My son has informed us he is going to be traveling outside of the US for the next 5 years. He has an '04 Toyota Corolla, auto, 4 cyc and he is going to ship the car to me to put in storage for him.
I will add StaBil, but have read here that it will not protect the gas for such a long time. I need some advice.
After adding StaBil and running the motor enough to get it into the motor; should I then drain the gas tank? If I drain the tank what happens to the fuel pump? Does it “dry out” sitting that long in an empty tank?
In the carburator days I’d have “fogged” the motor to coat the pistons and valves etc. with protective oil, can you fog a fuel injected motor?
I can’t afford inside storage so I’ll clean and wax the paint and it will sit covered outside. I don’t think I can do much to save the tires and brakes. We’ll just have to see how they are coming out of storage.
What am I missing, and any advice?
Your son is not making a good economic decision, in my opinion. Five years is a long time,and if he sells the car now, put the money in a high interest account, then 5 years from now he can buy a good car, instead of having to nurse a 10 year old car.
Five years from now his car will be worth very little if he decides to sell it then for some reason. You are leaving it OUTSIDE as well which will cause faster deterioration.
The upside of this is that young people are notoriously fickle, and once your son finds out how hard it is to survive overseas on thin air, he may be coming home much earlier. From that point of view, mothballing his car may make sense.
if it was my decision I would sell the car and invest the money in a 4 year CD…
So would I, my suggestion wsa for him to sell the car. He makes plenty of money and he does it all via consulting on the internet. So he can conduct business anywhere in the world. He has made several “trial” trips and now is giving up his apartment in CA and leaving with no concrete plans as to when he’ll return to the states. I figured if he stored the car himself, he is totally clueless about cars, he’d simply drive it into a storage bay and leave it with no prep at all.
Thanks for the additional background info! It’s very nice of you to take care of the car, but 5 years will mean significant deterioration. At least it will be worth somthing when he comes back!
We spent 5 years overseas, but came back in the summer for 3 weeks and 2 weeks at Christmas. Our cars were driven regularly by our son, who made sure they got sufficient “workouts”. We’ve sold one since but still, have the other, a 15 year old Nissan.
I wouldn’t try to store a car for 5 years, especially outside. Sell it and bank the money. Or use the money to fund the wandering.
Y’know. Modern cars are pretty sturdy and often sit around for many months without being driven. They seem to survive pretty well. You might consider just starting the thing once a month, letting it idle for five minutes (with the air conditioner running) then driving it a few feet back and forth in the driveway just to flex the tires and slosh the fluids around.
You probably do need to worry a bit about your local conditions. If you live in, for example, West Texas, you really want to protect the car from the sun. If you live someplace that is very humid, you may want to run the air conditioner longer.
Gasoline? Well you could remove much of the fuel system, dry it out and store it in a box. Or you can just run the thing dry once a year and throw a couple of quarts of fresh gas – spiked with a few drops of Stabil if that will make you feel better – down the filler neck. Will that wreck the fuel pump? Who knows? My guess would be no. At any given time, I’ll bet that 1-2% of the cars on the road are probably cruising around with the tank pushing empty. May not be good for their fuel pumps, but it’s not instantly lethal. Or you can just ignore the whole thing and make a bet on whether the car will start and burn the gas in the tank after five years. My guess is that it will, but it’s not my car.
You might consider just starting the thing once a month, letting it idle for five minutes (with the air conditioner running) then driving it a few feet back and forth in the driveway just to flex the tires and slosh the fluids around.
Not a good plan. If you are going to start the car, you really need to bring it up to full operating temperature and keep it there long enough to get rid if any accumulated light oils and moisture that may have collected.
Not a good plan. If you are going to start the car, you really need to bring it up to full operating temperature and keep it there long enough to get rid if any accumulated light oils and moisture that may have collected.
Could be, or not, We’re talking five hours total operating time over five years. Not really the same as a one mile commute every day where rarely getting to operating temperature is quite possibly a real concern.