On Mon, 23 Jun 2008 11:13:26 -0400, "tak"
wrote:

Hi all,

Question: anyone know if the oil for outboard motor mix (2 stroke) has a
shelf life and if so, what. the oil is in factory sealed cans and plastic
containers and is eight to ten years old?

It's still still good.

The problem isn't the oil which is 80-95% of the total weight by
volume of marine TWC-3 formulations - that will always be good no
matter how old it is. The problem is the type of additives used, if
it's no ash, low ash, medium ash or high ash formulation, the type of
bio-degradable agent used and other minor ingredients. Each
manufacturer has to comply with the base TWC-3 specification and
that's what the engine performance is based on - the other agents
introduced to the formulation are there for environmental and
viscosity reasons - not necessarily performance reasons.

You will hear worry wart nannies who say 1 year, two years - the truth
is that it can't really go "bad" in the sense that it's unusuable. If
we're talking about your routine two stroke engine, carbed or injected
via VRO, you can use it without any problems. You might see a slight
degradation in performance in older tech Yamaha HPDI engines or Merc
Optimax, but it won't harm your engine. My engine is another story
entirely, but it can be detuned to use cheaper oils quickly.

If you are really concerned about "shelf life" of your stored,
unopened oils, just use them in your two cycle lawn equipment for the
forseeable future. That's what I do with the left over FICHT oil I
have. The odd thing is that the two cycle gear I have runs cleaner,
less smell, starts faster and develop a little more power with FICHT
oil than regular two cycle oil. :)

The simple truth is that for marine applications, it's still good.
It's really up to you to trust it. If you do or if you dont'.

I would use it if I owned a standard two stroke engine.