"Places
to Store Cars, or How I Thought it Was Safe, What Happened?"
By David Grainger
So have you ever been sucked in by a gimmick?
Bet you have. I know I have a few gimmicky things lying about
including some miracle tools offered by a large retail chain and
promoted by a famous do it yourselfer which not only don't improve
on the original tool, they don't even come close to being able
to do anything other than look good laying at the bottom of the
toolbox.
Some gimmicks however can cost you a lot of money
when they fail to work properly. Recently I had occasion to see
one such device.
A few years ago a new automobile storage system
was offered to the hobby. It is composed of a large storage bag
made from plastic into which you place your car by driving it
onto the bottom panel and then zipping the top on. You then hook
up a supplied fan and the car shelter inflates itself, ballooning
around the car to create a little mini garage. There is also a
dry pack of silica gel that you are supposed to pack inside and
which removes moisture from the air. The catch with the dry pack
is that you have to change it every six months or it loses its
effectiveness.
So it sounds like a great idea for storing a
car doesn't it? I admit that the initial concept is probably fairly
sound although you can certainly replicate its better points far
more cheaply if long term storage of your car is in the cards.
For short term or winter storage I think that it is a total waste
of time. It is also not without its dangers.
I had occasion in the last week to go and look
at a wonderful 1914 Renault Victoria Landau. This is a magnificent
car and certainly a valuable one and is deserving of the finest
in care, so the owner bought one of these shelter systems.
When we opened it up I was horrified, as was
he, to see the car. Every surface which was not either brass or
paint was covered in an eighth of an inch of gray mold. The rear
seats which are fabric were uniformly soiled, the front seats
in leather covered completely as was every other piece of leather,
fabric and believe it or not rubber including a fair amount on
the tires.
I have come across this particular mold once
before on a 1921 Packard Roadster which had been stored in similar
heated conditions. Although it appears to wipe off, you are just
wiping off the top of the organism. The part that is actually
destroying the fabric or leather is inside breaking it down and
converting it into more mold. The solution is that every part
of the car that has been infected has to be rubbed down with a
cleaner designed for killing mold and then dressed to nourish
and revitalize the leather, and fabric has to be thoroughly cleaned
if possible or replaced if the damage is too extensive. Unfortunately
you have to also treat the cushioning and padding where the mold
may have penetrated. This can be a fairly expensive procedure
as you can well imagine.
So how did this happen? The shelter had created
almost perfect conditions for this kind of mold. It seems to prefer
dark, fairly dry, warm and well ventilated conditions. The plastic
shelter provided it with perfect conditions in which to grow and
prosper, and considering that in places it was really dense, especially
in areas right in the air flow of the fan, it really likes a good
supply of fresh air, which is probably what introduced it into
the shelter in the first place.
Now before you think, yeah, but where was the
shelter, in some dusty, dirty old barn perhaps, let me tell you
that the car was stored in a fully finished and heated warehouse
in which wood work is performed, so it was spotless, dry, and
aside from a little fresh sawdust around a work bench, quite dust
free.
I think that the car would probably have fared
far better if it had just been left on blocks with a cotton dust
cover on it, so what we have is another gimmick which is not only
not an improvement, but is actually injurious to the car that
the owner is trying to protect.
If you are storing your car in a heated building,
don't wrap it in plastic. Let the car breathe naturally with just
a light cotton car cover on it at the most. If you don't mind
a little natural dust then even that is not needed, and you should
always remember that as soon as you put a car cover on a car it
becomes a table so if your car is stored in an area where other
things are going on such as a family garage you can expect to
find it being used for many things which, lacking the cover, most
people wouldn't dream of using it for.
Now at this time of year many owners rent storage
areas to put their car into for the winter season and in some
cases those areas that they rent are in heated underground garages
under apartment buildings and other structures.
This kind of storage is just about the worst
winter storage that I can think of, unless you intend to rent
a space in the local roads department salt storage buildings.
Underground garages are not only heated, they
are humid. The air is usually circulated through the garages after
being used in other places in the building. Now on a nice snowy
day when the roads have been well salted you have all kinds of
cars coming and going with those huge junks of dirty gray slush
dangling from behind their front and rear wheels. During their
stay the heated air in the garage causes these lumps to fall off
and melt on the floor. They salty water then permeates the air
and acts as a wonderful carrier to deliver salt and moisture into
every recess in the cars stored there. I have had many people
say that they store their cars in underground garages but that
those garages are dry and clean. They might appear to be dry and
clean in the area rented to them but what you have to remember
is that those spaces would not have been rented if that was a
busy floor. The rental areas are usually in the lowest levels
where the building manager does not have full occupancy, but on
the floors above the garage can be quite busy with in and out
and overnight parking. The air which carries the salt and humidity
is common to the whole garage, whether you think it is dry or
not. If you can possibly avoid it steer clear of underground parking
storage for your classic car. Personally I think that a car is
better off parked outside and covered in snow than it is underground
during a Canadian winter.
So how about barns. Are they a good place to
store your car? Not bad if you take the right precautions. I don't
like the downstairs part of a barn because like an underground
garage it is often quite humid. The loft areas though can be ideal
if you bear in mind that the car may not be the only thing over
wintering. If you are storing in a barn you have to remember the
small furry creatures which can absolutely ruin your car's interior
if they decide to move in. To stop them forget the moth balls
inside the car, the smell of those is almost as bad as mouse urine,
although scattering them under the car may be a good idea.
What you must do is build a surround to keep
the mice out, and this can be done quite simply with heavy gauge
plastic onto which the car can be driven and then the sides, front
and rear should be pulled up and taped to door handles and other
non painted surfaces to create a barrier to rodents who for the
most part aren't smart enough to chew through the plastic and
get in as there are so many other spots in the barn for them to
go. Don't forget the pigeons. A good water proof car cover which
you can wash is a good idea to prevent droppings from burning
your paint or staining your convertible roof. Also, when a car
is stored in a barn where air passes quite freely from the outside
to the inside it is a good idea to keep all your windows open
a half inch or so to eliminate condensation and to keep the car
aired out.
If you are going to store your car outside beside
the house, just get it as far away from the nearest road and its
airborne salt spray as you can. Don't tarp it up or put a car
cover on it unless you can tape it or secure it so that even the
strongest winds won't cause it to flap which damages paint by
sanding it right off the car. Clear snow from the car so that
it doesn't cause a lot of humidity inside and under the hood and
in the trunk. Melting snow seems to be more invasive than rain
as well so it does not hurt to clear the car off once in an while.
Most cars just get stored in the family garage,
and in most cases this is just fine.
|
