long term vehicle storage
 

Hi all,

I like the idea of doing a long route in multiple trips and store the vehicle (4x4) in between trips. There have been many questions from people where to find storing places but not many answers. So has covid teached us the downside of this, with vehicles trapped all over the world.

What I am looking for are answers about technical problems. When I use search machines like Google or Yandex I find lot of information about what can go wrong when storing a vehicle for extended periods of time. Vehicles are ment to be driven, not to sit for months.

Do you have experience with parking your car long time? How did it work out?

And what about motorcycles? Are they prone to long time storage?


All the best to you

Rögnvaldur

I have a lot of experience with this, lol.

Many things *can* go wrong, some vehicles take better to sitting than others. Generally, modern-ish fuel injected petrol cars do well (problems with batteries are typical but sitting for a year should be ok, assuming local wildlife doesn't take a liking to chewing on wires or making nests in the air box).

Cars with carbs do ok if you put some ethanol-free petrol through before storage.

Modern diesels are ok, though I've had problems with a fuel rail needing to be cleaned, and a friend had sensor problems for some reason. Classic diesels are usually fine if you pull some fresh fuel through to the engine to get it going first time.

Injected motorbikes are no problem, but bikes with carbs (especially when they have four of them) can be an absolute pain in the backside.

Whatever it is, it's better off out of the weather, away from fluffy little animals, and with the weight off the wheels if possible.

I have two motorcycles, one in Canada and one in Europe. Each one gets stored over the winter every year. I have access to the Canadian one (at my home), but not to the European one, which I store at a motorcycle dealer in Europe. One is fuel injected and one is carbureted.

For the last 20 years, all I have done is ensured that the battery in each motorcycle is hooked up to a battery tender for one day once a month. This has been sufficient to enable me to get a 5 to 7 year life out of each battery, which I consider to be reasonable. I don't do anything else to prepare them for storage - no fooling around with fuel stabilizers, no draining carbs or fuel systems, etc.

Between April 2020 and October 2021 I had to leave the carbureted one in Tunisia with no preparation at all, this due to the COVID pandemic. I knew before I returned to get it that the battery would be toast, so, I bought a new battery and installed it. The 20 year old bike started up right away without any problems... just had to apply the choke and crank it for about 20 seconds.

So, for "short term" storage - what I would define as 6 months or less - I think all you need to do is ensure that a battery tender is connected to the battery. It doesn't need to be connected all the time - charging it up once a month or more is sufficient.

Expect that tires will lose a fair amount of pressure over a 6 month period, and be prepared to re-inflate the tires before riding the motorcycle. A $50 pump such as a "Stop & Go" pump that you can hook up to the motorcycle's battery with clips is sufficient for this purpose.

Michael