A question for the gear heads here. My truck has been reduced to only occasional use, and I was wondering what should be done for a vehicle in short/medium term storage. It typically spends up to a month unused, and is then pressed into service for lengthy trips (up to 700 miles in a weekend). Many of these trips are fairly heavy-duty (towing its max weight). I rarely use it for short trips (although this can happen with household projects).
Should I be trying to drive it some during its “month off”? Should I simply pick one day a week and drive it to work? Or is it OK to leave it for a month at a time at the end of the driveway? I have a boat that spends about 4-5 months per year unused, but I follow a fairly involved winterization process for it. Just wondering if some steps need taken before leaving a vehicle inactive for 4-5 weeks.
Thanks in advance for any info.
It depends, how far away is work? I wouldn’t unless your commute is long enough for the engine to get good and warmed up. At least 20 minutes. Warming up engines a little is a bad thing.
If I was you then a day or two before your big trip, I’d take the truck out for a shakedown trip with no unusual load. Do a few minutes of low speed, in town driving then get it on the highway for a half hour or so. Get things loosed up and primed before you start pushing it to its limit.
As Alpha Twit said, how far away is work? When a vehicle sits for a while, water condenses out of the air and gets into the oil. If you run the vehicle long enough this isn’t a problem, since the water just gets heated into water vapor and expelled from the engine. If you don’t run it long enough to heat up the engine though the water will build up in your oil. Water will also condense from the exhaust and will sit in the exhaust pipes and make them rust out very quickly. Again, getting everything nice and hot causes the water to be expelled and there’s no problem.
Driving it once a week for a good 20 minutes to half an hour is fine.
The truck isn’t sitting long enough for the gas to go bad, so I wouldn’t worry about adding stabilizers or anything like that.
Most vehicles these days have some drain on the battery even when it is sitting parked. This can drain a battery within a month on many vehicles. Again, running it once a week will completely prevent this from happening.
If tires sit for too long in one place they will develop flat spots. Sitting for a week, or even a month, isn’t going to be a problem though, so I wouldn’t worry about this either.
If you ever store it for longer than that (like all winter or something) then put the truck up on blocks to prevent the tires from developing flat spots, add some stabilizer to the gas, and disconnect the battery. Note that some radios and alarm systems don’t like having the battery disconnected. Follow the manufacturer’s suggestions if you have something like this installed.
Condensation can also be a concern in the fuel tank if you are parking the truck with the gas tank mostly empty. I would suggest filling the tank before you park it. Other than what has already been mentioned I think driving it on a long trip once a month is enough.
Thanks everybody.
Work is about 19 miles (each way). It’s probably enough to get it warmed up since it’s mostly highway. What I’m trying to avoid is short trips (3 miles to the launch ramp, etc.).
I haven’t noticed any battery problems, but the truck has a fairly large (~800 amp-hour) battery. Perhaps this allows it to withstand long periods with no charging. AFAIK, there’s only a clock running (no anti-theft stuff).
It’s a Chevy C3500, 7.4L, manual tranny.
I have seen some government pamphlet instructing persons being shipped to the middle east as to what to do with their vehicles. Scanning it the instructions didn’t seem to complicated. I don’t recall reading it carefully. It was online somewhere at one time.