20th October 2006.

Conveniently, The Chlorine molecule in salt and the Hydrogen molecule in water just love one another.

Unfortunately, those two molecules combine to form HCl, otherwise known as dilute hydrochloric acid.
Dilute acids are very often more corrosive and damaging than concentrated acids.

Which is why those of us in the Great White North who want to preserve our cars, have no choice but to
store them for the winter.

Or maybe we could all move to New Zealand, for example, where the temperature remains moderate all year round
and 25 year old cars in good condition are quite common and still in use.

It's cheaper, by far, to buy a winter beater and keep the good ride locked away. Even aluminum is not immune to HCl
corrosion and in consequence, those expensive wheels should be stored lying flat in favour of mounting steel wheels
and snow tires, if you decide not to store the whole car. For a car such as mine, the storage procedure is quite simple:

1. An oil change, unless the high priced synthetic is comparatively new.

2. A good waxing and cleaning inside and out.

3. Half a tank of gas with fuel stabiliser added. Run the engine until the stabilizer has reached the injectors, which may take
about one minute or so. Five minutes is more than enough. Since older classic cars run very well on regular gas, the half tank
of gas allows me to run down the road in the springtime and top up with high test until that whole tank of fuel is gone, then I can go
back to using regular fuel. If your car uses high test anyway, it's not a good idea to have too much fuel in the tank.

4. Inflate the tires to a safe but higher than normal pressure. In my case, I usually go up to 38 psi. Do not put the car on blocks,
which exposes the shock absorber pistons to moisture and is just not worth the trouble.

5. Disconnect the negative battery terminal and write a note to yourself in next years' calendar to charge the battery for about
four hours on the first of each month.

And that's it. Do NOT be tempted to start the engine frequently for a few minutes. This is a really bad practice.

In the springtime, I pull the fuse for the fuel pump and crank the engine over until some slight amount of oil pressure starts to show
on the gauge. Since I use 5w40 synthetic AGIP, this does not take long. I then put the fuse back and hey, presto the engine fires well.

I haven't had any problems with this method of storage in the ten years I've been doing it.

But there is a new wrinkle around that makes some of the advice I just gave you a very bad idea.

In the case of late model cars such as BMWs with I-drive or Mercedes with the Comand system, or any car with a lot of electronic
controls such as stability systems, never, ever disconnect the battery, or allow it to run flat. If you do, the car will need a full day of
reprogramming at the dealership and it will have to be towed there!!

Equally, if you have a radio that  is theft protected and goes into "fault" mode if the power is disconnected, make SURE that you
have the restart code for your particular unit.

To avoid all these dramas with computer programming, I recommend the use of a 1 amp trickle charger, connected permanently
to the battery. If your storage area has no mains power, then you have no choice but to start the car every  two weeks or so and
let it run for about twenty minutes.

Remember, snow is not harmful to your car, but salt is, so stay in your driveway or somewhere else where salt slush is not in
evidence.