Fcal

I also live in NJ and my garage is unheated.
I've never had a problem. I just put it on a battery charger because on nice days during the winter, I get the itch to take it out. Just take it easy cause these tires do not stick well in the cold.

Glennm27

When thinking about storing a car for the winter which may be 4 months at the most, think about Corvettes sitting on dealers lots. There are thousands of Corvettes that sit on outdoor lots for longer than that. They are in the weather cold, hot, sunny, snowy, rainy etc. with no issues. If your car is in the garage it's good to go all winter. Maintain the battery and that's it. I've owned 3 Corvettes since 2001, C5, C6 and now C7 and have never done more then a battery tender and never an issue.

Judgment Day

All this talk about storage and winter is getting me all depressed Fortunately, we're still being hit with decent weather between 60-75 degrees in mid-October of all things. But to me, that's more Corvette time I think New York might hit 80 degrees this weekend.

Jedi-Jurist

I use this guide:

http://sons-of-speed.com/blog1/2015/...rize-your-car/

xwing

There is a wide range, depending on how picky you want to be. You will probably be fine just parking it with no changes. But lots of options to make it "a little" better on the car. Really, they make a very small difference, but that is enough sometimes...

C7DriverOnt

My '14 will be on it's 4th winter , fill up the tank, wash it, pump up the tires to 40lbs, put the cover on, put the battery tender on it once in a while. It sits in a attached unheated garage for the winter. Never had an issue in the spring with the tires or start up.

Gearhead Jim

Let's see..
If I store my C7 with the tank(s) full, then there is a certain amount of "something" in the fuel that can damage the sending units.
But if I drive it and refill the tank each week, then I'm putting in a new dose of the "something" every week. That doesn't sound like an improvement.

I don't recall seeing anything in the Owner Manual about intentionally storing the car with 1/4 fuel, did I miss it?

Typically, I refill all of our cars at the first convenient time after the fuel gauge gets below 1/2. Our C5 was driven year-round, the two C6's were stored for about 3 months each winter with the tank topped off. Always used Top Tier gas, never had a fuel sender problem in any of the cars.

Looking for more information...

Fr333zy

I went to MacMulkin last Saturday (I live 20 miles away) to ask because of this very thread. Talked to the service dept directly.

Chevy doesn't recommend any fuel additives whatsoever, and just the trickle charger. They don't put any additives in the cars they store for months, nor do they "pump up" the tires.

My '17 GS was delivered to my house in Jan of this year, and I didn't drive it till the end of April (~4 months). I put it under a cover, attached the charger, and that was it. No issues other than the burning desire for it to be Spring.

Don't overthink this, these cars don't need coddling, plus the manufacturer officially recommends nothing beyond the charger.

Patman

I like the idea that they are recommending these cars be stored with only a 1/4 tank of gas now. That means in the spring you can fill it up and have a nice full fresh tank of gas to play with, as opposed to having a full tank of older gas that might have lost a bit of octane (and then you need to drive gently until you've burned it off) Although since I've always managed to find a few nice days throughout the winter to drive my Vettes, I would top up the tank quite often to keep the mixture fresh (also negating the need for Stabil in my case as well)

neogenesis

I throw a pair of gloves and hat in the car and a snow brush just in case. Bam! Ready for winter.

GeorgeInCanada

Just go to your Chevy dealer and ask for the Canadian winter accessories package for your vet.

Gearhead Jim

I can't find the 1/4 tank recommendation in my Owner Manual, though that doesn't mean it isn't there or mentioned in a bulletin.

Back in our C5 days I attended a "tech talk" by a highly regarded Corvette dealer technician, either at the Bash or at Carlisle. He talked about the targa top and it's adjustments. Over the ensuing years I discovered that his information was, uh, not all that accurate.

As previously posted; if there is something bad in the gas that can damage the sending units, then refilling every week as we do in summer, is putting in a fresh does of that "something bad" in the tanks every week.

In our own case, we use Top Tier gas and top off just before the 2-3 months we store every winter. 16 yrs/200+k miles in the 'vettes and never a fuel gauge problem.

But I'm willing to be persuaded.

Member LDB (retired oil company engineer) says that gas does not lose octane during storage.

Maxie2U

Joy c7

We will store ours with 1/4th tank,
Going too bed this weekend.

Patman

It was posted on here:

https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...l-koerner.html

JerryU

FWIW, that “something bad” is sulfur! Crude oil can have over 3% sulfur. Most is removed in refining and specs call for max levels in gasoline in ppm.

There have been reports of fuel level sending unit sensors being coated with enough sulfur to fail. There are several posts where adding the GM recommended fuel additive (like Techron) solved the problem. Both products say they can remove sulfur from fuel level sensors.

That portion of the sensor is toward the top of the gas tank, the float is at the bottom.

Have no dog in this fight as my Vette is used all year long. However it would appear to me that filling to 1/4 is a good precaution. Replacing the fuel sensor in a C7 requires dropping the rear of the drivetrain! Recall one poster who was horrified to see it on the ground at the dealer. They were probably horrified at the bill as well!

Top Tier has a small amount of similar cleaners as Techron etc. However Top Tier doesn’t have anything to do with the sulfur level. Therefore it is good to use and may prevent sulfur build up on the sensor, but why not also just keep the gas off of it when storing?

GeorgeInCanada

I too am putting my car in storage this weekend. I'm using Paul Koerner's recommended process. The link for the forum post was provided by Patman. I contacted the author (jagamajajaran) of that post and he indicated the info he posted was from a Paul Koerner seminar he attended. He also said that Paul verified his post. This is my first Corvette and first time storing it. My previous summer car was always stored with a full tank of top tier fuel and Stabil. After the 3rd year, I started experiencing inaccurate readings from my fuel gauge. I'm thinking sulfur may have been responsible (but don't know for sure). Below is copied from the forum post with Paul's recommended process and reasoning.

"If you plan to store your C7 for longer than one month, Paul emphasizes the following points. Review your owner's manual for more storage recommendations (battery tender, ect.).
- Store newer Generation (5 through 7) with 1/4 tank of gas.
- Use fuel stabilizer if storing for longer than one month at a time.
- Change oil before storage
The reason for only storing with 1/4 tank of gas has to do with the location of the fuel sending unit. In the C7, the fuel sending units are half way up inside each of the two tanks. Sulfur in the gasoline can coat the fuel level sensors, causing the fuel gauge to become inoperative. The reason that this does not happen when you are regularly driving the car is that movement of the gas in the tanks keeps the contacts clear. In order to clean the contacts, use a 20 ounce bottle of Chevron Techron Fuel System Cleaner (Auto Zone, etc.).

The old reasons for storing with a full tank of gas no longer apply with the C7. The double sealed fuel filler neck and the charcoal canister on the other side of the tank prevent moisture build up from taking place."

4thC4at60

I just fill up the gas tank and drive it. Oh, wait, I live in Texas. Sorry. My bad.

NSC5

Last winter I parked the Z06 in late December and it will probably be the same this year.

Although I normally run 93 octane from Shell the next few fills will be 91 octane from Meijer because it the only readily available ethanol free premium in my area and I don't like leaving ethanol laced fuel in the tank during storage. Sometime around Christmas I will wash and wax, change the oil, plug in the tender, and put on the cover until Spring.

LDB

The link between sulfur and gas gauge problems has been debated often on the forum. To my knowledge only two things relevant to that issue are firmly known. Before covering those two things, let me get some general background info out of the way.

Prior to about 2005 (I have forgotten the exact year) sulfur in gas was not regulated, and varied from a few hundred to around a thousand parts per million (ppm). Around 2005, it was regulated to 30ppm, and just this year, it dropped to 10ppm. So currently, a full tank of 20 gallons of gas contains about one half of one gram of sulfur, a vanishingly small amount. Prior to 2005, with an average sulfur content of around 600ppm, a 20 gallon tank would have contained about 30 grams of sulfur, still small (30 grams is about 1 ounce), but 60 times the amount currently present, and 20 times the amount present in the 2005 to 2016 interval. So if you want to blame sulfur for the gas gauge problems, you have to explain why there weren’t massive numbers of failures prior to 2005 when sulfur levels were so much higher.

The two firmly known factors that I mentioned at the outset are first, that there have been a few well documented cases where refinery sulfur excursions led to quite a few gas gauge failures in cars using those batches of gas, and second, some gas gauge failures have been reversed by using Techron or other additives without replacing the gauge. Trouble is, while those things raise suspicions about sulfur, neither of those factors is definitive. There have been a whole lot of gas gauge failures with no known connection to refinery sulfur upsets, and there have also been a whole lot of gas gauge failures which aren’t helped by using additives. Is it possible that the unexplained failures are caused by refinery mini-problems with sulfur that get by without being detected, and the reason additives only work part of the time is that they can cure a borderline incident, but aren’t strong enough to cure a maxi-incident. Sure, it’s possible, but it seems very unlikely. The strongest data that argues against that explanation is the pre-2005 experience when sulfur levels were 20 times higher than in 2005-2016 and 60 times higher than today. A refinery might miss a small sulfur excursion, but factors of 20 or 60 aren’t small.

So where does that leave us? If you have a gas gauge failure, by all means try a can or two of Techron. It only costs a few bucks versus several hundred bucks to replace the sender, so you’d be dumb not to try it. But beyond that, you are into speculation. Some might say they use a can of Techron now and then as a preventive measure and haven’t had any gauge problems. But a whole lot more people without gas gauge problems haven’t used occasional cans of Techron, so it’s impossible to tell whether the occasional can helps. Other advice is similarly uncertain. Store with tanks full/empty, with/without heavy doses of Techron/stabilizer, with/without ethanol, etc, etc. The trouble with any of those is that while gas gauge failures are common enough to get attention on the forum, they are still comparatively rare events. So somebody who reports they did such and such and then didn’t have a failure hasn’t proved much. To know whether their pet “such and such” actually helped, you’d have to do a controlled statistical study involving significant numbers of cars, and to my knowledge, no such studies have been done. So my bottom line conclusion is that while everybody would like answers, and some profess to have them, in actual fact, there are no firm answers. Follow the course of action that seems best to you, but don’t kid yourself into thinking your way is “the answer”. Maybe it is. But maybe it isn’t. Life is full of choices where absolute truth simply isn’t known, and this is one of them.