We travel to Cali for 5 months during the summer, driving two cars. I’d like to store our older car, a 2010 Mazda cx7 in Cali so we drive only one car back and forth. My husband says it’s not good for the car. What does it involve to prepare for storage? Thx!
Buy a battery maintener or tender. Plug it in while you are gone to keep the battery from going dead. I would also add some fuel stabilizer to the last fill up before you leave. It may be overkill but that’s what I’d do. Buy a tire inflator you can used to pump the tires up when you return.
I live in Florida full time but have a number of snowbird friends that do exactly this when they leave a car here.
Seven months isn’t really that hard on the car. As Mustangman says, a battery tender and fuel stabilizer should cover it. Don’t forget to cancel your collision insurance to save some money. Make sure you have good pest control in the area where the car will be stored.
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A 7 month lay up isn’t good for the car. But the advice above addresses most of the problems you’d encounter for a newer car. Remember that time keeps advancing even though the car is unused, and some maintenance items are time based, not miles based. Particularly anything made of rubber continues to deteriorate w/time: tires, timing belt, serpentine belt, bushings, etc. Lubrications can also evaporate or move from away the area they are supposed to be by the force of gravity. So good idea to anticipate the possibility of that occurring during the 7 months. At the minimum be extra cautious when using the car the first time after the lay-up. Listen for unusual noises from the engine at idle, drive very gently at first, no rev’ing the engine, test the brakes to make sure they remain working, etc.
As others have said 7 months with just the basic prepartion is nothing to worry about.
On the next level, storage in a garage or carport, a decent wax job and a breethable (NOT PLASTIC) dust cover would also be nice.
And depending on where in California; the climate, the storage conditions, etc. you may want to consider leaving the windows closed or cracked open.
Check with people who own exotic cars of summer cars. I know several people who own Corvettes that store it for 6 months every years. Corvettes are not a good car for NH winters. There’s a whole industry here in NH for winter vehicle storage.
Is it covered storage? Access to an outlet for a battery tender? Storing it out in the sun would be rough on it.
Covered storage is a must. Also take a look to see if the mfr provides dealers with a checklist of things they are supposed to do when the cars are expected to sit on the lot for an indefinite amount of time. I learned that for my car, they would pump the tires to 45 psi (I presume to avoid getting flat spots on the tires).
You should be okay, I was in a situation in which I had to leave my 2002 Corolla unused for several months at a time repeatedly, all I did was disconnect the battery negative terminal. It’s back to being used frequently now and I don’t have any apparent consequences. My storage climate was much milder than yours though.
You can tell from that the responses that it would help to know a little more about where you plan to store it. Access to electric power, inside or not, general geography is what I’m thinking about.
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