storing a car for 3 to 5 years...

definitely put oil in it new oil will last pretty much for ever in an unstarted car engine change it in 3-5 years or when you get back also fill one oz of oil in engine cylinders ... or even a couple of sprays of oil in cylinders ....drain gas and keep in climate control should be good to go ....you might want to spray things with a preservative but if it is out of light and humidity and temp controlled it would be fine more or less

I once bought a NEW 37 mile car that was stored for 35 years in a similar manner and even the tires looked new really like new kinda cool

 

Question here. I see that some have suggested putting the car on jack stands. I don’t get that. Why would that be a good thing?

OK, letting the tires sit in the same position for a few years will give you some nasty flat spots on some pretty old and brittle tires. So invest in some $20 donor tires.

Wouldn’t letting the suspension hang for a couple of years do more and more expensive damage than writing off a set of tires? After all, cars that are driven every day sit resting on their suspension every day.

What am I missing?

 

I agree.. having suspension hang is not a good thing .. drive on to multiple layers of foam rubber or buy tire saver pads .. the tires will be fine and if stored long enough tires would go bad anyway just from decay / dry rot



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I’d follow what every exotic museum does, from the Collier Collection to the Schlumpf Museum.

They roll the car in place, put stands under the suspension, and then deflate the tires.

Matt

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Good question. There is, of course, tire flatspotting that after five years may be irreversible. The steel belts take a bend and that's it but sometime can de driven back to round again - almost. However, the more important issue are the rims. With force in one spot over such a long time they will take a set and the rim will then be very hard to balance requiring lots of lead. The severity depends on the weight of the vehicle, construction of the rim and the length of storage. I like my front wheels to never wiggle at any speed and have had rims that sat cause issues with balancing. Even forged rims and adding brand new tires.

To leave a car for five years then its best to put four tires/rims on that are junk and increase tire pressure in case of leakage. Otherwise, use the good tires/rims you have, add the foam wheel blocks, increase tire pressure to 7lbs below max pressure and place car up on jackstands in each frame corner. Car should be jacked so the suspension doesn't hang full extension but the tires carry a fraction of their standard load. I also like to run transmission fluid up/down the outer shock rods and make sure shock seals are clean.

Aside from that, you can't go wrong with what Mitch wrote in post #16 and definitely make sure no entry point for mice. They will be your biggest concern. They raise a family commune under the hood, in the exhaust or in the cabin complete with indoor plumbing and you won't believe your eyes or your nose. Think like the vermin!

 

For that reason and for avoiding water I would put the car in one of those giant sealed flood bags. I have no affiliation with this company, but it would be something like this: https://www.texasfloodbag.com/?v=7516fd43adaa

 

Stands under the suspension. OK. That’s the part I was missing. I kept thinking stands under the jack points on the frame, which would leave the suspension hanging in the air.

Thanks. It makes a lot more sense to me now.

 

The rims "take a set". Are you saying the wheels will bend/deform from sitting?

The rims would need to be forced beyond yield strength in order to deform, time wouldn't influence that. (if the weight of the vehicle didn't initially bend the wheels, more time will not bend the wheels)

 

Totally agree!

If the wheels were going to be prone to deformation due to the weight of the car sitting on them for any period of time, then they'd bend and flat spot like crazy when in use, especially on track days with the cars running over kerbs at speed (especially the modern 19"+ wheels with their painted on tyres!)

Yes some modern big wheels can be prone to cracking, but that's a different issue to the wheels deforming and "flat-spotting".

 

Biggest worries...

Oil? No

Tires? Meh, just get new ones (as the OP said he would)

Battery? Peanuts, just get a new one.

Mice? Yes! Biggest worry by far. Car bag/cocoon would be advised.

 

I have forged wheels on another car. It tends to sit for a min of 5 years at a time. My tire/rim guy made the statement to me to always take pressure off the rim when in long term storage as the rims will take a slight set and will change the balance. He is the best I ever saw at his job. He is appointment only and spends hours doing balancing on a single set of tires. He would spin the rim first without the tire to find the heavier area. This way he would use the least weights possible for balancing and in some cases none at all. A couple times our road test was perfect to me yet he found slight imperfections he could eliminate and re-balanced. I was surprised that he was right. Needless to say I tipped heavily as he only could do a couple sets a day with such effort. He also only worked part time back then.

We are not talking about a visual deformation obviously these are very small effects. Over a very long extended period of time without dynamic forces just static weight in a single vector it is extremely logical that the aluminum or magnesium would react differently then when spinning. Kind of like spinning pottery on a wheel and applying side force versus non spinning is how I think of it. The effect is small but over a very long time it changes the balance. This man had over 25 years experience with wheels/rims and a great person to spend a day with. The only car guy that I ever met that was more of a detail person than me. If I was leaving original rims I cared about for 5 years I would relieve some of the pressure on the rims. Others free to do as they wish. That's my suggestion.

 

Not logical or possible. The wheel would have to deflect enough to bend, this simply isn't happening no matter how long it sits.

 

What about letting the suspension hang is bad? Is the concern with the shocks? I know 3-5 years is a little excessive to store anything, but I wonder what harm leaving a car on stands would do. Another consideration is that when the suspension bushings are installed and torqued, it is usually in a relaxed position. Then as the weight of the car is added it preloads the bushing, so having the the car on stands would in theory leave the bushing in a neutral state.

 

You don't have to do what he says. I don't know if you have cars in the discussed category but I do I take his advice. You are free to do as you please but he did this for a living and I'm thinking you don't. He would also shave tires that were out of round. When he found new tires out of round he sent them back. He had quite the reputation at the dealership. I think any rim under force has a minute deflection you just can't see it but this guy would rebalance the rim by itself to null it out. I don't believe the rim has to be visibly bent to be out of balance.

 

Doesn't matter if I balance tires for a living, the laws of physics apply to him just the same.

I'm not saying a rim couldn't have a heavy spot but it's not going to get a heavy spot from storage or "take a set" from storage. The metal isn't liquid pooling to the ground.

Do as you like but storing a car with weight on the wheel/tires and thinking that will change the physical properties of the wheel in any way shape or form is 100% impossible.

For example, I put a wheel on a balancer and mark the spot it's 5 grams out, dial indicates with zero runout.

Mount a tire, put it on the car and 5 years later remove wheel/tire and now it's out of balance in a different spot because it was sitting in one place for so long and still indicates zero runout?

So the rim isn't bending (of course) which means metal must have somehow redistributed itself to a different area of the wheel?

Come on, just think about this.

 

I just remember a Corvette engineer ( not a layman) saying that a while back and it stuck with me.. I think the concern is the shocks and springs not so my h the bushings .. the bushings probably would like it suspended ( IMHO) no pressure in one spot



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I once bought a NEW 37 mile car that was stored for 35 years?
I would like to hear about this interesting story? Did you ever post the story on here?

 

It was several years back in fact I sold the car maybe 10 years ago.. My first car was a 1967 cougarXR7 .... which I bought used as a kid..Anyway one day found a 1967 cougar XR7 that was owned by the founder of Friendlys restaurant who was a car collector in the 60s and when the cougar came out he liked them so much he ordered 2 identical cars one to drive and one to save .. ..SO word got to FORD that he was buying a car to save and not drive so they made big deal and delivered the car direct to him with pliantly of PR and preped it for storage and so the car sat in his garage for years and
he held on to it for years but then finally donated the car to an automotive school and they got the car running all fully documented and sold it still with no miles ...I found the car on EBAY it was amazing and I think I paid 25K for it kept it for maybe 10 years then decided I did not want a car I couldn't drive and sold it with a couple of other old under 100miles cars I had..... the car was really nice had a ding in it from something falling on it before I got it, both other then that it was exactly like new all the rubber everything was like new....

 

Cool

 

I have thought about it and gave the advice given to me which I agree with. Best.

 

last time I was in 'the empire state building' the ceilings of the lower floors did seem a bit low.