diff --git a/awx/main/management/commands/inventory_import.py b/awx/main/management/commands/inventory_import.py
index c84d12c16c..797355bf3b 100644
--- a/awx/main/management/commands/inventory_import.py
+++ b/awx/main/management/commands/inventory_import.py
@@ -177,12 +177,6 @@ class AnsibleInventoryLoader(object):
         base_args = self.get_base_args()
         logger.info('Reading Ansible inventory source: %s', self.source)
 
-        # by default, the GCE inventory source caches results on disk for
-        # 5 minutes; disable this behavior
-        # https://github.com/ansible/tower/blob/cfb633e8a643b0190fa07b6204b339a1d336cbb3/awx/plugins/inventory/gce.py#L115
-        if self.source.endswith('gce.py'):
-            base_args += ['--refresh-cache']
-
         data = self.command_to_json(base_args + ['--list'])
 
         # TODO: remove after we run custom scripts through ansible-inventory
diff --git a/awx/main/tasks.py b/awx/main/tasks.py
index 8a4c6ca27b..aed99cd9ab 100644
--- a/awx/main/tasks.py
+++ b/awx/main/tasks.py
@@ -1881,6 +1881,16 @@ class RunInventoryUpdate(BaseTask):
             env['GCE_PROJECT'] = passwords.get('source_project', '')
             env['GCE_PEM_FILE_PATH'] = cloud_credential
             env['GCE_ZONE'] = inventory_update.source_regions if inventory_update.source_regions != 'all' else ''
+
+            # by default, the GCE inventory source caches results on disk for
+            # 5 minutes; disable this behavior
+            cp = ConfigParser.ConfigParser()
+            cp.add_section('cache')
+            cp.set('cache', 'cache_max_age', '0')
+            handle, path = tempfile.mkstemp(dir=kwargs.get('private_data_dir', None))
+            cp.write(os.fdopen(handle, 'w'))
+            os.chmod(path, stat.S_IRUSR | stat.S_IWUSR)
+            env['GCE_INI_PATH'] = path
         elif inventory_update.source == 'openstack':
             env['OS_CLIENT_CONFIG_FILE'] = cloud_credential
         elif inventory_update.source == 'satellite6':
diff --git a/awx/main/tests/unit/test_tasks.py b/awx/main/tests/unit/test_tasks.py
index ed6c5c9929..3a7a218133 100644
--- a/awx/main/tests/unit/test_tasks.py
+++ b/awx/main/tests/unit/test_tasks.py
@@ -1319,6 +1319,12 @@ class TestInventoryUpdateCredentials(TestJobExecution):
             assert env['GCE_ZONE'] == expected_gce_zone
             ssh_key_data = env['GCE_PEM_FILE_PATH']
             assert open(ssh_key_data, 'rb').read() == self.EXAMPLE_PRIVATE_KEY
+
+            config = ConfigParser.ConfigParser()
+            config.read(env['GCE_INI_PATH'])
+            assert 'cache' in config.sections()
+            assert config.getint('cache', 'cache_max_age') == 0
+
             return ['successful', 0]
 
         self.run_pexpect.side_effect = run_pexpect_side_effect