Fall is here and winter is coming in the Northeast. I hesitated whether to buy a new set of summer tires when I saw that I should not drive on them under 40 degrees and stopped when I learned I should not even STORE them under 20 degrees! My winter storage plans were an unheated garage.

My question is storage of the car in general ... is there anything else on a '94 Corvette which is liable to suffer from unheated storage in a Northeast winter? How about outside under a tarp? There usually are a few days near the zero mark ... which everybody monotonously talks about as if such a thing were unheard of before ... but not that many below 20. Last few winters have been unseasonably mild.

 

There are a lot of great winter prep threads out there if you search the forum. There are a lot of different situations, methods, recommendations and old wives tales, some of them contradictory...my first "hibernation" was last year so I had the same questions. I bookmarked this thread, though:
https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...r-storage.html

I also have an unheated garage and after reading up on things my biggest concern was critters, not the cold itself. Knock on wood, but parking over a tarp with sta-bil in the tank, on a good battery tender, with a nice breathable car cover on worked fine. Everything else I did was pest control, and that was actually a longer list!

 

Don't store under a tarp, if water can't evaporate it might cause milky spots on the paint. I've stored outside over the winter before, I used an Evolution 3 cover, but now a days I store in a 10x20 storage unit. Unheated is not a big deal, we're not talking ultra rare classic cars here, some would argue moisture is a problem in an unheated garage, but I haven't had an issue with that here in snowy NH. I do recommend a storage unit though, that way you don't have to deal with snow packing up on the car or freeze rain gluing the car cover to body until it thaws.

Critters could be a problem, I suggest buying Fresh Cab and checking on the car routinely...you don't want to be dealing with a critter problem come spring...especially if they had all winter to have a field day in your car!!! Sadly I speak from experience!

 

buy better tires and keep driving it

 

I'm in upstate NY
I drive mine all winter as long as the roads are free of ice and snow.
I run Michelin A/S tires. I don't need fuel stabilizer or a battery tender, and I don't worry about rodents as the car doesn't sit for long periods.
The heat works well. And the car runs great in the cold air.
Don't pack it away for the winter.
Enjoy it 😎

 

I drove my old 94 every day and in every weather condition in southeastern PA. its just a old chevy. it will be fine

 

One thing I wish I hadn't done when I bought my 91 was buying summer tires. The tires it had were in bad shape but should have thought longer about tires. Because the compound used is so soft driving at or below freezing will cause grave damage to them. I should have just went with all season tire. My car is left out all year and on days the temp was below 45 I didn't drive or move it.

Tires seemed to survive last winter, but I wouldn't go with summer in future. I don't want a garage queen. I bought it to enjoy.

 

Hey, thank you all! Just came back to this thread and delighted to see the replies. I like the "just keep driving it" advice most of all ... as you say, it's just an old Chevy. With a cool looking body and a stick. Living in NYC though I am not just concerned about the cold but the road salt. Any thoughts on that? Same as any car, I guess, but I think it got this far without the frame rusting out and would not like to start it off on that road. Yes I will skip the summer tires ... not sure about the judgement of the mechanic who was ready to sell me four of them at the end of September.

I am having some problems finding all seasons for the rear, but I think I saw one brand on Amazon at around $170/tire. I ordered a lesser pair of all seasons for the front as seems to be a more common size, and it was critical -- not only are they worn and cracking around the edges, I found a screw embedded in one.Stop me if I wrote this already, my mind is older than the car... miraculously it's holding air; I am resisting the urge to unscrew it and curious to find if it went all the way through when I replace the tire. Yeah, just an old Chevy, I like that! Why wait until the Spring to enjoy myself? The AC works great and I imagine the heat does too.