cant imagine its the fuels fault having issues starting a car after half a year or even 1-2 years... i have pulled parts cars out of fields or barns that sat for 2, 3, 5, or one was even 9 years & they all started, aside from worn out engines or carb issues. the 9 year old one was a 78 SBC firebird with mouse nests in the tail pipes & air cleaner/carb, just for fun i cleaned up the air cleaner & carb & put a battery in it to see if it would crank over & it did. i poured a little gas in the carb & it fired right up & blew the rest of the nests & black carbon crap out the tail pipe! car ran & idled ok & even went into gear, had a rusted fuel line near the tank so i shut it off & was able to say it ran when i sold it. & the gas smelled like varnish! i agree gas can go bad but like FJ said, i dont think it goes bad to the point of not starting after a year or so, even with ethanol.
as for stabilizers, i use & have excellent results with seafoam @ 1oz/gallon, although im sure my cars & small engines would start fine in <1yr without any stabilizers, it gives me a warn fuzzy feeling knowing its helping some & is a mild cleaner to avoid any varnish happening from the fuel drying out over the winter.
as for fuels, non ethanol fuel isnt "expensive" its like .30/gal more than 10% ethanol where i live, well worth the small added cost to not deal with potential ethanol issues & straight gas gets better MPG due to more BTUs than ethanol. another fact about ethanol fuel is that it uses less octane fuel to get to the number on the pump, 87 with 10% ethanol is really 84 or 85 gas & the ethanol bumps it up a couple points... 89 eth starts as 87 gas & 93 eth starts as 91 gas. i prefer 91 with no ethanol in all my cars & use 87 no ethanol in my FI daily driver.
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