Unless you live in the South or Southwest, cooler weather signals the time of year to put your pride and joy into hibernation. Storing your Corvette for the winter, either in the garage or a storage unit, is the option that many people take to keep their car safe through harsh weather. Putting your Corvette up for a few months definitely has some benefits — you can clean it well and check out the condition of the drivetrain — but how long is too long for it to be stored away?
Winterizing Your Corvette: How Long is Too Long to Leave It?
When the weather is bad, you don’t have much choice. It’s not like you don’t want to pull your Corvette out of storage, but when conditions are terrible, it’s easy to worry that it’s been sitting for too long. In general, leaving your Corvette in an unheated garage for a few months at a time without starting it isn’t terrible.
Leaving your Corvette alone for more than a year is when bad things can start to happen. The worst-case scenario is when one cold front after another pummels your garage. Extreme temperature fluctuations create serious condensation in internal driveline components. Engines, transmissions, and differentials corrode from the top down while the condensation drips into the lubricant. Fuel tanks have condensation dripping from the roof of the tank, corroding the steel fuel sending unit or the tank itself in 1953-1996 Corvettes.
How to Winterize Your Corvette
All that being said, if you’re just storing your Corvette for a few months, you don’t have much to worry about, so long as you properly prepare your car for that wait. If you’re planning to winterize your Corvette, use these guidelines to make sure you get it right:
01. Wash Your Corvette
If your Corvette is going to sit for months without activity, the car should be washed to safeguard against any environmental fallout like tree sap, dead bugs, etc. Some of the fallout may be acidic and damage the paint or clearcoat permanently. Giving your Corvette a good wash is key to preparing it for safe winterization. Washing your Corvette will also prevent any scratches that can be caused by dirt under your car cover.
Once the car has air-dried, give it a good waxing to protect the vehicle’s finish. It doesn’t hurt to give the car’s chrome a polish, either.
02. Clean the Tires & Wheels
Scrub the tires to remove any built-up oxidation and apply a tire dressing once they are dried.
Take this time to clean your wheels as well. Brake dust, when left on wheels for extended periods, can permanently damage the wheel surface.
If your wheels are clear-coated, remember to use a clear coat-specific cleaner.
03. Clean the Interior
If you’re putting up your Corvette for a few months, you might as well do it right. Take some time to clean out the interior, detailing the dash, console, and seats, and making sure to use a portable vacuum to clean up any dirt or food particles. Remember — the cleaner your interior, the less attractive your Corvette will look to mice and other pests.
When you’re done cleaning, use a desiccant like Sta-Dri Packs in the footwells and rear cargo areas to prevent moisture buildup and possible mold formation. You can also use a silicone spray on weather stripping to keep it from bonding with other surfaces over the winter.
04. Fill Up the Fuel Tank
Before long-term storage (over 30 days), remember to fill the gas tank to prevent moisture from accumulating inside the fuel tank, and to keep the seals from drying out. You should also purchase a fuel stabilizer to prevent ethanol buildup and protect the engine from gum, varnish and rust. The fuel stabilizer will prevent the gas from deteriorating for up to 12 months.
05. Maintain Your Corvette’s Battery
One of the biggest issues that will come up when you winterize your Corvette is what to do with the battery.
Normally, if you have a good three-stage battery charger, you can simply leave it hooked up, as the third stage is the maintainer charge. If you don’t have one, you can use a battery maintainer or a trickle charger, which performs only that final charging stage.
Your battery should be kept charged throughout the entire time your Corvette is stored. We recommend the use of one of our our Battery Tenders which maintain the battery charge without any damage or concerns about overcharging or overheating your battery. Simply connect the Battery Tender to your battery, and you’re set for the winter.
We recommend one of these battery tenders for your Corvette:
06. Change the Oil and Filter
Always change your oil and filter before placing your Corvette in long-term storage. While you’re at it, be sure to top off all other fluids as well. Coolant, brake fluid, clutch, and transmission fluids should all be topped-off before you say goodbye for a few months.
07. Prevent Pests
Nearly any place you store your Corvette — be it a city, suburb, or rural area — can have a rodent problem. Mice and other pests can wreak havoc on a Corvette, particularly the plug wires. Certain brands of plug wires (including GM) consist of a vegetable-based outer shell which is very appetizing to varmints. To keep them looking elsewhere for their next meal, place mothballs or dryer sheets in the engine area. Just don’t forget to remove them before starting the car. Dryer sheets can also be placed in the interior or trunk area.
Prevent them from entering your car by covering any gaps where a mouse could enter, such as the exhaust pipe or an air intake. Steel wool works well for this, or you can place face cloths over each and wrap rubber bands around them.
08. Utilize Car Covers
Indoors or outdoors, we always recommend covering a Corvette when it will be stored for a few months or more. The type of cover you select should be based on where the car will be stored, and your goals for the car cover. A weatherproof cover is a solid choice for any storage option — indoors or outdoors — but a cotton cover will really only work for indoor-only storage. A weatherproof car cover will keep any spills or dust off of the paint. It can also protect from scratches while moving objects around the parked car
Corvette Central stocks a nice variety of Corvette car covers that are tailored to your year and model Corvette, if you’re looking.
09. Avoid Flat Spotting
To be honest, you shouldn’t worry much about flat-spotting unless you have bias plies. Tire composition and technology have significantly improved, and any flat spotting that does occur on radials today will be eliminated with a nice 30-minute drive in the springtime.
It’s okay to keep your tires inflated to the correct pressure through the winter. That said, some do prefer to overinflate to reduce the tire’s pliability. If that’s you, just be sure to correct the pressure in the spring, before you hit the road.
If you’re on the hunt for flat stoppers, you can find them stocked at Corvette Central. We have two that we typically recommend to our customers.
10. Start Your Corvette in the Winter
We recommend starting your Corvette once a month throughout the winter, if possible. This will help circulate the oil rather than letting it sit in the oil pan all winter, exposing cylinder walls and moving parts to possible corrosion.
11. Maintain Insurance
In order to save money, you might be tempted to cancel your auto insurance when your Corvette is in storage. But if you remove coverage completely, it’d be a major loss if a fire started, the weight of snow collapsed your roof, or a theft occurred. Even if just collision coverage is temporarily removed, the car wouldn’t be covered when another moving object (e.g. a tractor or motorcycle) rolled into it, or if the car were to fall off its jack stands.
If you have classic car insurance, the policy may cover winter storage, so you don’t have to worry about your car over the winter months.
Winterizing your Corvette can feel like a sad chore — the end of the good weather and the start of winter — but we find it helps to think of it as one great way to make sure your Corvette gets the detailing it needs to shine. When you complete all of these winterizing tasks, you can rest easy all winter knowing you’ll have no problem starting it back up in the spring.
If you’ve got any questions about these steps to winterizing your Corvette, or if you need supplies and accessories to make it happen, Corvette Central has you covered.
I put 1/2 inch recycled rubber mats under my tires. I also lift my wipers off of the windshield.
So jacking up my vette then supporting it on the side of the frame behind the front tire and in front of the rear tire does nothing for the tires? My tires still touch the concrete floor but very little weight sits on the tires all winter.
I use blocks of wood then remove the unit I use to raise the car.
You can still start the car. It also has a trickle charge unit plugged in most of the winter season!