NL007

The car will be parked in the single car garage most of the winter, hoping to take it out during nice clear days.

Is there anything I should be doing on a regular basis with the car to prevent any major issues or problems by having it parked?

Any advice would be helpful:

- start and let it run for a few mins every few days?
- start and drive it locally but carefully even if theres snow?

Any advice, thanks.

vdubpower

send it to me on southern cali where we have no winter, i will baby it for you until you need it back, no charge, would be a pleasure and honor

E-Ridium 63

Just take it out and drive it. These are not Hyundai ponys from back in the 80s. Just wash off the salt and you'll be fine. I'd be more concerned about parking at pacific mall in the summer than driving a bit in the winter.

NL007

Funny guy - is it bad that i open the garage and look at the car every day when i get home!!

hyperion667

ajag

Battery maintainer, inflate tires to 50 and put on tire cradles, fuel stabilizer in tank, and plenty of mousetraps!

grane

Get 4 ice rated tires, read the OM on winter driving settings, make sure you wash the undercarriage, and

vdubpower

man just drive once a week

novae500

Start it up and let it warm up. Take out for spin around the neighborhood and back. Do once a week and you should be fine...Of course only when its dry streets outside and no salt/snow/rain...

But if you dont want to drive it, just put another 5lbs or so of air, top off tank and fuel stabilizer and call it a day. Put a trickle charger (Ctek) to keep the battery good.

NL007

I will aim to drive it once per week I guess - all that other stuff seems complicated (but perhaps necessary?).

Once the snow starts, there's salt everywhere so my concern was salt on the forged 19s and the under-carriage. If I spray-wash it somewhere, i still end up driving it back to the house. And I havent been able to find winters w/o spending $3k+.

Man I hate winter!!

NL007

Thanks - will look into these suggestions as they were also mentioned earlier.

threeMBs

Well that's the price (severe and long winters) you pay for living in Toronto - a safe and beautifull European type of city with very high quality of life.

grane

Good idea but one really needs to drive a bit farther 20-30 miles to get everything warmed up and the systems stabilized before the car cools down. Otherwise you tend to get condensation, etc.

otakki

Gosh, all these excellent suggestions sound like too much work. Yeah, those 19" are really hard to find winter/allweather tires. I think the only good all weather tires is Michelin. That's why I'm sticking with 18".

Personally, I would just put the battery on a battery maintainer: batteryminder (I have this one on my back-up 18 y/o car) or batterytender. I would drive it whenever possible and just hose down the undercarriage, wheels, and wheel well really good after coming back.

With short distance driving, you are not really burning off the harmful things in the engine oil; thus it's going to hurt the engine more. That's why mostly highway miles used cars are the best; and taxi and police cars are the worst for used cars.

With any cars, the more you drive it the better. Like I read somewhere on AMG cars, you are losing money if you don't drive it since they are not gonna be collectors' cars.