Well, sniff-sniff, it’s getting to be that time of year. Because of my recent move North this will be the first winter where I’m unable to drive my 993. Well, technically there will be times this winter when I could drive my car, but due to the amount of salt and gravel thrown down on the roads, I’d rather sit in my garage and stare at the car then take the guilty pleasure of being able to drive it while subjecting it to those evils.

I’ve done several searches of the archives for winter storage techniques, but there just isn’t much of a consensus. I also reviewed http://www.porschenet.com/winter.html, and even that site talks about the differing opinions. So, I figured I’d approach this from a different angle and give a couple of options I’d prefer and then see what the experts feel is the best.

First let me state I have a heated garage and I’ll be pretty vigilant about making sure the temp in the garage doesn’t go below freezing. Plus, mice and other critters aren’t a problem for me.

Option 1: Store it alive
Prep: change the oil, clean the car. Leave it on its wheels and move it every few weeks to prevent flat spots. Also, every month or so, start it up to prevent the seals from drying out. This could be just a sit and idle start, or I could run it around our culdesac to get the temperature up higher to burn off moisture.

Option 2: Preserve it
Prep: change the oil, clean the car, gas it up etc. Leave it on its wheels, remove and trickle charge the battery, move it every few weeks but don’t start it at all. (A note here, my sister stored her VW for roughly a year, and at that time her “awesome” mechanic warned that soon afterwards the seals would need replacing. Turns out he was right.)

Option 3
Similar to option 2 except I get the car off its wheels and onto jacks. I had originally planned on doing this until I read that it makes the suspension sag, so I’m really leaning away from this option.

I guess I’d like to do option 1. But I’m leery about the wear and tear of several cold starts as well as the condensation issue from running it for a short period. But on the other hand, I don’t want the seals to dry out either. My guess is the evils from condensation and cold starts are lesser than the evils of having to replace seals. But it’s a bit of a damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation.

Thoughts/feedback?

 

i store my 911SC for the winters in Canada.
what i believe to be one of the keys to doing this safely is having in a place that has a stable temperature. Cold or warm is fine, so long as the temperature remains as such. It is when the air warms up that moisture will condensate on the colder metal parts of the car and engine, as metal takes longer to warm up than air.
Mine is in a heated facility that has a constant temperature. New oil in the engine. I have fresh fuel and stabilizer in the tank (full). I over-inflate the tires to help prevent flat-spotting ( i usually put a note on the steering wheel as a reminder)
Battery out and occasionally put on a trickle charger.
If there is a warm snap in late fall or early spring, and the roads are dry, i will take the car for a 30 minute 'work-out'.
So far, it has been working for me. YMMV.

good luck

 

Exactly how much wear and tear is going to occur during six cold starts!?? I think you're suffering from paranoia!

 

I've gone the route of 'cold starts' for 3 seasons... and then NO start for 2 seasons.. I'm not sure there is a right or wrong.. BUT I CAN tell you that the car started up MUCH easier in the warm spring than it how it struggled in the winter cold with 15 w 50 Mobil 1 in there

Either way doesn't seem to adversly affect my car.. but then again, I only have 30k miles!

 

Thanks for posting this thread as I will soon be in the same position as you and this will be my first winter with my 993. I will definitely be following this post and take in everyone's advice.

I just bought the Porsche Battery Maintainer w/o the clamps. What is the purpose of the optional clamps? I realized that the outlet in my garage may be dead so plugging the maintainer in may not work. Are the clamps used for this situation, where an outlet is not available so it would hook up from the cigarette lighter to clamping it to the the battery? I apologize for the ignorance.

To prevent flat spotting I saw these advertised in car mags, but just realized how pricey they were. Those are the price of a nice carbon-fiber shift ****!

I've heard of parking on wood blocks. Will this work?

MrCanuck..I apologize for the hi-jack as I hope this info will be beneficial for you as well.

 

Hi There;

I store all my summer vehicles as per option 2 and have never had any issues. Flat spots have never been a worry for me and I have been told from reliable sources in the tire industry that modern radials are very unlikely to permanently flat spot sitting in short term storage (i.e. 6 to 9 months or less). No doubt that it will take a few miles for the tires to settle back once you start to drive again, but as soon as some heat gets into them, they are as good as they were when the car went into storage.

If I was storing the car for a year or more, I would take different steps.

Eric

P.S. If storing in farily constant temperature storage, I do not fill the tank with gas either. I put a good tank of premium in it, some stabilizer, and then burn about 3/4 of it before putting the car away. That way, the car gets a good tank of fresh gas first thing in the spring rather than running on a full tank of stale gas.

 

Based on a study made by oil company (I believe it was Finnish oil/gas company, Neste), one cold start below freezing temperature equals about 300 miles of driving (engine wear & tear) so six cold starts is same like driving about 2000 miles.

This doesn't take into account condensation inside the engine which obviously is bad, just "oil starvation" during cold start.

Not exactly a paranoia in my opinion.

MrCanuck,

You do whatever you feel is best but here's my advice:

If you can't drive the car for that 30 min. you mention, do not start during the storage.

I've posted reasons not to start (besides mentioned above) many times in these forums, here's the latest

 

I've asked the forum this question before but no one answered:
What about starting the engine and pressing the accelerator at a constnat lets say 2500rpm - 3000rpm for 20 mins? Would that overcome the problem of not having enough heat? I do not think it will cause overheating but is it bad for the engine? For those who say it is what about the dyno testing done at Porsche - how do they do this? I would like some supportive literature rather than old-wives' tales since there are differing opinions on discussion boards.

Harry

 

There was a great article in a paper called motorcycle news a few months ago. They took an old cbr 600 motorcycle, wired the throttle wide open and started and let it screammmm for over an hour at 12-13000 rpm, expecting it to blow itself to pieces, except it didn't. Then they drained all the oil out of it and repeated the process. This time the exhaust burnt out after twenty minutes, although still running fine! The whole point of the article is that these mechanical things are more durable than we all give them credit for.
The claim that a cold start is equal to 300 miles is a tricky one to prove or disprove, especially coming from an oil company. If this was so, then cars that are used through out the year and are exposed to say 50 freezing starts are theoretically doing an extra 15,000 miles a year just getting off the drive!
I think the biggest worry of the winter is having an accident, not the salt and grit!

BUT anyway, you will not be performing below freezing starts as your garage is heated so don't worry.

 

It's a Honda, waddaya expect!

Harry

 

I realized if stored properly in write up above and over inflating the tires over carpets /plywood and maybe moving the car a bit monthly is just fine for 3 or 4 months. I used to try driving the car for at least 30 miles and than start the process all over for storage, but for only 3-4 months, I don't even think that is worth the time. Major concern is not the tires, or seals, imo, but are rodents getting into the car. So that needs to be checked regularly. I use moth *****, mice traps, and seal areas I think they may crawl into. Also post a note where I seal everything so remember in the Spring.

 

I will try and dig out the article and post it.

 

Sell it to me, I'll take care of it ;-)

 

tell me again what the concern is when starting the car please. is it moisture? i don't really understand. the only car i've ever owned that actually needed to run up to operating temp was the rotory rx-7. why, i don't know. but it had to or it wouldn't start the next time around. as for these 911's: what's the fuss about? what if you need to jockey cars around the driveway or garage? it's recommended to take 20 minutes to accomplish a 20 second task?

not trying to be a wise guy here, but i suspect it gets pretty warm in an engine cylinder pretty quickly, no? (i can't confirm, as i've never been in an engine cylinder) what little moisture your engine breathes in doesn't stand a chance- i wouldn't think. then again, this is coming from someone who actually drives his car all year without calling to get a weather briefing. i just figure, you know, it's a car. starting it is one of the things it's capable of doing

 

MrC,

I have the exact same storage situation.

With a heated, constant temperature garage, do Option # 1.

Fresh oil, keep a battery maintainer plugged in all the time and move the car a foot or two every week or so. Full fuel, stabilizer isn't needed with this short a storage, but won't hurt anything.

FF is right, DO NOT START THE CAR unless you drive it and can get it up to full temperature. This is the worst thing you can do for an engine. No harm will be done not starting it for six months.

See you in April !