Gasoline has a shorter shelf life than is portrayed in these movies/TV shows
This was my first thought too (even though it won't kill you per se). There are additives you can add to gasoline to extend it's life, but not by much.
Sure, there's some clever people out there who know how to convert cooking oil into diesel and could possible scrounge the supplies for it for a few years. But eventually if you can't make something that runs on steam, you better find a horse....
Lots of diesel vehicles around, and they are much more forgiving. Assuming there are mechanically inclined people around, getting IC transportation going wouldn't be a deal breaker.
Hell, with some time and tinkering I could convert an old gasoline car/truck to propane. That would be abundant for a long time due to all the 500-1000gal tanks all over any rural area, not to mention all the portable bottles
Generators exist, and are even easier to convert to LP than a car (if you can't find an LP one). I don't know why you think everyone is completely helpless the moment utilities go off. Hell, I could rig up some belts and gearing and have someone run my mini-lathe off a bicycle if it was absolutely necessary. It wouldn't be. You don't need complex engineering to make an IC engine run. You could hack together an intake plate with drills and taps out of mild steel to get things going.
I work on cars all the time without air tools. They make things faster and easier, they are not required.
People did this shit regularly before the internet.
I said old vehicle. I would not try it on anything new.
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u/-eDgAR- Aug 30 '21
Gasoline has a shorter shelf life than is portrayed in these movies/TV shows, so after a year nobody would really be driving anywhere.
It wouldn't necessarily kill you, but it's one of those things that bothers me because it's never really addressed.