- Unfortunately there is going to come a time where
we just have to put our cars away for a little bit.
Whether it be for an upcoming build for the car,
or if you store your car for the winter.
Either way, extended storage for a vehicle
requires a little bit of prep.
What's going on everyone?
Gels from Fitment industries and on today's
episode of the build sheet, we're going
to be going over how to properly store your vehicle.
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Now, before we go ahead and get into it
don't forget to subscribe and if you're
looking for anything wheels tires or suspension
for your car check out fitmentindustries.com
and while you're over there, check out the giveaway
we have going on right now with Kansei wheels!
This is our second giveaway with Kansei that
we've partnered with we're super excited about it.
We got an absolutely killer shirt.
I'll turn around and show you the back.
It's fantastic, I love it, I love it a lot.
All you have to do is pick up the shirt right here,
which is absolutely killer, and you're
automatically entered in to win a
free set of Kansei wheels.
Along with that, we'll also be making
a donation to Hope for Paws at the end of the giveaway.
With some of the proceeds from the shirts
and your additional donations going to them.
The first thing you're going to want to do,
if you're planning on putting your vehicle
away for any extended amount of time,
is to clean that thing inside and out
I'm talking about like picking someone up
for a first date kind of detail.
Make sure that the car
has been completely dried off afterwards
as well and then move it to where you
plan to keep it stored.
Now, on the way of driving it to your
storage unit or house or garage or wherever
you're going to plan on keeping it,
on the way, make sure to stop by your gas station,
fill up your tank, because storing your car
with a full tank will prevent any moisture
from gathering within the gas tank and
could cause it to rust or anything bad like that.
Which could cause some other issues down the road.
Now, your storage space is a whole nother animal.
What I mean by that is whether you're keeping it
in the garage or a storage unit or at a friends shop
wherever it may be, make sure that it is
as free of moisture as possible.
If possible, it's always a good idea to
have some kind of mat or tarp laid down if
you're storing it on concrete or anything like that
dirt, whatever it may be.
Now, after you have the car cleaned,
full of gas, in its resting place,
you're going to want to change out your oil
if you plan to have it stored for anything more
than 30 days or at the very minimum
before you take it out again at the end of the storage
change the oil, but it's never a bad idea to
change it once you put it into storage
and then change it once you're done.
Now, it also wouldn't be a bad idea to
add some sort of fuel additive to your tank
once you fill up, something like
stable is a solid go to when it comes
to adding any sort of fuel additive
for some kind of storage.
Once that's added to your tank,
start your car and get it up to
operating temperature and give that additive
the chance it needs to circulate the entire fuel system.
Now, the last thing that you want to
have happen after months of storage and
being able to not drive, you know like your pride and joy,
is to go and fire it up after a long hibernation
and (snaps) nothing.
And then you realize the mess that the mice
have made all over your interior
and your electrical system.
Dryer sheets, spread them like (bleep) everywhere
front seats, rear seats, glove compartment
exhaust, under the hood, everywhere!
From personal experience, moth balls
haven't really done the trick and that's
what a lot of people will recommend,
but, dryer sheets, that's the key,
they don't seem to like those very much.
Either way, making sure that no little
critters can cause like havoc on your car
can save you the possibility of an extensive
electrical headache in the springtime.
Alright, so where are we sitting
we got it cleaned, we got a good storage location,
topped off with gas and fuel additive,
rodent proof, we're almost there I promise.
Your battery is going to be the next thing
that you're going to want to take care of
and if you have an older vehicle it can be something
as simple as just taking the battery out
of the car and keeping it somewhere warm
or maybe on a battery tender or something like that.
However, newer cars can be a little bit
trickier that if you don't want to lose all
your radio precepts or you don't
want to reset the clock or anything like that
you're going to want to leave the battery in the car,
but like I said with newer cars,
there are some other electrical features,
and taking out the battery and leaving the car
with no power for a period of time
can cause some issues that will need to be reset.
Of course, like nothing crazy major but just
more annoying than anything.
It's going to be like, the windows that like
pop down when you open the door
or any other kind of features like that
so if you gotta keep the battery in the car
a battery tender is going to be your alternative
otherwise known as a trickle charger.
So, now that you have your car all prepped
it's all stored away, all tucked away nice and neat
there's a couple things that you're
going to want to keep an eye on while
the car is in storage.
And the first thing would be the tire pressure.
Now, tires will naturally lose air pressure over time
especially with changes in weather or temperature
and all that kind of good stuff.
So, to keep your tires from getting flat spots,
it's a good idea to check the air pressure
every now and then and inflate as needed.
Another thing to keep in mind to is that
make sure that you don't use your parking brake
when you park the vehicle.
So, what happens is parking brakes can seize
if they're engaged for too long.
The pads can like seize to the rotors
or the cable can get like stuck
all that kind of not good stuff.
And that's really pretty much it.
There's nothing too crazy, nothing too hard,
just requires some time to make sure that
everything is good to go.
Now, there are somethings that you may have
heard about storing vehicles and a couple of them
are controversial in a sense that if it's
good or bad for your car to do that while it's in storage.
Number one would be that you need to
start the car every now and then.
Now, typically this is because the thought of
running the engine and all that kind of stuff
can let the car breathe in a sense.
Now, whether or not this is good for the car
or bad for the car, just make sure that if you do it
let your car warm up to operating temperature at least.
Another tactic that seems to be controversial is
that you need to suspend the car like off the ground
get the wheels off the ground to prevent
flat spots in the tires.
Now usually this is done just by
putting the car on some jack stands.
With this there is the argument of whether or not
this is good or not for the suspension,
by letting it kind of hang and sag
having no load on the suspension at all.
However, if you take the steps that we
just talked about you won't have to worry about that
and you won't have to worry about
putting the car up on jack stands.
Just by keeping the car clean,
keeping it dry, keeping it charged,
keep it mouse free, keep the tires inflated,
you're good to go.
And that's it, like I said, really not that hard at all.
Just take the steps and the precautions
to make sure that your car is going to be
ready to rock and roll whenever you are ready
to take it out of storage,
but that is going to wrap it up
for today's episode of the build sheet.
Hope you guys enjoyed.
Please feel free to drop a comment down below
and what you would like us to cover next.
But I'm Gels from Fitman Industries,
don't forget the Kansei giveaway
that we got going on for the month of January.
It's going to be great.
We're going to give away a free set a Kansei wheels.
I'm excited, everyone's excited, hopefully you're excited.
Well, we'll see you later, peace.
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