SpeedyD

Okay, here is another quirk of living with a Porsche in Manhattan... Despite having the 4S I am going to stop driving the car once the first salting gets done in the city... here are my issues / questions.

My car is parked in a semi-heated garage. I say semi-heated because the temperature (including on a 20F morning like today) is significantly warmer than outside, but the garage is not directly heated. Today, it was around 50 - 55 after a few sustained freezing or near-freezing days...

So, the thing is that I likely won't be able to use a trickle charger with the car. My plan is to start and drive the car every few days and sometimes do a "slow lap" of the garage facility once the engine warms a bit. The idea (my thinking, may be wayyyy off) is that this will help avoid flat spots in the tires, provide some charge to the battery, and keep the fluids moving a bit.

Any experts here that can opine on what is wrong with this approach and dos/dont's? Again, I don't anticipate the car's engine ever really dropping to freezing temps as the garage has lots of heating duct work running above / around it, keeping the temps warmer than outside. Some things I'm wondering... after letting the engine warm, any benefit or drawback from revving the engine a bit to get it into the higher RPMs? Obvious benefit is hearing the revving... but is there any mechanical benefit to this?

I'm not going to do anything about the gasoline levels in the car, given I will be "driving it" a bit and the temps won't be falling very low... but if this is weak logic, I'd appreciate thoughts there too.

Finally, and completely unrelated, is anyone else getting an annoying pop-up advertisement every time they draft a post? It won't even let me close it! Quite the annoyance and only noticed it very recently...

Thanks all!
Dave

Saaboteur

My personal strategy would be to leave the car sitting for the duration of the winter if you're not going to actual drive it on the street. It's unfortunate you can't get access to a trickle charger, but then you can just remove the battery and keep it in your unit on a trickle charger. I would also jack the car up and leave it on stands, but perhaps your condo corporation won't allow that. If that's the case, then I would inflate the tires to maximum pressure, put some fuel stabilizer into the fuel tank, along with filling the tank completely, and throw a cover over the car. Lots of revs without load isn't always a good idea, so I would avoid that too.

Fred R. C4S

Step 0. Change the engine oil.
Step 1. Add Stabil to tank and park it with a full tank.
Step 2. Inflate tires to 50 psi before storage.
Step 3. Since you can't keep the battery on a maintainer, remove battery. Leave the trunk in an unlatched state.
Step 4. Assuming you've got a clean car, put a car cover on it.
Step 5. Do not take it for your mentioned short drives around the garage. You will not warm the engine enough to boil off condensation that will form in the engine and the fuel tank.
Step 6. Wait until Spring, reinstall battery, lower tire pressures and learn to enjoy you're new car all over again.

The only other thing I do is park the car with tires sitting on sample carpet squares. This and the inflation pressure will prevent any serious flat spotting. I've been doing this routine since the 70's and it works great.

Nova997

What would be an acceptable amount of time to idle the engine on a bi-weekly basis?

Linnm

IMO you must think on how to keep critters from nesting in your car They eat hoses, plug wires, etc and can build a huge nest in your engine compartment. By all means find a way to block your exhaust tips (some use a condom, use screen, foil, whatever)
Inside your car use something to absorb moisture so that you don't get a smelly car (silica get comes to mind)

SpeedyD

Wow, thanks for the thorough replies!

To elaborate a bit more, the little drives can easily be 15-20 minutes as it's in a large enough complex to actually drive around through various garages and internal passages. This is not a cramped / small parking garage (surprisingly).

Also, is the tank topping up necessary despite the temps not dropping below the 50s? I always thought that was an issue when the temps really dipped? I will top it off anyways (and prices are cheap!) and will add Stabil as well.

Just wanted to be clear on the short drives actually being slow drives around a sizable area, and not just rolling the car back and forth... I really thought this would eliminate any value from putting it on blocks or even inflating the tires, since the temps aren't that dramatic and I can do the drive at least once or twice per week.

Again, thanks for all the feedback! I especially like the carpet sample idea for helping to avoid flat spots!

SpeedyD

Car isn't really getting parked anywhere new (and it's an enormous, wide open space, just an indoor space, with security, some temp control by virtue of where it is, etc.) Thankfully, in NYC, critters are limited to rats, which are the size of small dogs here...

In all seriousness, the main issue for me is whether to drive or not drive (in the indoor space) and any other temp considerations (I will check the air temp in there again tonight but yesterday it was mid 50s). My roadster gets stored in a much colder environment (a house garage) and all the points mentioned here are definitely directly applicable to it, including critter protection.

The more I think about this, the more I am thinking of doing a "hot lap" of the garage this evening to see how long the internal tunnels go and if there is a safe path to give the car a real "drive" in the late evenings...

Another question for everyone, but how long does the engine need to be running to materially charge the battery, if the car is run twice weekly? Would two 30 min stints of idling (for first 10 mins) and then slow driving for the rest, do it?

Fred R. C4S

Idling the engine will not warm the oil! How long does it take you to get the oil up to say 150 when you actually driving the car and putting load on it? Heating up the crankcase then cooling back down will lead to water condensing in the crankcase. To boil this off, you need oil temps to reach 212 deg. Starting and prolonged idling is about the worst thing you can do other than heavily loading a cold engine.

SpeedyD

See, Fred, THIS is why I post on here... the straight forward (but useful) logic like what you just provided...

Though I admit I wasn't just going to idle the engine, now I wonder if driving around for 20 mins gets the temp up enough to do any good... In any case, I need to explore the inner halls of my parking garage and see what is achievable and then plan from there. Looks like the test is really to see if the engine does warm up enough based on the indoor driving. Clearly no harm in testing this, so I'll report back tomorrow...

UT911GTS

Fred, great info! I live in Utah so what if I plan on driving the car every few weeks as the weather allows. How would you semi winterize? Keep fuel full, Stabil and tires on carpet? Thanks.

G

MY997

Dude...Why don't you hurry up and get out of there and take your C4S for a nice long drive to Tampa FL and leave it with me. I will drive it around for you during the winter months (not too many miles) and then you can come back and get it when you are ready...sounds like a plan to me...LOL

PS Hope you figure this out the best way...it would stress me out to have to deal with this subject...good luck with whatever you decide!

SpeedyD

Hah, thanks, I'd take you up on the offer but then given recent weather, would probably find myself driving through snow just driving the car down there!

Florida is great (made a few road trips down with family years ago) -- spent last Christmas in Southern Cali (and was hunting for 911s to buy then too) and seriously makes me question my current lifestyle. Shows commitment keeping a car (safe and well-kept) in Manhattan!

MY997

Sure does and like I said good luck with figuring out exactly what to do...btw if you head down to Florida again let me know...

SpeedyD

Absolutely will!

Fred R. C4S

If the roads are clear and salt free, I will occasionally take my car out for some exercise. Drop tires pressures to normal, drive car 20 miles or so to get the oil temp up. When finished, top off the fuel, reinflated the tires, park on the carpet squares, plug in the maintainer, and cover the car. The car is now re-stored for the remainder of the winter or until I want to take it out again.

I forgot to mention that I also drop my car insurance coverage for everything but comprehensive. No sense paying for insurance if you are not using the car. I used to have a very accommodating agent who would write me a one day rider if I called and said I wanted to take the car out.