elvenrider

I live around Toronto, Ontario and bought my ES330 5 years ago. It has been nothing but a brilliant car. However, with COVID and work from home conditions, it has been parked for over 5 months. For all family trips or grocery runs, we take my wife's leased car I used to drive it to work but now we are working from home until next year. When we are back I can ride my motorcycle to work instead (minus winter season when I can take public transportation instead).

Since I don't use it at all, I've decided to pause the overly expensive Ontario insurance to save some $$$. It is parked outdoors so I am thinking instead of being slowly killed by storage, may be it is her time to serve another person/family. I doubt I will be able to keep it in shape whilst stored.

I am just fearing that if in the future for any reason I need another car, it might be very hard to find a car like her -- a Japanese made tank at the peak of their quality control, that I know is well maintained and in a good shape. For that should I just reinstate the insurance and keep operating it, spending some $ for no real gain, or just let her go.

If I let her go, what would be a fair price from your point of view. She has 250k km (not miles) with almost new unused all weather tires. Brake pads, rotors, timing belt and water pump were changed at about 230k km.

Thank you all.

LeX2K

I don't know the value of your car in Canada. But if you sell, I think you'll end up regretting it. For the price you get you'll likely never find another car as good at that price point.

Not sure what you mean by "slowly killed by storage" this doesn't kill a car unless you NEVER drive it. And even then the worst thing is the rubber bits dry out. I drive my ES less than 5,000km/year no issues at all, I do keep up on things like fluid changes but that's it.

Of course if you never ever plan on driving the car then it's an expensive ornament.

elvenrider

Thanks a lot for your reply. I really admire how you kept your 20 years old ES300 in that perfect shape.

I was reading tips about how to store car and they were saying to raise it and take the wheels off to avoid flat spots, trickle charge the battery every 1 month, inspect for rodents, use fuel stabilizer and more. Do you think all of this is really necessary if the car will be parked through the winter for approximately 6 months?. I think I can do everything except taking the wheels off. What would be the alternative if I can't drive the car?

LeX2K

I do use fuel stabilizer since my ES is not winter driven. I remove the battery and keep in indoors, leaving it in the cold means I'd have to use a battery maintainer a drained battery in the cold will kill it. Keeping the battery out of the cold greatly extends the life. I've found at room temperature the battery does not lose a charge for months, I charge it up 1-2 times over the winter just because.

Rodents are not an issue here but if you have them, yea it can be a huge problem. I've yet to hear of anything that really works short of owning a cat. I don't put the car on jack stands and have not had any issues with tire flat spots. I spray down the tires with 303 Protectant before it goes in storage this seems to have greatly reduced cracking on the sidewalls. I do try to start the engine for a bit on warmer days just to burn off any moisture. One thing to watch out for, if you wash the car thoroughly and don't drive it after this can cause the rotors to rust to the brake pads.

Oro

Lot of good advice there and nothing to add, except this:

Dachshunds.

I've had rodents in a barn when I was in Vermont destroy vehicles prior, but not mine after I moved in and brough two Dachshunds. They ran away squirrels and kept even mice off my motorcycle and car.

I moved to WA a few years later. My mom had squirrels do $3k damage to the wiring loom in her company (thankfully) car. Left my dogs there for two weeks and no squirrels on the property for years afterwards.

Funny anecdote, but true.

Simplest thing to do w/your car is just drive a short distance periodically, even if just around the block. You can manage that w/o undue risk.

LeX2K

Wow I had no idea.

At least is this era there is no soy based insulation, how did engineers think that was a good idea. Even when it is laced with stuff (pepper?) that rodents supposedly don't like, well they love it anyway. Also the hottest peppers don't deter rodents, see Shawn Woods on Youtube he tests every conceivable animal traps and deterrents.