Another Winter Storage Question
 

O.K., I know your sick of this, but after looking at all the threads on this I see several things that people seem to disagree on. Everyone agrees on Stabil, oil change and batt maintainer etc. for long term storage, but I notice some say to crank the engine but don't start every so often and some say start it.

What's the harm in starting the engine and circulating the oil and heating up the seals? Is it just too hard to get the oil/engine up to operating temp without driving it long distances? I wouldn't want water in the oil, but I need to keep the seals from leaking so much when it sits. Am I better to let it sit 4 months, or fire it up and run it a while? I have a 50F garage.

Allright- start the "Whats this winter?" and "move to SOCAL" statements!:)

Don't store, drive. :)

Coldest day of the year in Chicago today and I drove my 911.

My recently backdated heat is noticably not as good as when i had the rear blower, but I do have SSI's so it's not bad.

In winter i use stabil and drive it whenever we get a weekend with good temps that the snow has melted and hopefully its rained so the salt is minimal. But in the deep winter thats not possible for 2 months or so. So at that time i start it every two weeks and get it up to temp in the garage reving it intermittenly. It gets up to temp as quick as it would while driving. I dont know if this is acceptible or not but it keeps it alive and the battery charged.

I'd love nothing more than to drive it, but we either have about 2-3 inches of snow/ice on the road, or an extremely nasty coat of glycol gel on the road. We can have some pretty bad winters in Eastern WA, otherwise I'd drive the snot out of it!

Rudderboost:

Where are you? Please add your location to your profile. I hear ya on the snow- freakin blizzard outside right now!

Cheers,

Paul.

Ha! I've always been annoyed when people don't put where their from. I didn't realize I left mine blank as well! I'm in central WA, currently in the Wenatchee_ area.

For your question Rudderboost...Let it sit there....excellent time to do some projects on the baby...projects you don't want to do in summer time so no ground time when the summer is there.

Or...move to North Dakota. I just let them sit. Of course, an unheated garage around here can be significantly colder than 50F, but I think it's just too hard to get them up to temperature without taking them out and driving them. And I'd want the engine at operating temp for quite a while to make sure I've burned off any condensation/blow-by in the oil. And I'd think that would take a very long time.

My 2 cents...not worth the risk.

Agree with Roger.

Thanks for the opinions guys. I guess it's just the itch to get out there and drive it! I've been working on as many projects as I can, but of course then I wasn't to try them out all the more. I'm sure it's best just to leave it until it's warm- only a couple of more months anyway. :(

I think Porsche has put out a tech article about long term storage and they say not to start it until ready to be put on the road. I store mine from nov to early April and don't start it

Some say that this is hard on the head studs. I wont start a car unless I can drive it, and I sure wont start a car at zero degrees unless I have to.

Same here in Sweden. Not very much snow but salt all over the roads from November to April.

I have one simple rule that applies year around: If I can´t drive her long enough to reach full operational temperature, I don´t start her up at all. That goes for all my cars and women.

Yup...cars and girls are no different.:)