[Reinhard]

Originally Posted by vharihar

Is this a validated concern? I suspect the validity of this concern. I'm sure the spring action in the brakes would be more than strong enough such that when you resume driving after the lockdown gets over, the brakes would release easily within a few seconds.

Its a fully validated concern. My friend went out of India for few weeks. When he came back, his parking brake wouldn't release. The pads were jammed on one of the rear wheels & the car had to be towed to service center to fix it. And this in Pune - which generally has fairly dry air.

For any long duration parking when nobody is going to touch the car at all - its better to park with a wheel stopper (stone/brick/paving block) and engage the appropriate low gear. 1st if on flat or incline. Reverse if on slope with bonnet pointing towards the lower end of the slope. If one regularly moves the car every week or so, then no concern, the handbrake will work okay.

[Jeroen]

It is interesting to see some of the manufacturers recommending starting the car every so often and let it idle for a while. They are more concerned about battery drain then engine wear I would say.

Truth is, having your battery drained is very and immediately noticeable, but engine wear does not show up for a long time. Running an engine at idle does nothing good other than charge the battery.

I assume they are counting on this corona lock down not lasting too long. Because endless starts and a bit of idle is not going to do your engine much good over a longer period of time. As I mentioned earlier, when laying up a car, you do need to think through what you want to do with the battery. Disconnecting it, is the easiest and cheapest option. Your battery will last easily for many many months. No need to start the engine and wear it down at idle at sub optimum operating temperatures.

Jeroen

[jbpanda]

Originally Posted by vharihar

Is this a validated concern? I suspect the validity of this concern.

Yes, it is validated and an accepted practice as also confirmed by fellow Bhpians in this thread itself. If the car is parked on a flat surface and put in a lower gear, there is no way it will start rolling on its own. Apart from the above, Jeep and Maruti have shared a list of to do's for maintaining the car during lockdown which also includes this as a recommended practice. Hope this helps.

[Maverick5490]

Originally Posted by Jeroen

As I mentioned earlier, when laying up a car, you do need to think through what you want to do with the battery. Disconnecting it, is the easiest and cheapest option. Your battery will last easily for many many months. No need to start the engine and wear it down at idle at sub optimum operating temperatures.

Jeroen

How would leaving the engine idling cause an adverse effect? It will certainly help in circulating the fluids in the system.

Disconnecting batteries in modern cars can cause more adverse effects like the vehicle getting immobilized or error codes popping up. In cars like BMW, the battery is placed in the trunk, and once disconnected and tailgate closed, the trunk lid cannot be opened unless an external power source is provided at the jump terminals.

[Liverpool]

Here are few of my takes on long storage of cars. As I have to park my car every 30 days in alternate months.

1. Inflate the tires to max inflation pressure to avoid flat spots. Depends on your ambient temperature as well. So decide accordingly.
2. Grease the battery terminal.
3. Wash and completely dry the exterior and undercarriage. Never wash the underbody with diesel. It makes all rubber components hard and dry. Results in premature wear and squeaks. Interior needs to be wiped cleaned and dried.
4. Park in gear. Put wooden blocks or bricks if parked on inclined surface. Never engage the parking brake.
5. Wrap the wiper blades with old news paper.
6. Use the master kill switch if equipped.
7. Make sure the parking surface is dry.
8. Put rat repellent or equivalent on engine bay. Put the air circulation button to circulate in cabin.
9. Before parking away, run the air conditioning for few minutes this will remove any moisture inside the cabin.
10. If using a car cover, never wax the surface. As wax tends to stick to the car cover under heat. This may result in paint damage.

These are my checklist of parking a car for long. Also please note that the battery doesn’t discharge if the car isn’t started for long. My last battery lasted me 6 years, before it showed signs of weakness.

I seriously hope that this helps to my fellow car enthusiasts.
Stay safe everyone. We will see this through.

[sacrust]

Some tips in Pictorial format

[Nalin1]

Originally Posted by Reinhard

Its a fully validated concern. My friend went out of India for few weeks. When he came back, his parking brake wouldn't release. The pads were jammed on one of the rear wheels & the car had to be towed to service center to fix it. And this in Pune - which generally has fairly dry air.

For any long duration parking when nobody is going to touch the car at all - its better to park with a wheel stopper (stone/brick/paving block) and engage the appropriate low gear. 1st if on flat or incline. Reverse if on slope with bonnet pointing towards the lower end of the slope. If one regularly moves the car every week or so, then no concern, the handbrake will work okay.

If parked on a flat surface for many days at a stretch, just park in any gear. No need to engage hand brake. Unless someone crashes into the car or an act of God, it will not budge.

Still for peace of mind if you must engage the hand brake, just pull it up to say about 30 to 40% of its total engagement. Just enough for the brakes to hold the car. This is far less likely to cause the brakes to be jammed when compared to its full engagement. We are mostly used to pulling it up fully and this was something new I learnt. I now only partially engage it all the time unless on an incline.

[Tuisha110HP]

Originally Posted by Reinhard

P. S. - One funny thing in it is, they are saying put a cover on the car. And then they are also saying wiper arms should be in lifted position.

Originally Posted by nidhinsarath

5. Body cover applied. ( NB: I know many of my fellow bhpians will be against this. Even I'm not a fan of this though but it's just the circumstances that matters)
.👍🏻

Could not agree more! Absolutely, I repeat, absolutely no body covers if you have a new car or a ceramic coated car with little or no swirls. I did try using a car cover with my ceramic coated Rapid and trust me, I am regretting my decision. I even put a soft cotton cloth beneath the car cover, useless vain efforts to escape swirls mark. My heart now aches seeing the swirls in just 3 days. I did leave my car unattended for days without cover. After a wash, it was back to glory.
However, if you have an old car with swirls present, you can use a car cover to save you from efforts of regularly cleaning your ride.

P.S. Took my car for a little spin until the optimum engine temperature attained after 5 days. Slotted in first gear and disengaged the parking brakes as suggested by other BHPians.

[peterjim13]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

Our apartment basement parking is a large one with a circuit of about 1000 metres. I take the cars for a gentle run within the basement every two or three days. No handbrake.

Quick question on the handbrake again. I have been trying to understand the logic behind this for quite some time and not yet convinced on the same.

1. Both my cars are parked back to back in my garage. I have engaged handbrake on both - don't you think it would be softer on the vehicle than putting the load on the gearbox?

2. And imagine this 21 days of lockdown reducing the usage of the vehicle to near zero. For me, I take them out and do a bit of idling for my evening garage cricket with my brother - almost every day. In that case, the handbrake issue is sorted right?

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by Maverick5490

How would leaving the engine idling cause an adverse effect? It will certainly help in circulating the fluids in the system.

When an engine is not at its normal operating temperature it will suffer from additional wear and tear. Primarily due to the fact that the oil does not have the correct viscosity. This also means that it won’t adhere properly to the cylinder liner walls and thus cause some additional wear on the clincher and piston rings.

To some extend bearing lubrication would be sub optimal. All of this until the oil has reached its normal operating temperature. Note, that is usually some time after the cooling liquid has reached its normal operating temperature.

It is for this very reason manufacturers recommend to start your engine and start driving straight away. Don’t let the engine idle undue. Drive away carefully, don’t rev the engine and try avoiding loading up the engine unduly. We have another thread where this was discussed extensively and several members sharing the relevant parts of the owner manual advising exactly this.

Modern engine are so efficient that they hardly warm up when idling, diesels in particular.

Also, long idling means additional emissions into the environment. Your engine, when not at operating temperature produces more and worse emissions than when operating / idling at normal operating temperatures.

So circulating low temperature oil in an engine at idle (or under load) is simply not a good idea. In practice we are talking about minute additional wear and tear. Every time you start your engine and drive off, the fist 5-10 minutes until your engines is properly warmed up through and through you have more wear and tear than during the rest of your driving cycle. It is one of the reasons to be weary of second hand cars that have been used for mostly short trips / city driving. Short trips cause relatively more wear and tear.

But again, it is a minute phenomena, but it is cumulative. So you want to avoid it, or at least I do.

Originally Posted by Maverick5490

Disconnecting batteries in modern cars can cause more adverse effects like the vehicle getting immobilized or error codes popping up. In cars like BMW, the battery is placed in the trunk, and once disconnected and tailgate closed, the trunk lid cannot be opened unless an external power source is provided at the jump terminals.

Yes, good point, so you want to check that. I don’t know all details on all car, but I believe this is more likely on relatively high end cars, such as BMW.

I know I can disconnect the battery on my wife’s Fiesta without any problems and I can still open the doors with a key too! As I suggested, the easiest and best way is to have a proper trickle charger in the battery. But that does come with lots of practical problems when you have to park in a public place of course.

From what I see the manufacturers in India are focussing on maintaining the battery. The easiest way to do that is to start the engine every so often and let it idle. Providing you have a decent battery to start with. Thousands and thousand of cars not starting after the lock down comes to an end is going to be a problem too. Idling you engine 2-3 times a week for a month is unlikely to be a problem in terms of wear and tear. But it is there, no doubt. It is just what you feel is the most relevant and what practicalities would each of us like to consider, or is able to accommodate.

Stay safe, stay healthy!

Jeroen

[V.Narayan]

Originally Posted by peterjim13

Quick question on the handbrake again. I have been trying to understand the logic behind this for quite some time and not yet convinced on the same.

1. Both my cars are parked back to back in my garage. I have engaged handbrake on both - don't you think it would be softer on the vehicle than putting the load on the gearbox?

2. And imagine this 21 days of lockdown reducing the usage of the vehicle to near zero. For me, I take them out and do a bit of idling for my evening garage cricket with my brother - almost every day. In that case, the handbrake issue is sorted right?

Trust me I am no expert of cars. True. If your car is going to stand on a 180 degree flat surface then I was told by my father that you don't engage the hand brake. That's all I know. :-) If you are driving it occasionally I guess you don't have to bother either way.

[Kosfactor]

Originally Posted by Maverick5490

How would leaving the engine idling cause an adverse effect? It will certainly help in circulating the fluids in the system.

The engine needs to run - and not idle, I think that is what he meant. At idle the engine is not running efficiently, chances of un-burnt fuel as well as soot in terms of diesels. These are not good for the engine itself (contaminates the engine oil) as well as it would clog up other emission control systems.

So if you are asked to run the engine for 10 minutes, Its best to take it out and drive for 10 minutes until the engine is warmed up. Engine will warm up faster when you drive as there is more load and more fuel is burned efficiently when the vehicle is on the move. The more time it takes for the engine to reach optimum temperature, the more wear it would incur as well as more inefficient combustion.

To see this in action, idle a diesel from cold start for some additional time and then watch the exhaust as you drive off, there will be some black smoke.

[gadadhar]

My fortuner battery died after around 2 weeks of lock down. I had left it for even longer duration in the past with no issues, and now with a battery less than 1 year old, I assumed there won't be any issue. I had added a dashcam, subwoofer with builtin amp and few other accessories recently. My mechanic says some of them might be drawing power even while the car is not running.

I had to do a jump start and leave the engine running for sometime. My i10 after 3 weeks of hibernation started without any complaints. I am planning to start the fortuner daily for next few days.

[Reinhard]

Originally Posted by gadadhar

My fortuner battery died after around 2 weeks of lock down. I had left it for even longer duration in the past with no issues, and now with a battery less than 1 year old, I assumed there won't be any issue. I had added a dashcam, subwoofer with builtin amp and few other accessories recently. My mechanic says some of them might be drawing power even while the car is not running.

How is the amplifier & dash-cam wired? Both always ON? If yes - that can surely drain the battery. Perhaps then you can move them via a fuse tap driven relay that will then draw power from the battery when car is ON? (Of course this is possible only after the lockdown ends!) Which dash-cam are you using? I use a 70mai unit. Have powered it simply from the front 12V socket and kept it on a parking surveillance mode. It powers up only when it senses a nudge on the car during parking & records. This is done using its built-in battery that charges when the car is running. Seems to be working & lasting pretty well.

The current needed to start the Fortuner's engine would be far more than that for the small one in i10. So no surprise. If you start the car daily & don't run it sufficiently (time wise) - the battery would actually drain more than it would charge. Be mindful of this. Perhaps would be a good idea to get a portable charger to charge the battery at home. You can take it out from the car, charge it at home & then put it back when needed.

[Geo_Ipe]

Originally Posted by peterjim13

1. Both my cars are parked back to back in my garage. I have engaged handbrake on both - don't you think it would be softer on the vehicle than putting the load on the gearbox?

2. And imagine this 21 days of lockdown reducing the usage of the vehicle to near zero. For me, I take them out and do a bit of idling for my evening garage cricket with my brother - almost every day. In that case, the handbrake issue is sorted right?

1. Yes, under normal circumstances, one should leave the car on the handbrake rather than the gearbox. The discussion here is pertaining to long periods of disuse cars are subjected to during the 21 day lockdown. When the handbrake is engaged for a long time without being disengaged, the pads tend to stick the the disc or drum. Especially if moist or dust/other particles are present. Hence the suggestion to avoid using handbrake when leaving the car parked for long durations. It would be safer to just keep a wooden block or brick at the wheels, which will prevent the car from rolling under extreme circumstances (assuming the car is parked on flat ground).

2. If you are taking the car out every day, chances of a jammed handbrake are next to nil. You may safely leave the car in neutral on the handbrake.