Ive been storing sports cars in unheated and partially detached garages every winter for 25 years. I change the oil and fill up the gas tank and either remove the battery, or since I bought the Porshe put it on a battery float charger, and leave it for the winter. Never had any engine trouble on any of my vehicles-and I stored my TR8 this way for over 20 years. I store two vehicles in the unheated, uninsultated 2nd garage that the orignal owner added to my property every winter these days. I'd worry more about damage from mice than from the oil. I live at 8700 ft in Colorado and it gets plenty cold here. I also store my oil in that garage, and again never had any engine problems from using it. More important to make sure the gas tank is full and that someone will be cleaning out the mouse traps you set around the car over the winter. - And I've never thrown out my oil in the spring.
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Originally Posted by peterbrown77
Okay, maybe I need to clarify this a little bit because I think the point is being missed:
I am storing my car in a detached, unheated garage in CT over the winter. It's a big eight bay on my uncle's gentleman farm and it's 30 miles from home, so I won't be taking it for a spin. I also have some work to do on it, getting the rims refinished, etc so it's going to be sitting on jack stands until spring.
And, as the article in Rennsport states: "Motor oil becomes permanently thicker with exposure to northerly winter type weather. This is more of a problem to mineral based oils. Waxes form. This is why it is a bad idea to even store a bottle of oil in a cold garage. It goes bad on the garage shelf just because it is exposed to the cold."
So if storing a new bottle of motor oil in a cold garage is bad news, then certainly letting a fresh fall oil change sit in the crankcase in a garage that will be going down to 0 degrees overnight is not doing it any favors. The "new" oil will be severely degraded by spring. If you live in San Diego, you're going to be fine. If you live in North Dakota, you're not. You should change it again in the spring and just throw out $50 of clean Mobil One?
Or change the oil in the fall with cheap mineral oil, toss it in the spring and put in the synthetic? Or leave it empty in the winter?
TIA
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