Many of us are not driving much these days. My wife and I take a little ride each day just to get out, and to exercise the cars. Since we have two RXs, we alternate,and they don’t sit in the garage longer than one day. You just need to get the car up to operating temperature to keep everything happy.

Hope everyone that can is self isolating. - BE SAFE - I hope you all stay healthy.

 

I truly understand the need to get out of the house, as we have not gone anywhere for about 10 days. However, your RXs really don't need to be "exercised" every couple of days. Our two Toyota vehicles (18 RX and a 19 Tundra) sit in the garage for extended time, sometimes as long as 2-3 weeks, and they always start instantly and run fine. Saves on gas too. I should mention that we're both retired, and Colorado's "stay-at-home" order from the Governor hasn't bothered us much.

 

I will disagree. Regular exercise of a vehicle can prevent: Tire flat spots - corrosion (from lack of lubrication) on valves, and cylinder walls - engine, compressor, and differential seal deterioration - rust on the brake rotors - fuel turning to shellac in various parts of the fuel system, and most importantly , the old RX just won't be happy.

 

Mine’s all charged up with no place to go, except grocery store. While it’s parked in the garage I keep the battery topped off with a Battery Tender; I’ve used these for years on my classic cars and there’s no risk of ever overcharging.

 

I'm with RickC5 but it might depend to some extent on how you park and maintain your vehicles.

Like Rick, we're retired. We've had each vehicle out on the road only once during the past two weeks and won't be driving them at all until at least after the expiration of the 30 day stay-at-home order that started four days ago.

We've left our vehicles parked in our garage numerous times for from two to four weeks while we were away traveling with no ill effect on them although I was still a little surprised one time that a Lexus V8 could start right up after sitting 30 days while I was off backpacking through the Greek islands. I didn't even put a trickle charger on it although I have one for each vehicle. Flat spotting has never been a problem although I keep tires inflated properly. I don't think I've had any flat spotting since the days of bias ply tires and that was after parking overnight in sub-zero temperatures in the Colorado mountains. "fuel turning to shellac" sounds like something from 40 or more years ago - that doesn't happen with modern "Top Tier" detergent fuels. The longest I've left a car un-driven was a Mercedes SL for about 9 months - I did put it up on "blocks".

A neighbor across the street rolls his exotic Italian cars out of his garage maybe once each winter to let them idle in his driveway. Another neighbor did the same thing with the ancient Mercedes 450SL he drove only in summer and owned from new until his death - 44 years. A next door neighbor, now deceased, did something similar with his Porsche that he never drove in winter. I often kidded him that I was going to go for a joy ride and his response was always something like "Have fun". We were both car nuts and once had 1990 LS400's that we had both both new.

I agree that brake rotors can rust - sometimes badly when a vehicle is parked outside for long periods - particularly in winter. I don't think that's a problem on garaged vehicles.

I might roll our vehicles out of the garage sometime during the next four weeks to do the winter-to-summer wheel/tire changeovers. I hope that makes them "happy".

 

Kansas: about that 30 day stay at home thing, don't you still have to buy food etc?

 

I'm no survivalist but we usually have several months' food supply on hand although not necessarily what we would want to eat long term. We often buy food in bulk - Costco, yeah! I do all the food shopping since my wife is a bit handicapped. I hate to shop and often buy a lot at a time to minimize the number of shopping trips or when I find products that I really like. I do almost all the cooking which I'm pretty good at if I say so myself. I make pizza and bread from scratch in a specialty high temperature oven we had installed after the original oven failed. I've got enough flour and yeast on hand to make at least 120 French baguettes - I could live on that alone coupled with my stock of Camembert cheese that my wife finds disgusting and calls "stinky cheese". We have herbs growing in the sunroom but only because we happened to bring them inside before winter - we usually don't. The basil has done particularly well inside.

Before year 2000, we jokingly called our food supply the Y2K disaster reserve - we now call it our Y3K supply. My wife used to be irritated at my 50 pound "strategic pasta reserve" under our bed but suddenly seems OK with it. She continues to be irritated about the sardines I have in storage - 36 cans per case.

But seriously, always in the back of my mind is knowledge about challenges my family experienced in the past including about ancestors who migrated from country to country before coming to America. Having parents who were children during the depression of the 1930's had an impact too. Heck, my father, just short of 97, is still reminding me that he rode a horse to school. My mother still talks about how tough she had it during the depression. I remind her that there was a tennis court in her backyard and that her family sometimes wintered in Florida.

We did get an important "food" shipment from California this morning - photo attached. UPS has apparently suspended their requirement to sign for this type of "liquid food" delivery.

 

not retired but normally I'm a homebody anyway, just go jogging or biking, or go to the grocery store and thats about it.

 

agreed, but not every single day......take a walk instead if you wanna get out, your health will thank you.

 

i try to get my cars out at least once a week, the mercedes doesn't get used as much since it uses so much more gas... but when i do take it out it's always for a good 30-45 minutes and i make sure it gets a chance to stretch its legs a bit, following a gentle initial 15-20 minutes while the fluids are all getting warmed up

as long as it's in a nice sheltered area i don't really see too much of a problem with sitting for a few weeks every so often, but i agree cars are meant to be used not just sit around for awhile

 

My Porsche sat in my garage for 2 years while I was building the engine. Started up instantly for the initial test drive. No fuel issues, Of course I only use the best fuel, Chevron Supreme.

 

The best thing you can do for your engine is use the best oil for it, & once you start the engine allow it to fully warm up before turning it off.

 

True in an absolute sense, but not getting the engine fully-warm before shutting it off won't do it much harm if maybe once a week of so, you do get it fully-warm, or at least warm enough to evaporate or boil off the moisture and condensation in the oil, which the filters can't take out. Also, remember that, in most cases, the coolant will warm up quicker than the oil....it will take longer to get the oil really hot.

 

I agree, we human beings require exercise and there is a lasting beneficial effect in doing so, but the vehicles are inanimate objects. No, they were not designed to sit for months on end, and likely being driven daily is best. But think about how long vehicles sit at a car dealer, sometimes 6 mos or more if a less popular model. Nothing happens to them. We have 4 cars and only 2 drivers, it would be impractical to exercise our cars daily lol

 

I've still been going out to work every day but my wife and kids have been home. Our Pacifica sits outside, and I drive it every 2-3 days or so instead of the Lexus just to let it run around some.

Cars can sit a couple of weeks no problem, especially in a garage