They are modern marvels indeed, but if you were to park your car in a field in May, by New Years when you go to start it up, it's a coin-flip whether or not it will.
Generators need to be exercised and maintained. You are committing to fire that thing up for a few hours every month, just to make sure it's in running order when you need it (I used to work next to a hospital that fired them every week).
We have several large scale full building generators. Our exercise cycles are 15 minutes once a week. Our diesel mechanics fully service the engines every 3 to 6 months depending on size and importance.
Fuel is easy because we have an external tank with a visual gauge that you can read from several feet away. When they added DEF they neglected to add a DEF gauge that's as easy to read. Thank goodness they sell DEF at any old truck stop.
For a modern car, If mice don't get into it and you have a battery maintainer, it's close to 100% going to start right up.
That fuel is probably going to be bad by then thanks to the ethanol that's put in it. Diesel is much more stable in that case.
I wonder if anyone has done any modern testing.
I had a 1990s car that started right up with 2015 fuel that sat in its tank for 9 months.
I had a car parked during covid and then remote work that probably consumed 1 tank of gas over the period of 2 years. Other than battery drain it was fine.
> Generators need to be exercised and maintained. You are committing to fire that thing up for a few hours every month, just to make sure it's in running order when you need it (I used to work next to a hospital that fired them every week).
This can easily be automated, Generac will handle testing for residential generators.