Hi,

Getting ready to put my 2014 Cayman S into storage for the winter. I got the car earlier this year, so this is a first for me. It looks like I'm going to end up with a storage unit that I can drive it into. Unfortunately I don't have access to electricity in the unit. I'm considering just pulling the battery, and leaving it on a drip charger in my basement. Is that going to create any issues when I go to reconnect it in the spring? In reading the manual, it seems like there's a little bit of "work" when the battery is reconnected (resetting the position of the windows, TPMS relearning). That doesn't seem to onerous. How difficult is it to get the battery out?

The other things I'm doing include:

• Exterior detail prior to going in, and then I have a car cover that I'll put over it.
• Filling tank with gas, and adding a little sta-bil.

Do I need to do anything with the tires (Michelin PS4S) like over-inflating to prevent flat spots, or should I get one a set of those curved rests?

Thanks,
-Larry

 

If you leave the battery in the car chances are it will be dead come spring.

So remove the battery. Be sure to follow the proper steps to ensure an incident free batttery removal.

Be sure you leave the trunk lid open and place something -- an old towel? -- over the latch to prevent someone accidently closing the front trunk lid. If this gets closed you may have to resort to using the emergency cable release which can be a pain to locate and use.

In your basement do not place the battery on concrete.

For prep the best advice is to change the oil/filter so you store the with fresh oil in the engine. "Old" oil is acidic and you don't want the engine internals exposed to acid over the winter. No fear of the oil eating its way through the oil sump plate but the acidic oil can attack seals for instance.

Be sure the car is clean. If you wash the car be sure after you drive it and use the brakes hard enough to get them plenty warm to ensure the brake hardware including the parking brake hardware which is in the rear wheel hubs and kind of "buried" is all dry.

You can use a gasoline stabilizer if you want. My experience is after 6 months while the gas will be stale the engine fires right up and idles ok. The staleness means the engine can feel a bit flat but with fresh gasoline that goes away.

My advice is to fill the tank to nearly "full" to keep the in tank fuel pump. hoses, fuel level hardware "submerged".

For tires these can be inflated to something not to exceed the max. pressure molded in the sidewall. This is what the factory does to prevent the tires from flat spotting as the cars can sit around some time before being sold.

Come spring be sure you adjust the tire pressures to the right pressure for driving.

 

Thanks for all the great info. I'm curious about the recommendation against putting the battery on a concrete floor. I have some boat batteries that I keep in my basement, and I've always just put them on the concrete floor. I hadn't planned to do anything different. Would a couple of 2x4s make the difference?

Thanks again!!

 

That was what I was told and the few times I had a battery out of car I never stored it on the concrete garage floor.

I followed that advice but didn't know what the actual risk was.

Turns out the risk was with earlier batteries with a housing (wood?) that could absorb moisture from the concrete. This would cause the housing to swell and possibly cause the plates inside to shift.

Modern batteries have a plastic housing and this does not absorb moisture. So apparently there is no concern about putting a modern lead/acid battery with a plastic housing on concrete. There can even be an advantage: The concrete can act to keep the battery temperature more stable over time.

So, if you want to put the battery on concrete apparently that is ok.

Have to say but if I had to store a battery I'd still prefer to store it on something, like some wood. But not so high or tippy the battery could get knocked over or fall over. But there is no apparent reason for avoiding the concrete floor.

 

Very interesting, and thanks for digging in/googling that!! Didn't mean to give you a chore, but the answer was interesting.