My car hasn't moved in 3 weeks. Life circumstances have dictated this and I find myself antsy. I'll have to exercise it soon.
What is your limit?
My car hasn't moved in 3 weeks. Life circumstances have dictated this and I find myself antsy. I'll have to exercise it soon.
What is your limit?
My e30 was sitting for 2 years. Two weeks ago I took it on a 4000 mile trip to the Overcrest Rally.
🤷🏻
Three months is my max. The Datsun sits most of the summer because it's 115 degrees here.
One year, although it depends on style and prep of storage, and type of car. Holly 4bbl? A decade. Bosch Kjetronic fuel injection? At the most, one year.
What’s the year/make/model?
One year, any more than that and I get anxious and contemplate selling. My current garage queen was only out for about three tanks of gas this year but one of those was burned up at Gingerman Raceway. You know to clean the rotors.
Obviously too long.
Several of mine are about to be parked in my storage garage for 4-6 months for the winter. Fuel stabilizer, battery tenders, a bit of extra air in the tires, leave them clean and they will be ready to go in the spring.
9 years was too long for my wife's scooter. We didn't plan on it so the gas sat. The in-tank fuel pump (its fuel injected) and sending unit rusted and had to be replaced. The tank amazingly enough stayed nice. Cleaned it out and replaced the bad parts and it was good to go.
I leave my summer vehicles sit for ~5 months over the winter. I fill up the gas tank and add some stabilizer, disconnect the battery and then walk away until spring. I've been doing this same procedure for over 40 years without issues.
If your car is modern (with a constant low level current draw) and your battery has been connected over the last three weeks it may be low by now.
6 months over winter is my usual. Full tires, full tank and a little fuel stabilizer.
Not sure if this is a "will I be ok" or "will the car be ok" question.
On the car part, 2.5 years on a 2001 Miata is just like an overnight, minus the battery and dust. Made me dig back through the archives a bit.
https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/grm/reviving-a-dormant-answer/126234/page1/
My '05 Elise sat for years at a time multiple times with no prep. Fired right up each time.
Glueguy, I handled it worse than the car, haha.
Two car garage, currently 4 cars (sometimes 5). I try to move them around at least every 2-3 weeks, never have set up a battery tender. Keep saying I will, and the Celica race car will definitely not be driven much this winter.
3 of the 4 cars are now AWD and have snow tires, which is unusual for me, so it won't be as much of an issue this winter.
As long as it takes for it to learn its lesson.
I don't really think about it. I certainly don't stress over it. Most vehicles will sit for 6-8 months without issue as long as you keep the battery up.
The Hummer sat for 2 weeks while I was driving the Touareg. The Abomination hasn't moved in a few years. SanFord hasn't moved in a few years as well. I haven't driven the Mustang in a couple of months. The Samurai no longer has plates so it has been sitting for over a year. My wife's Miata hasn't run in a couple of months.
They sit as long as I don't want to mess with them. Sometimes that lasts until I get rid of them.
Years. Our Alfa barely gets driven, but it will always start right up and go. My Miata has been under restoration for a really long time, since I'm so lazy.
It lives in the garage, but I usually quit driving the Manic Miata in early November, weather depending. Somewhere around the Solstice, when it starts getting below freezing regularly, I'll throw the battery tender on it. As soon as the weather warms up a bit in early March, I'll pop it off the tender and it fires right up.
So, 5-6 months? Full tank and no other real prep. I put the top up so it doesn't shrink and leave the windows open an inch or two for air circulation.
If you're talking about how long before I get the itch to sell it, then the answer is years. The LeMans was an unregistered garage queen for a decade before I decided she deserved more love than I could give her. And even then, it was only because the perfect buyer presented himself.
Over the winter I usually just throw it on a tender and go. I haven't had to let a car sit for longer than 3-4 months. If I was planning on longer I'd probably do some more fuel prep, especially with ethanol heavy gas these days.
Too long probably, but also usually they are broken preventing them from being driven and sometimes its because diagnostic time is hard to find motivation for when there are other projects that are (supposed to be) less time consuming to deal with ahead of it.
Once everything is running / driving I will probably rotate weekly what I am driving in the warmer months. My plan/hope/goal is my 3/4 ton is going to undergo a bunch of work over the warmer months next so it'll be off the road a while probably.
Like when people ask about insurance rates, there are so many different factors.
You'll need to log in to post.
