My son is helping elderly neighbors who have not driven their car since August. (Make, year, mileage unknown.) Not surprising that the battery is dead. His concern is about the quality of the gasoline in the tank. Google has given him many sources that suggest the car NOT be started because of potential damage from running it on bad gas. Rather, drain the gas (which will mean towing it to a shop).
He turned to me for advice, but this is beyond my ken. What do you experts recommend? He’s in the DC suburbs – temperatures not too extreme.
I have 4 registered vehicles, it is common for some of them to be parked for 6 months with a car cover on them. I recharge the battery and clean the windows before driving them, no special actions taken. It sometimes takes a year to use up the gasoline in my truck.
Just to add to what others said, charge the battery, smell the gas, and start 'er up.
My seldom used car got 7 miles in the last year of its life. It would sit in the garage doing nothing and I’d start it up about once a month. I couldn’t use enough gas to get any more in for at least two years. It was never a problem. The fuel pump was a problem, but not bad gas. Six months is nothing.
There are cars sitting in storage that maybe have a battery tender hooked up but otherwise are left alone for 6mo or more. My dad does buy stabilizer in bulk for the boat but that’s 120 gallons that we’ll take a year or more to use on average.
I would sell the car because it seems like they don’t really need one.They will save on car insurance ,maintenance,etc,etc by doing so. What is the purpose of keeping a car if you don’t use it unless its a classic you want to keep.
I’ve gone 1½ years at a stretch without driving my car. I push-started it and had no problem. Annually I add a bottle of gas line cleaner to dissolve varnish, a bottle of Iso-Heet to scavenge moisture. 6 months is nothing. Selling is probably a good idea, what with all the car-share services.
With respect to differing opinion, since none of us know WHY the OP’s elderly neighbors haven’t driven their car since August it is presumptious, literally, to presume and advise that the car owners sell their car.
We don’t know their physical and mental fitness for driving nor just how old they are. Not everyone’s opinion of “elderly” is the same.
Consider that many people are staying isolated until they get the Covid vaccine and feel safe going into public again. Since in many cities people can get everything they need delivered – food, medications, etc. – the car owners may simply be staying home for now and will resume using their car when they are safe to do so.
And if their reason for not driving in six months is otherwise, which is equally possible, simply being elderly and driving rarely is not necessarily reason to sell off one’s independent transportation.
Speaking of dead batteries, I went to AutoZone this past week for a battery test. The good news is that the battery tested “good”, despite doing less driving than I used to. The young dude who tested the battery for me was amiable, but I really hope that other customers ignore his advice.
He told me to “start the engine every day, and then drive it for 10 minutes in order to keep the battery charged”.
I only drive the car two or three times each week, but I make sure that I drive it for at least 20 minutes after each engine start. Today, I am going to take it out on the interstate for ~40 minutes, for the good of the oil, the exhaust system, and the battery.
More important than the gas, the MidAtlantic with its moderate climate is a great area for growing mold and a car stored outside is like a mold greenhouse. Gray mold on the seats, carpet, headliner & hard plastic, black spots on the vinyl and all incredibly difficult to remove w/o destroying the material.
Need to run/idle the car once a month for about half an hour to warm it up and air it out (A/C & Heat) and then you won’t have to worry about the gas.
No fooling. We get our house power washed every 5 years or so to remove the mold. The NE side and the back (NW) get moldy, while the brick front (SE) and SW side stay clear.
