Winter Storage in the Great White North

For the Canadians & those in Snow Belt here in the States.

What's you opinion on starting your car during winter storage?

Starting an engine, in a vehicle that isn't driven in the winter is good, as long as you let the engine run long enough to come up to temperature each time.
Short run times creates condensation and will rapidly rust metal parts, including the internal engine parts.
Use StaBil in your gas to keep it from turning bad throughout the winter too.

I try to drive mine when the roads allow. If i cant i start it long enough to bring it to operating temp a couple times a winter

Like Old Iron said. ....and I don't let anything sit over winter with ethanol in it, even with stabilizer (just my opinion).

Come to think of it, I don't even have anything I will use E-10 in right now!

Right here, in the dead of winter, it's 80 degrees, we take em for a ride....

smallfoot said:

Right here, in the dead of winter, it's 80 degrees, we take em for a ride....

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If I park something for the winter, I pull the battery and it doesn't run again 'til spring.

I've never started and run a "cold stored" vehicle for any reason, except to drive or move it ... not to contradict anybody, but I don't do it and never have as a preventative measure.

My thinking is... more harm than good at sub-zero temps. I don't know what conditions you have (I've never been to Chicagoland) and wonder what your concern is?

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Dr Crankenstein said:

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My thinking is... more harm than good at sub-zero temps. I don't know what conditions you have (I've never been to Chicagoland) and wonder what your concern is?

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No so much a concern as interest in what other do & more so why. The best part about the internet is talking with people you would never meet in the real world.

I was wondering how long a protective film of oil is on internal engine parts when a car has not run for an extended period.

Here we have every extreme in weather one finds in North America, typically within several days. Three weeks ago it was 65 and I was driving my car, as I write it's 17 and the Siberian Express is on the way. Thursday am is going to be -6 with a 15+ mph wind = 20 wind chill.

Last year I went to Christmas dinner in a sweater.

IronRat, I qualify for an opinion to your question.
I don't start the hotrods up in the winter. It's just too much grief to get them going and very little positive comes out of all of the grief. I might have to boost the batteries in the spring or clean out the carb, but that's easier than fooling with an old car in the winter. Even though we sometimes get a Chinook, the hotrod does not warm up nearly as fast as the air. My '55 Merc pick-up has been in my yard for twenty years, [the first quite a few years out in the snowbank], and it always gets going in the spring. The motor has 28 years of service after a rebuild, without oil starvation problems.

Agreed.....I've never started anything once stored...and never had any problems - cars, motorcycle, lawn equipment, etc. Fresh oil prior to storage, stabilizer and several trickle chargers that I move about to keep all the batteries topped up.

IronRat said:

No so much a concern as interest in what other do & more so why. The best part about the internet is talking with people you would never meet in the real world.

I was wondering how long a protective film of oil is on internal engine parts when a car has not run for an extended period.

Here we have every extreme in weather one finds in North America, typically within several days. Three weeks ago it was 65 and I was driving my car, as I write it's 17 and the Siberian Express is on the way. Thursday am is going to be -6 with a 15+ mph wind = 20 wind chill.

Last year I went to Christmas dinner in a sweater.

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I pulled the 260 in my rod from a 63 Fairlane that was sunk into the dirt and hadn't turned over in 15 years, put it in the rod and been running the stink out of it for 4 years. So I don't really worry too much about a regimen. We usually get enough nice weather in the winter to get it out a few times. We have no alcohol gas and it's parked inside so the gas doesn't seem to be a problem. I do always run super in it. But then, I'm a lazy butt, I never clean my guns either.

Willowbilly3 said:

So I don't really worry too much about a regimen. We usually get enough nice weather in the winter to get it out a few times. We have no alcohol gas and it's parked inside so the gas doesn't seem to be a problem. I do always run super in it. But then, I'm a lazy butt, I never clean my guns either.

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OK ya got me this is usually the way I do it too