You may have read my other post re: buying an Audi A4. We have decided to keep my girlfriends old car and store it in a garage for 6 months for my brother to learn to drive in. Question is should I be doing anything special for this short space of time. WIll hook the battery up to a trickle charger and leave the handbrake off so hopefully no battery and brake issues when it is to be used again.
Should I change the oil (was done recently) and maybe run it once a week for 10 minutes to keep the engine going or is this doing more harm than good?
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Some info at
www.honestjohn.co.uk/faq/faq.htm?id=37
A forum search may give some more thoughts!
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Question no 44 in the FAQ's above should tell you.
It describes what to do when storing a car for 3 months - so I would just double everything that is quoted (only joking about the last bit).
I think all your answers will be contained in HJ's answer.
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AS is quicker on the keys than me.
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Not really quicker - just a quiet evening at work using HM's Broadband! Hospital, not prison BTW!
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Don't fuss too much. Plenty of people have cars hanging around undriven for 3-6 months (even a few dealers ;-) ).
Battery and brake corrosion are your worries - but if the garage is dry then the brakes will be fine. If the garage is damp then you might have problems.
No need to worry about oil change etc - just follow normal maintainance.
Run it when you can - but on the road and for at least 5-10 miles otherwise you'll do more harm than good. Otherwise don't start it.
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I had a problem once with the clutch plates siezing together making it difficult to start the engine or push the car. I think I recall some suggestion about wedging the clutch pedal down with a block or rod to prevent this happening. Might 6 months of this be bad for the clutch mechanism? One wouldn't want to make the situation worse!
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I seem to recall reading that one should put a laid up car on blocks to avoid the tyres developing a flat spot, but perhaps modern tyres behave differently?
Outboard engines when laid up professionally for the winter have special oils injected into the cylinder to prevent corrosion, perhaps that should be considered unless engine is started regularly?
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I think it all depends on how valuable/rare the car is. Perfection involves doing everything that has been suggested. You either start it up, preferably move it a bit, and bring the engine and oil up to working temperature, once every two months is suggested, or you do a total lay-up with special preservative oil, desiccants in the manifolds and bores, and heaven knows what else.
But the simplest thing is to do precisely nothing, apart from charging the battery periodically. Plenty of cars survive on that basis.
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I had my car laid up in the garage for well over a year. As I was taking the engine apart in that time, under the bonnet stuff wasn't an issue. But what did suffer was green mould growing on the interior, particularly where my hands had been. So the steering wheel and gear knob got rather fluffy! It was easy enough to wipe off, but still something you'd rather not have. So I suggest you give the interior a good clean out before storing it up, so all the germs from mucky hands haven't got a breeding ground to live on.
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I left my TR7 in the garage earlier this year for about that length of time and other than flattening the battery whilst attempting to restart it, it was OK. I left the handbrake off and once I'd nurtured it back into life (Redex into the carb air intakes), everything else was fine.
No mould on the interior and the clutch was OK as well.
cheers
Stu
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We used to leave our 3 series for up to 6 months at a time (I think we did this on maybe 3 occasions), it was parked on the drive and literally just left there untouched for 6 months, apart from a battery charge, it started and drove away first time with apparently no ill effects, although the outside did need a damn good clean due to a large quantity if moss sprouting frome very crevice!
Blue
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