What do you guys recommend to winterized car?

It will be in a detached garage in Pittsburgh. Not heated but well built garage.

I have a battery tender I will use but what else?

 

Air up the tires, Seafoam fuel additive and cover.

 

 

This list has been around the Forum for many years and while not everyone necessarily follows it exactly it is a good base to start from. Just pick and choose what you want to do with your car:

Fill gas tank and add Sta-Bil; run through fuel lines (15 - 20 minutes driving).

Change oil and filter. (best to let it sit with new oil than old oil that may be contaminated)

Park on moisture barrier (plastic, wood, just keep tires off bare concrete)

Inflate tires to 38-40 psi cold.

Apply sealant, wax, etc. to exterior paint.

Apply leather dressing to seat panel.

Apply vinyl dressing to interior; and to exterior black trim pieces.

Hook up Battery Tender.

Crack windows a bit.

Cover with inside car cover.


Then think about mouse proofing the car/garage. Some ideas in here:

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c6-c...-vehicles.html

 

It's definitely what works for you is what you do. A lot of the above list is unnecessary and in the same category as 10 coats of a particular sealant which comes in application products and steps of 1, 2, 3, 4...well you get the picture.

 

All I do is clean inside and out, inflate tires a few pounds, fill the gas tank, add dissicant bags inside(to absorb moisture), connect battery maintainer and cover.

 

Is a battery tender really necessary? I winterize my boat each season and I just undo the cables. Is that truly bad to do on a vette? Am I missing something. I guess I could bring the battery inside and throw it on a charger now and then.. Do the electrical components of the car constantly need some power trickling through?

 

apparently there is a draw on the battery can someone elaborate on this?
moved to condo with no outlet

 

I there is the possibility of mice (north east usually has this) I would say to put covers over your tail pipe. One winter I had a mouse that broke in to a bag of dog food and fill my mufflers on one of my older Corvettes.

I put traps around the tires if I feel a mouse has come in to the garage (I have two garages) as well as I put in fabric softener sheets all over the interior and under the hood. It seems to keep rodents away.

 

From what I see, battery tenders are a must for this vehicle, especially if it is stored without being above freezing for a while. That's a given for us with newer vettes.

 

There is heated debate about whether to start the engine during storage. Most people say "Don't", a GM engineer said he preferred to start it periodically. I don't recall how often he said, it was like every couple of months.

The iron/steel parts in your engine aren't sitting out in the rain, but they aren't hermetically sealed either. And even if they were, there is always some moisture that can condense out of the the trapped air.

For the last 6 years, I've been doing it this way for 2-3 month storage:
Clean the car and fill the tank before storage. Change the oil if it's getting close to time. Air up the tires. Connect a battery tender. Lots of mouse traps scattered around the garage.

Once a week, I start the engine and let it idle while I exercise every switch and control in the car. There's a lot of them, that takes maybe 20 minutes and gets the oil up to about 180' to help evaporate any moisture or acids. Then I back out of the garage and go up and down our 50 yard driveway several times, starting out in different gears, using the brakes, turning the steering full lock as I turn around, etc. But not going out onto the street, which will be coated with salt.

When I do the next oil change and have it analyzed by Blackstone, the results are the same as what I get after a summer-only oil change. When the A6 trans fluid and diff fluid were changed and tested at ~50k miles, they too gave excellent results. So this method is certainly not hurting anything. Whether it actually is better than just letting the car sit untouched, I don't know. But it gives me a weekly dose of Corvette.

 

The best way to store them is to drive them. No car was ever designed to be stored. With Global Warming making winters much easier than they were 15 to 20 years ago it is easy to drive the car year round and not let it sit due to weather for no more than 2 or 3 weeks at a time.

Bill

 

[QUOTE=Bill Dearborn;1585431229]The best way to store them is to drive them. No car was ever designed to be stored. With Global Warming making winters much easier than they were 15 to 20 years ago it is easy to drive the car year round and not let it sit due to weather for no more than 2 or 3 weeks at a time.

Bill[/QUOTE

Well I would like to do that, but up here we average 100+ inches of snow a year which lasts around four months. So for now I have to store it for couple more years.

 

Good info Jim cant argue tested results..
The one component I think fairs the worst by long periods of storage are those valve springs that are completely compressed.
ill be doing some laps in my underground...
Maybe I will post some times..

 

I'm on the same program from Dec.1-Mar.1

 

If you're originally from Endicott, you were about 80 miles south of the Syracuse area, where we get an AVERAGE annual snowfall of over 120 inches, for all the math whiz's out there that's over 10 FEET. Low ground clearance, big horsepower and foot wide summer tires are not a really good mix with snow and single digit temps. I'm pretty familiar with the Binghamton/Endicott area, and the winters there are mostly pretty mild in comparison, so maybe driving thru the winter months works there, but up here, not so much. As much as I'd like to drive the Corvette year-round, here in snow country it's just not a possibility, or a very good idea, that's why I have an all wheel drive Mercedes sedan and a 4 wheel drive pickup.

 

Ah yes, Syracuse. Was there just a few weeks ago.

 

I wash it, pull it in the garage, put the battery tender on it and throw the cover on. People overly complicate things. Fill it up, change oil in spring and drive it.

 

Do you really need to drive for 10-15 minutes to circulate the fuel stabilizer through the fuel lines? I figured a mile or two was fine.

 

Hard to say, but since the car has two separate tanks; I would want some time and some sloshing, to be sure the stabilizer was everywhere.