okay then i wouldnt worry about it, as being said here starting it every now and then to let it idle for a few minutes or driving around the block is worse for an engine than not driving it at all.
How to keep car in storage while going off to college?
- Thread starter mosaud1998
- Start date
I'll probably drive it once a month for 20 miles or so. Or once every week. Other than that, I'll keep the battery on a tender.
Not a problem at all just fill up the tank. For reference when I was first getting into pharma, I had to do 6 weeks of training in Chicago, at the time I lived in Buffalo,NY and very close to the airport. I was shot when I got back every Friday night and would leave on Sunday. The company was paying my parking bill so I’d just take a cab to my house, crash, sleep In get lunch, get dinner, sleep, then grab a flight. My car sat parked outside with half a tank for almost two months in Buffalo, NY In January/February started up immediately and ran perfectly when I sold it 90,000 trouble free miles later. In fact last I checked it was still on the road 16 years after it was built.
Which generation bmw is it?
20 miles in one drive should be sufficient.
For just a week you shouldn't need to do anything special. I've got one car that sits in the garage at least 95% of the time and sometimes will go few months without being started. It's a '97 model and has 41K original miles on it since I purchased it new. My mom doesn't drive but still has the car her and dad had prior to his death in 2010. It also often sits in her garage 1-2 months at a time and is only driven if I or my brothers take her somewhere in it. Majority of the time if she needs to go somewhere I just take her in my car instead of getting hers out of the garage and having to put it back away. I think it's been driven less than 10K miles in the past 10 years since dad passed away.
It's a 2009 BMW 328 N52. (E90 fifth generation of the 3 Series).
Based on what? Some of my cars in storage I'll start up and run a few minutes every 2 or 3 months. If I go much longer, the lifters bleed down and become very noisy the next time I do start it. Also having the injectors operate occasionally prevents them from sticking as well as the brushes in the fuel pump.
Based on fact, and it has been discussed numerous times here. The short answer is you're not getting the engine up to normal operating temperature. You're building up condensation in the crankcase, and not allowing it to burn off. You are probably diluting the oil with fuel, and you're not doing the exhaust system any favors either. That's the short answer. If you can start the car and idle it every two or three months for a few minutes, you can take it for a 20 or 30 minute drive. It will be much better for the engine.
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First off, if you changed the oil before putting it in storage, the condensation or dilution will be minimal for say, a dozen such starts. Certainly no worse than a car driving on short trips in the winter between oil changes. Probably better that, then to have the lifters pounding when you eventually do start the car. Not to mention the fuel system components getting some exercise. Second, when it storage, the car is often back behind other cars so moving those to get to it would be a major production, even if a tire wasn't flat or some other issue that would preclude driving it.
You're entitled to your opinion, if you searched the topic you'd see most if not all of the experts here would disagree with you. Imagine if you change the oil before you put the car in "storage", and then when you started it every 2-3 months you actually drove it and got it to operating temperature for a little while. You'd burn off the excess fuel and condensation, get the flash rust off the rotors, and get the differential, transfer case, trans-axle ,etc. depending on how the vehicle is equipped lubed. Then as a bonus not have condensation sitting in the exhaust system, and "exercise" the fuel system too. If you want to "exercise" the car, drive it, and if you're worried about snow, wait until it's cleared, another few weeks isn't going to matter.
Searched "start without driving" and found nothing related. While some cars I can and do take for a drive, but for most, that's impractical. Besides having to move 3 or 4 other cars out of the way just to get to it, which in and of itself would require me to go drive those as well by this theory, they often have other issues that cause them to be stored in the first place. Transmission problems, weak or no brakes, no coolant in the radiator etc.
