I am a snow bird. I store cars in Wi. and Fl. We are considering bying a hybrid. Can we store a hybrid for six months?
The concensus is, yes you can. You’ll need to put stabilizer in the fuel and a battery tender type charger plugged into 120V outlet and hooked up to the battery. I would’t disconnect a battery on a hybrid in storage. There are so many computuer programmed and controlled functions that I think pulling or disconnecting the battery is risky.
My advice is to stick to more conventional cars for now. In a few years when plug in all electrics are available they could sit for 6 months with no worries at all. They could be the perfect car for you.
I agree with UncleTurbo.
You are not likely to be able to recover the additional cost of the hybrid, especially if you only use it half the year.
As for the storage issue, I don’t think that should be a problem.
I would consult the owner’s manual of any hybrid you’re interested and see if it says anything about storage. DO NOT take the salesperson’s word. They have no idea.
If you store the car six months at a time I don’t see any advantage in owning a hybrid. I’d stick with a conventional car, which doesn’t have all the complex systems a hybrid has.
While you probably can, I wouldn’t. Buy a simpler car, save money, and you can get one that gets near-hybrid mpgs. Honda Fit, for example.
A possible source for this hybrid specific advice may be another chat forum I’ve seen in http://hybridcars.com
Agree with other, as a snowbird you will never recover the cost of a hybrid. Stick to conventional cars and minimize your investment in those.
If you are a retired snowbird, you probably don’t put that many miles on a car, especially if you only drive it half the year. I think you would be better off with a traditional non-hybrid car. It will cost less, and you will have more options.