seankrider

04 CTT has been a garage queen for about six months (long story). About to fire her up again for the first time. Any tips or recommendations? Thought I might change the oil at least. Never gone this long without firing up a car before.

phatz

Lots of discusion about this
https://www.google.com/search?q=starting+stored+car

Did you treat the fuel prior?

Wisconsin Joe

How old is the oil? If it's reasonably new, I would leave it.

You might dump a bottle of your favorite fuel treatment in, either this tank or the next fresh one. Run the tank well down to get rid of as much of the old gas as you can before refilling. For additive, I prefer SeaFoam myself, but there are others that are good too.

How is the battery? Did you have any sort of charger on it?

A good check for critters and their nests is a good idea, if there's potential for that sort of thing.

Otherwise, just start it, let it run a few minutes and take a good look and listen. then drive it, but slowly and gently at first to let fluids warm up and circulate.

I do this every spring. You shouldn't have too much trouble.

nodoors

If you kept the battery charged and did not ethanol gas in it I don't think 6 months is enough time to take any special considerations if it was stored in a garage. I have some vehicles that I only operate a 2-4 times a year just to keep all the systems functioning and fluids flowing. I do use nonethanol gas though!!! Ethanol gas absolutely sucks.

wkearney99

Yeah, you can push 6 months on the fuel, but do your best to burn all of it as soon as possible. Put some Sta-bil treatment in there and run it down. You want to avoid just topping it off and keeping the old in there. Run it down close to empty before refilling. And once you refill use the proper amount of stabilizer again, as a guard against any bad gas that might still be in there.

I know this because of owning a boat with two 110 gallon tanks. One Winter's lay up on the hard is OK, but you have to burn off the fuel as soon as possible upon going back into the water next Spring. We had a Summer of lighter-than-expected use due to some engine issues and the fuel didn't get fully purged. A second Winter with a lot of the same fuel still being present made for a bad next Spring... and a resulting service call to remove the bad gas (which is then 'hazardous waste'). $$$ Cha-ching...

Likewise, batteries DO NOT like to be run down. If they get drained completely dead you risk damaging their ability to return to a full charge (or recover at all). Any time they're going to rest unused for an extended period they need to be disconnected, or on a battery maintainer. Disconnected, they're not likely to be damaged, but slowly trickling down will cause problems. Best be ready to do a battery replacement.

wkearney99

Oil is cheap. Replacing an engine is not.

Even if it's not degraded from use there's still the potential for moisture contamination just from sitting through ambient temperature changes. Especially if it wasn't changed right before lay-up.

That and the factory recommends, what, every year anyway, right?

Wisconsin Joe

There's moisture in the engine every time the car is started and run for short periods of time. Multiple short trips will put more in than sitting all winter.

It will be purged as soon as the oil reaches full temp.

I generally change the oil just before I park for the winter (or just after).

But there have been years where I didn't drive much and when I changed it, it came out very clean.
So there have also been years that I simply didn't bother. No engines needed to be replaced.

seankrider

Thanks, good tips. I did not change any fluids but made sure they were full, and I did not put fuel stabilizer in (yet). I did discover some nice oil and coolant leaks, and some mis-fires though. Those will be fun to figure out.