasoline has a shelf life measured in months

edit: Apparently this leans more technically-true factoid than fact, thank you replies

You're not wrong but this is commonly exaggerated: half a year with a stabilizer is entirely doable under reasonable conditions.

Unless you are trying to race your car at the drag strip with charged air and hit your best times, that isn't true at all and I don't know why people keep saying it. You think everybody empties their lawn mowers, snow blowers, snowmobiles, generators, etc. every year of gas or before trying to start it up again the next year? No way.

Simpler gas equipment like mowers and generators don't have enough compression to really care about anything but ancient gas, and if you run any vehicle that is multi-fuel capable it can detect and adjust compression based on a fuel's capabilities.

Ive been repairing and fixing junkers of cars, mowers, ATVs, generators, and more for 30 years and not once has bad gas stopped something from running. I only remove it if it was clearly having water raining into the tank. In every other case where I couldn't start something after sitting around for 5+ years, it was from the gas gumming up in the carb or the shitty diaphragm pump, which generally means there is little to no gas left to start with.

I wouldn't even suspect gas of ever being bad unless it was atleast a few years old. If the tank was open it could have evaporated, if the tank was closed it probably ain't great gas but I bet it would still run in anything but a high compression application.