Winter Storage

[Oh Captain My Captain]

I was just curious as to how some of you in the Colder Climates store your Z4's. I have seen debates

1. Garage
-Keep the car in your garage with a car cover.
-Once a week, take it out for 10-15min drive and re-garage (On clear days to avoid snow).

2. Storage
-cover the bottom of car in plastic drop cloth
-steel wool in exhaust pipes to prevent critters from making a home
-raise the car off the floor to keep pressure off of tires
-install a battery tender to keep battery charged
-car cover
-keep all fluids full
-dry gas additive to handle any water that may be in the tank
-wait for Spring

3. Ship to parents in Florida and let them enjoy the car for the winter

Thoughts?

[Z4@Phuket]

Bring your car to Phuket, Thailand and enjoy all year round sea, sand, sun and Thai food

[Kief]

Originally Posted by Oh Captain My Captain

I was just curious as to how some of you in the Colder Climates store your Z4's. I have seen debates

1. Garage
-Keep the car in your garage with a car cover.
-Once a week, take it out for 10-15min drive and re-garage (On clear days to avoid snow).

2. Storage
-cover the bottom of car in plastic drop cloth
-steel wool in exhaust pipes to prevent critters from making a home
-raise the car off the floor to keep pressure off of tires
-install a battery tender to keep battery charged
-car cover
-keep all fluids full
-dry gas additive to handle any water that may be in the tank
-wait for Spring

3. Ship to parents in Florida and let them enjoy the car for the winter

Thoughts?

4. Slap on winter shoes and drive it!!!!!

[Oh Captain My Captain]

Originally Posted by Kief

4. Slap on winter shoes and drive it!!!!!

I guess that would be Option 4.

I only have a two car garage and 3 vehicles (MDX, E-Class, Z4). No one likes to get into a cold car or have to brush off the snow. I'd either keep the Z4 at my parents place b/c they have the room or rent a storage facility from Dec-Feb.

[Oh Captain My Captain]

Originally Posted by Z4@Phuket

Bring your car to Phuket, Thailand and enjoy all year round sea, sand, sun and Thai food

I could sell the Z4 once I got there and make a huge profit! Unless there is some crazy tax I'd have to pay first. The offer is tempting and my wife and I would love to visit your country in the near future.

[Kief]

Originally Posted by Oh Captain My Captain

I only have a two car garage and 3 vehicles (MDX, E-Class, Z4). No one likes to get into a cold car or have to brush off the snow.

Just keep the Merc outside

[msimon18]

I learned the hard way that if you just garage it and drive ocassionally you need to drive for at least 15 minutes AFTER the car reaches normal operating temperature or you will NOT evaporate the condensate that builds up in the engine and sump.... If you cannot do this you are better off NOT STARTING it. This is especially true in cold climates.....

[Oh Captain My Captain]

Originally Posted by Kief

Just keep the Merc outside

My wife is coming over to kick your ass

[alan64]

over the years I have had a lot of corvettes. I always stored them in the winter. So for almost half the year they sat in my shipping room at my business. I have finally gotten to an age where I dont want to not drive a car half the year. When I purchased the z4, they told me with the winter wheel and tire package, the car would be fine in the winter. Believe me, where I live its definately winter. Some days -40. So anyway, its winter now, and im driving the z4 almost every day in the winter and enjoying it a lot. The car is just fine providing you dont floor the gas pedal. Plus the heated seats and steering wheel work wonderfully well. So unless its just a sloppy, snowy, mess,, then Im not storing a car anymore. Life is too short.

[ChuckB]

I think it is down to personal preference, do you want to take a fairly expensive car out into a situation where the chance for something bad to happen is elevated
-or-
do you realize that the exquisite piece of Teutonic craftsmanship sitting outside is more than up to the task of handling a bit of off-weather, having made it half way through a fairly rough European winter, I can state that it is totally at home in the snow and have had no issues [with the exception of the windows freezing shut once, so they would pop down when I grabbed the door handle]. While I was a bit nervous before the first snow, I suspect the DTC has a "snow" model programmed into it cause it just does great.

[Oh Captain My Captain]

I can appreciate the experience of those who drive their Z4 in the winter. My problrm is the limited garage space. The SUV is the family hauler and gets regular use. The Benz i driven by the wife so HAS to have a garage spot. I'd rather not leave the Z4 out in the exposed winter climate. Hence my trying to decide how to best store the vehicle for winter.

Of course, as this winter season has only 6 weeks left (according to a reliable weather source ) and my car should be in my possession within 4 weeks, I will not be storing the Z4.....the MDX will have to suck it up the remainder of this winter.

[Z4@Phuket]

Originally Posted by Oh Captain My Captain

I could sell the Z4 once I got there and make a huge profit! Unless there is some crazy tax I'd have to pay first. The offer is tempting and my wife and I would love to visit your country in the near future.

You are welcome here. Now there are a lot of foreigners come and stay in Phuket for 3-6 months per year during their winter time.
pls PM me whenever you come to Phuket

[EandS]

If you have enough ceiling height in your garage, you might want to consider the solution we employed:



We've been extremely pleased with this setup.

Best regards,
Ed

[siscobmw]

I choosed stage 2 "storage" .....
Francesco from Italy

(your country weather? in North Italy we are between -6C up to 4-5C at 13'oclock...)

[Oh Captain My Captain]

Originally Posted by EandS

If you have enough ceiling height in your garage, you might want to consider the solution we employed:



We've been extremely pleased with this setup.

Best regards,
Ed

I can only wish that the garage in my next house is as nice as yours. Do you have any issues with fluids dripping down?

Weather in Pittsburgh can vary...winter temps have been anywhere from 10F-33F. Snow comes and goes but there is rarely more than 6" on the ground. The main issue is the salt on the roads and the potholes that form. I'd worry about chipping the paint as I don't plan on getting 3M applied.

[EandS]

For this particular Bend Pak drive-on lift (actually made for commercial parking facilities) there are three removable steel plates which cover the center section and in effect make a solid floor when they're in place. You can see them stacked against the wall on the left side of the photo below:



We normally leave the center plates off so we can clean beneath the car on the lift:



Even with the center plates off we've had no issues with fluids dripping from cars on the lift other than the XLR's would drop a little water from the air conditioner. In those cases we just waited until that was done before pulling another vehicle into the bay beneath. Having said that, we should make the point we never take the roadsters out in inclement weather.

Best regards,
Ed

[Memphis1]

what's the height underneath? for the car on the floor how's the space for opening the door?

[EandS]

According to the spec sheet for the Bend Pak PL-7, which is the model we have, the height (clearance) beneath the lift is 6'1". There's another model, the PL-7X, with a higher rise that provides 7'1" of clearance beneath it. As far as side clearance for doors, it really depends on how far into the bay the car at floor level is pulled in. The distance between vertical supports is a little over 7'5". Yes, it can be tight for the doors if one pulls all the way in as far as possible. In our case my wife parks her Cadillac CTS beneath the lift but positions it so the doors can be fully opened on both sides and there's still plenty of room to close the garage door.

[GT Sounds]

Originally Posted by EandS

If you have enough ceiling height in your garage, you might want to consider the solution we employed:

http://edsandra.com/esgeneral/BMW/Garage.jpg

We've been extremely pleased with this setup.

Best regards,
Ed

Beautiful.

Both your car and setup.

[mrboon]

Spain has no problem. And love what EandS did.

[Oh Captain My Captain]

Originally Posted by godius

Spain has no problem. And love what EandS did.

There you go again Godius...always tooting your horn about how great everything is in Spain

[alan64]

Originally Posted by Oh Captain My Captain

There you go again Godius...always tooting your horn about how great everything is in Spain

well actually he is right about that. Spain is pretty great in many ways.