Unlike last winter, I have another car (Mazda 6) available to me this winter. This does not mean I intend to store my C7 all winter. I do plan to take it out on decent sunny days. It does not snow much where I live. Temperatures hover between 20-40 in winter.

My question is, how often should I start it up and drive it? Is it okay to park it for 10, 15 or 20 days or more or should I ensure I get it out to ensure it (tires, oil etc) remains optimal. If yes, how often?

 

Is it going to be in a climate controlled area and on a Battery Tender of some type?

 

Park it with a battery maintainer until you intend to drive the car. Starting & running does not heat up oils & lubricants to boil off moisture. Start when you intend on driving the car & drive several miles until you see all the fluids come up to normal operating temperature.

 

You're overthinking it. Drive it whenever you want to drive it. If it's been 2-3 weeks or more since you last drove it, and you park in a heated garage, then when you drive it make sure you're getting it up to full operating temperature. This can take a while on a dry sump car -- 30 minutes is usually a good rule of thumb.

Absolutely do not fire it up to idle it up to temperature -- better to just let it sit.

You'll be told by a bunch of old people here that you must use a battery maintainer, you must use fuel stabilizer, etc etc -- all of this is untrue if you're driving it at all (or storing the car for just 6 months, frankly).

 

I don’t have a heated garage but it’s not as cold as outside. I don’t want to use battery maintainers or add anything to the car. Just take it for a drive but how often? I could do a 30+ mile drive and perhaps it will warm up sufficiently each time. How long a break should I give in between taking it out?

 

^^^
Curious why you wouldn't use a battery maintainer. GM went to the extent to add a charging port in the hatch for this purpose.

 

What you are describing is not storage, but extended parking. I would advise to connect to a battery tender when not in use for periods you mention to help extend battery life.
Don't start it up unless you are going to drive it. I would not to warm up (idle) your C7 for 30 minutes before winter driving. 5>10 minutes will suffice. No need to worry about tires, modern tires will not flat-spot at lease not to a point where condition will not correct itself after a couple blocks of driving. Fuel stabilizer is not needed unless storing car for 9 months / 10 months or more.

 

Again, you're overthinking it. If you're driving it through the season, which is at least "once per month or whatever", then just straight up don't worry about it. At best you're giving yourself anxiety over a nonissue. At worst you'll create an issue.

You don't need to do anything special to store a car unless you're storing it for more than 4-5 months, and even then the only concern is the battery, and even then you're usually okay unless something is actually wrong with the car.

 

No. 5-10 minutes is ridiculously excessive and does more harm than good. 30-60 seconds max, and that's if you're starting it after it's been sitting outside overnight in 5F temps.

Get oil pressure, drive away. Keep engine load (read: throttle usage and RPMs) low until you have temperature. GM even went so far as to indicate a lower redline based on coolant temperature strictly for this purpose.

 

Make sure you are on all season tires, the summer tires that come on the performance models are next to worthless at those temperatures. Pilot Super Sports shouldn’t even be moved at temperatures near freezing.

 

A maintainer is good anytime. Cold tires are not the best for traction if they are the OEM ones. Yes drive it when you want!!

 

thats cool and all, but i literally cant see out my windshield until the defroster gets warm enough and that takes almost 10 minutes

 

Simply don’t want to use a battery maintainer. Been driving 50+ years and lots of cars, never used one before, don’t intend to. So, just want to know how often to go for a drive…

 

Driving the car once every 30 days or so should present no problem. I used to do this when I lived in upstate NY. Usually, the roads were clear at least once every 30 days, although there was one winter when I went 60 days between driving the Corvette. At the time I didn't keep the car on a battery tender but didn't have any problem starting the car after it spent 60 days in a cold garage.

If you do this make sure you drive the car at least 35 miles in varying conditions including more than half the miles on the highway at speeds higher than 55 mph. This will make sure the battery is fully charged when you put the car back in the garage, moisture in the exhaust system has evaporated, lubricants in the engine, transmission and differential have been splashed every place they can be splashed and have gotten hot enough to evaporate any condensed moisture and all seals in the engine, transmission and differential have been lubricated. It is also good for your mental well being since a long drive in a Corvette is enjoyable and soothing to the soul. It is hard to feel depressed during short winter days when you are looking forward to or are actually driving the Vette for an hour or so. The key thing to remember is GM nor any other OEM didn't design the cars to sit around and not be used. There is no special design case for that scenario. They are meant to be driven and last longer when driven. Another thing to remember is don't just back the car out of the garage and let it idle for 20 minutes. That is far worse than letting it sit. When the engine is running you need to be driving.

Bill

 

Whenever you want. The car won't break.

Sounds like you need some glass treatment! Indoors unheated, indoors heated, outdoors unheated.. never had an issue like this with cleaned+treated glass up in Minnesota.

 

what is that ? Im in California and its happening in 40 degree weather

 

rainx makes an antifog product for interior glass that I've found to be adequate. you really need to buff the haze out though, otherwise it's super annoying during dawn/dusk.

stoners invisible glass makes a similar product. I prefer stoners over rainx personally, but it's harder to find.

beyond that you're probably looking at garbage like armorall or ultra-expensive snake oil from people that try to convince you to buy their buckets for the two bucket method.

 

I don't agree, I'm not going to start my Corvette and immediacy drive off in 30 seconds when it's 20 degrees outside. I'm going to let it warm up at idle for about 5 minutes and that's not going to do the engine harm. Now letting it idle for 15>30 minutes not good for the engine.

I have a Tacoma that has 415,000 miles on it and has been briefly warmed up as I described above in cold weather and engine has been trouble-free never even had an engine cover off.

 

the idea that warming up the car in this fashion is not bad for it, or even good for it, is objectively false. this isn't really up for debate in 2022, we figured this out decades ago.

while you are more than welcome to disagree with this, the overwhelming majority of studies on this very topic all agree that running your engine at idle without load outside of operating temperature is bad for it for numerous reasons, most agreeing that it is the oil that is the concern. driving (sanely, mind you) drastically reduces the length of time the engine is operating in these conditions and promotes a cleaner running engine.

there's also the whole argument of excessive emissions to be had.

 

^true statements here
I cannot believe in this day people still hang onto the carburetor era idea that you need to warm up your car. And frankly, the ONLY reason for that was because carburetors simply could not atomize fuel until the manifold got warm.
It was simply a functional solution.
Throttle body injection in the 90's was the only grey area because those pretty much sucked and still didn't work well cold.
All you have to do is NOT go slamming the redline on an ice cold engine or getting anywhere close to it. It will heat up 100x's faster when driven.

Also, IMO I only use the battery tender if I know I won't be using it for 2+ weeks, but I have winter tires on mine so I drive all winter too no matter how cold. I just keep it parked if the roads are covered in salt.