Will putting sugar in a gas tank ruin a cars engine?
No http://www.snopes.com/autos/grace/sugar.asp Sugar doesn’t dissolve in gasoline, as a researcher at Berkeley confirmed in 1994. Forensics professor John Thornton labeled sucrose with radioactive carbon atoms and mixed it with gasoline, then spun the concoction in a centrifuge. After the undissolved particles were removed, the liquid’s radiation level was measured to determine how much sucrose had become part of the gasoline. The answer was extremely little: the equivalent of less than a teaspoonful per 15-gallon tank of gas. Because sugar doesn’t dissolve in automotive fuel, it doesn’t carmelize, and so it does not turn into the debilitating gunk this well-known entry in the revenge canon calls for. Instead, sugar poured into a car’s gas tank stays intact. While sugar could still cause harm if it reached the engine (but in the same way sand would, by virtue of its being a granular contaminant, not because the sugar would turn into a syrup), even that potential harm is generally preve
