overwintering

[Ikebaddog]

Just trying to get people's views on overwintering their E-type, I plan to keep it outside with a decent outdoor cover fitted, in the belief that fresh air movement will be better than putting the car in a unheated garage, I base this on the fact that when I used to keep the Vantage in the garage, if there for more than a couple of months it would start to smell a bit " mildewy"...whereas now i keep it outside under a cover, it never smells musty????? what are your thoughts??

[mgcjag]

Hi John....outside under a cover you will always get condensation....even with so called breathable covers.. i keep mine in a unheated garage.....on damp misty days i have a 9in desk fan on the floor at the rear blowing under the car( or leave it on all the time)....inside i put a couple of moisture traps.....if weather turns really bad i put a dehumidifier in the car now and then.......also use a man made fibre cover....not cotton as this attracts moisture.. Steve

[Hugo]

It's a headache in my experience. Every winter, anything metal in my garage will turn rusty. This happens most when the weather warms up after a cold snap. The warmer air hits the cold metal and dumps its moisture on it.
I once had an Aston in an outdoor 'Carcoon', which was a disaster. It has a couple of computer fans blowing air into it all the time to keep it inflated. The zip around the bottom of the cover is cleverly designed to be several inches about the ground, to keep the water out.
But in the wind and rain, as the cover rocks and sways, the fan wires drop out of their sockets and the whole thing deflates. Then the zipper ends up sitting on the ground and the whole thing fills up with water, and when you re-inflate it, the car is sitting in a swimming pool.
To make matters worse, where the silver cover had been resting on the paint, it stained it in a couple of places.
I did have some success with a vacuum bag for one of my motorcycles. Just as the name implies, it is a large clear plastic bag, into which you drive the motorcycle. You then suck all (or most!) of the air out with a domestic vacuum cleaner. No idea whether anything like this exists for cars.

[eddiecross]

I have used this on various cars stored in a stable block which was a bit damp.

It has a built in humidity meter. Rather than use the drying cans they supply, I used to unzip and drop in a dehumidifier for an hour or two every week to give it a boost.

https://www.autopyjama.com/permabag-engl/cars/

[MarekH]

I'd suggest that you ought not to own a classic car unless you have a garage. If you do and don't respectively, don't not expect it to not deteriorate.

But enough of the (double) negatives, I'd garage the car but simply drive it as often as possible. The garage neans that the temperature and humidity will be varying the least that they can due to the sheltered conditions. Driving it makes everything thoroughly heat up, drives off condensation and stops it from suffering from the winter lie-up.

kind regards
Marek

[cactusman]

Mine lives in a garage. I leave a small oil filled electric heater set to low to keep the temp a teeny bit above ambient. And I use it when ever possible. MG lives in a carcoon. I have never had issues with the fan lead falling out despite some wild rocking....although after a bit the zipper slider wears and needs to be replaced....wish they would use Velcro. It stays bone dry inside too.

[driver]

I just use a loose fitting nylon cover and have cardboard cartons on floor to absorb any moisture and i may rest a few cartons on cover,always making sure all metal staples are moved in side my drafty garage.also try to warm car up and drive it once a fortnight.
Personally i think using the car is the best safe guard against deteriation.

[Hugo]

Indeed, but then the salt will get in everywhere, and being hygroscopic it will draw moisture from the air and stay damp forever. Stupid climate in this country - you can't win.

[mgcjag]

If your driving your car when there,s salt on the roads you will be in trouble

[Bobb]

You're probably going to hate me but every house I've owned had an attached heated garage for my baby. The wife could have anything she wanted as long as I had my garage. Each time the RCAF transferred me it became a headache, but most homes over here have garages because the winters suck. Baby spends winter getting fiddled with and she enjoys more attention than SWMBO does.

What...isn't that how it's supposed to be?

[malcolm]

Mine sits in a detached garage, and I just use 2 thermostatic heater tubes. 190 watts each, adjustable temp. Just enough to keep frost and damp out. Leave them on permanently. These ones:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Electric-Tubu ... 2fg1U-oUkQ

[Series1 Stu]

That's a great idea, Malcolm.

You could take it one step further and switch the heaters using a humidistat. You'd save a bit of energy that way.

Or you could use a thermostat system that would switch the heaters on when the temperature difference between inside and outside is greater than 7 Celsius. That's how we do it on instrumentation and control systems.

Regards

[Polse7317]

I use an air dryer which has the advantage to increase a little the temperature and produce water for ironing ....! and you can also use a hose ( arrow) which avoid to empty the tank every day.
I have +- a gallon (4.5l ) per day here at the sea side !

[chrisfell]

I wouldn't leave a car that has increased in value since I bought it outside. I'd build, find, borrow, rent, or otherwise acquire a solidly built, lockable garage with a power supply. The power supply, besides being useful for power tools will also power a dehumidifier. And I'd use the car whenever the roads were not covered with salt.

Of course, when away from home, for example in the Scottish Borders......

[Hugo]

The trouble with salt is that it stays around all winter. Even when the roads are dry, there will be residual salt on the road surface which gets thrown onto the car, and then it draws moisture from the air, so you have a moist salt solution coating all the nooks and crevices on your car which will stay active until it dries out in summer.

[chrisfell]

The trouble with salt is that it stays around all winter. Even when the roads are dry, there will be residual salt on the road surface which gets thrown onto the car, and then it draws moisture from the air, so you have a moist salt solution coating all the nooks and crevices on your car which will stay active until it dries out in summer.

The is entirely true, Hugo. I rely on rain to wash the salt away. The grit gets moved to the sides of the road very quickly, the salt needs to be washed away. Good job we live on a wet island. Spring rains are usually reliable in this matter.

I am one of a very small minority that hopes global warming will hurry up and reduce the requirement to salt our roads each winter.

[Hugo]

They'll still do it out of spite!

[rossbraithwaite]

I had a lot of trouble with condensation in my garage for the first few years. I have now laid an underfloor heating kit from ScrewFix on the concrete floor under the car and covered it with jigsaw type PVC floor tiles. The kit has a thermostat with a thermocouple on a flying lead that can be set as low as 5 degrees C and I normally leave it at 9. The thermocouple can be left in the car to improve accuracy of temp control. Seems to work well and dramatically reduced condensation last winter.