[Kim]

Am going to put both 968s away until the lease on the Cayman S is up in 3 years. Getting a bit too much heat for having 4 Porsches so, since I can't seem to sell them, I will keep them for when the Cayman is gone. Repair bills ought to be a bit lower if they are not driven. I can putter around on fixing some small cosmetic items over that interval. Are there any tips for storing a car that long? They will be kept inside at least.

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[tom968]

Kim,

Are you going to have your insurance lapse and not
drive them at all? It helps to move them around, that
way you don't flat spot the tires.

If storing, keeping the battery charged is a problem. Or, just buy
new one's after 3 years. Store with very little fuel in the cars as
fuel goes bad.

Rats love stored vehicles. They chew on the cables and wires, and
can do major damage. Check the openings to the garage and
secure them. A cat would help.

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[SHA-JR968]

I have stored the 968, the Spitfire and the BMW R90/6 for about 3 years when I was living abroad in the UAE.

Have connected the batteries to a battery charger and put slightly higher pressure on the tyres.

I was driving the Porsche about 2-3 times and 2000 km / year. The others only once per year < 50 km.

Today, all the vehicles are on the road again without any problems.

The only problem I encountered was slightly corrosion on aluminium parts due to too high humidity in the storage.

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[blue968]

I was told by a legendary mechanic here in Mass., that if you are going to store a car never start it during storage time.
he explained how the friction in the piston cylinders always creates condensation and how every block always holds moisture. So when you start your car it condensates and then turns into rust, therefore acting like sand paper when you start it, so if you do that once a week it is only harming the rings and other components in the cylinder.
I thought he was crazy but then he took it 1 step further and grabbed a wrench of his tool box and handed it to me to make sure it was not wet in any way, then proceeded to take the torch out and heated it up and out came the moisture and off course rust to follow.
Don't know if this is true or false but I believe the theory after the demonstration with the torch and never start my Viper. I have it off the ground, battery conditioner and put a good quality fuel conditioner in it and no problems to date. I do drive it maybe 2 -3 times during the summer for car shows.
Just my 2 cents from the old timer.

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[Ryan]

I would put Sta-bil in the remaining gas and let that get into the injectors before shutting down. I would put the car up on jack stands so the tires don't flat-spot.

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[DaveN]

Blue968 - What the mechanic probably didn't know is that a torch, butane, propane and to a lesser extent acetylene produces H20 as a by-product of combustion. You will get water with any of these on a cold surface. I think he may have a point but his demo was not a sound example.

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[968Syncro]

This looks like a good list of preparation items:
wikiHow: How to store a car

A few other sites popped up from a search on "storing a car".

There will be debate on some of the techniques, one of the sites even acknowledged that much [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/huh.gif[/img] . For example fill the fuel tank full vs leave it mostly empty, how far to jack up the car, how much air pressure to leave in the tires, cover the car or not, drain coolant or not. And the famous old question if it is better to do a "mini-prep" and just drive it every 2-3 months or not.

I seem to recall other web sites that may have a list of things to do when restarting a stored car.

Roland

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