Nothing lasts forever. That said, many of our products last indefinitely when stored in an environment of moderate temperatures but since we have no control over storage conditions, we feel comfortable saying our products are safe to use for at least three years from date of manufacture. You will find a date code on all our products that serves as a reference to the date of manufacture.
What does this mean for you?
One thing our date code does is to protect you from purchasing old (sometimes very old) materials being pushed by less-than-reputable sources. We have seen very old materials being sold at steep discounts through eBay and other sources. We recommend that you ask for the date code before purchasing any products from an unknown supplier.
It doesn’t mean, however that you need to immediately toss that bottle of Tufoil or Formula-8 at exactly the three-year mark. If you are comfortable with knowing when you purchased it and from whom, and how it’s been stored, it’s probably safe to use. However, if you find a bottle of dust-covered product tucked way back on a shelf and you don’t know how long you’ve had it, or it doesn’t even have a date code, you may want to order a replacement. Tufoil Engine Treatment can thicken after many years and may be unusable. It doesn’t mean Fluoramics produced a bad product; it just means that bottle of Tufoil outlived its shelf life, just like products you buy at the grocery store.
What is the date code?
Fluoramics uses a five-digit Julian date format YYDDD, where YY is the year and DDD is the day in the year. For example, a product manufactured May 14th, 2023, has a Julian date of 23134. This means it was manufactured on the 134th day of 2023 and the recommended shelf life date is three years later, or May 14th, 2026. We have used date codes on all products for many years. That means a product without a date code is outside of the recommended shelf-life period. You may have products on hand with an E before a date. E stands for Expiration so the date you see there denotes the end of the recommended shelf life.
As always, Fluoramics’ engineering personnel are available to discuss this with you by phone at 507-205-9216 or email at Ask an Engineer or [email protected].
