Hi everyone.
We are considering storing (hibernating?) our 2004 Panda for up to 18 months.
I have read all the generic information online about the best way to prepare and store a car but was wondering if anyone on here has experience of storing a car for 18 months and "waking" it up again afterwards?

Car will be stored inside and is a Dualogic 1.2 in very good condition.

I can sell the car but then have to purchase another when we return and Panda's are very rare being private imports so will not find another, we do like it.....

Thanks, Bergi.

Source: (Fiat Panda Owners Manual, pg. 112)

❒ park the car in covered, dry and if pos- sible well-ventilated premises;

❒ engage a gear;

❒ check that the handbrake is not engaged;

❒ disconnect the battery negative termi- nal and check the battery charge. This check is to be repeated every three months. Recharge if the optical indica- tor shows a dark colour without the central green area;

❒ clean and protect the painted parts us- ing protective wax;

❒ clean and protect the shiny metal parts using special compounds readily available;

❒ sprinkle talcum powder on the rubber windscreen and rear window wiper blades and lift them off the glass;

❒ slightly open the windows;

❒ cover the car with a cloth or perforat- ed plastic sheet. Do not use sheets of non-perforated plastic as they do not allow moisture on the car body to evaporate;

❒ inflate tyres to +0,5 bar above the nor- mal specified pressure and check it at intervals;

❒ if you don’t disconnect the battery from the electric system, check its charge every month and recharge it if the op- tical indicator shows a dark colour without the central green area;

❒ do not drain the engine cooling system.


Hope this helps, after all, if this is what Fiat recommend it's probably OTT but you shouldn't go too far wrong with it!

..and don't sell it! You know there's only one thing ex-Panda owners have left to talk about... How much they regret selling it!!

I once stored a mk3 escort for 4 years. I changed the oil and ran it low on petrol just before I put it in the garage and left the handbrake off. When I went to use it it just needed 4 tyres and some fresh petrol but the oil light stayed on when I started the engine. Somehow the oil pick up pipe in the sump had become blocked with a carbon type substance. I think that was just the sludge that the CVH engine used to produce and somehow it had settled in the sump and it had sucked it up on start up.
I would still recommend a oil change before putting it into storage though.

Hi Bergi,
clean and DRY are the 2 x big things there..,

if relatively undercover leave the windows DOWN a fraction - just to leave a 5mm gap to the top of door fame,
it'll keep the air circulating, ( I do this in the UK)

hoovering the interior is probably a good idea..all helps to reduce mould / bugs

once the battery is OFF the vehicle it'll be fine, I would fully bench charge then leave it disconnected.
changing the oil = probably cheap "insurance".

I would put it on OLD / poor tyres - as they will stress from the weight in 1 spot.


18 months eh.. I'm surprised they still treat sheep rustling so seriously..

To be honest Bergi, probably the best way to store a Dual Logic Panda is under 6 ft of soil before it bankrupts you. They have a truly horrific reliability record...yours may be the exception but at some point in it's life it'll turn round and bite you. Good luck.

SB1500 said:

Source: (Fiat Panda Owners Manual, pg. 112)

❒ park the car in covered, dry and if pos- sible well-ventilated premises;

❒ engage a gear;

❒ check that the handbrake is not engaged;

❒ disconnect the battery negative termi- nal and check the battery charge. This check is to be repeated every three months. Recharge if the optical indica- tor shows a dark colour without the central green area;

❒ clean and protect the painted parts us- ing protective wax;

❒ clean and protect the shiny metal parts using special compounds readily available;

❒ sprinkle talcum powder on the rubber windscreen and rear window wiper blades and lift them off the glass;

❒ slightly open the windows;

❒ cover the car with a cloth or perforat- ed plastic sheet. Do not use sheets of non-perforated plastic as they do not allow moisture on the car body to evaporate;

❒ inflate tyres to +0,5 bar above the nor- mal specified pressure and check it at intervals;

❒ if you don’t disconnect the battery from the electric system, check its charge every month and recharge it if the op- tical indicator shows a dark colour without the central green area;

❒ do not drain the engine cooling system.


Hope this helps, after all, if this is what Fiat recommend it's probably OTT but you shouldn't go too far wrong with it!

..and don't sell it! You know there's only one thing ex-Panda owners have left to talk about... How much they regret selling it!!

Click to expand...

This sounds OTT but it's almost certainly not. Time can be more harmful than miles.

Park the car on axle stands otherwise you WILL be buying new tyres. However after 1 to 2 years of no use, the tyres might be hardened anyway.

Put the battery on a conditioning charger such as Optimate. This will keep the charge fully topped up so it cant develop hard sulphate damage. But in reality you may well need to replace the battery.

Expect the cam belt and alternator belt to become "set". It's quite often that these will fail soon after a stored car is restarted. However you could use the cheap "Stanley knife" method to change the cam belt when you come back. Normally you would change the water pump and tensioner. This way you change just the belt. Start the engine and run the craft knife down the belt centreline. Slacken the tensioner and slip off the outer half of the belt. Slip the new belt onto the pulleys. Cut the remain half of the old belt and side the new belt fully into place. Tighten the tensioner. Job done.

Expect to be changing the engine oil and brake fluid when you return. Ideally change the brake fluid before the car is stored. Brake fluid absorbs moisture through the piston seals leading to corroded brake cylinders. New fluid will be less wet so should be ok when you get back.

Treat all bare metal and screw head with protection fluid or wax. I would include the brake discs though you will have to VERY thoroughly clean them afterwards. Protect the exhaust pipe with the same stuff as rust will continue while you are away.

Really soak the alternator with ACF -50 or some other creeping metal protectant. The internal iron cores are laminated. Any ongoing rust will expand the laminations and crack the casing or rotor.

martroy said:

To be honest Bergi, probably the best way to store a Dual Logic Panda is under 6 ft of soil before it bankrupts you. They have a truly horrific reliability record...yours may be the exception but at some point in it's life it'll turn round and bite you. Good luck.

Click to expand...

They are generally driven by people who think they have a torque converter so the clutch gets hammered. My mum had one drove it to the book and it was going fine when sold. I regret not buying it for myself.

My only complaint was the (to me) back to front gear stick. Forwards for up was highly counterintuitive to my (warped?) mind.

I wouldn't trust to leave a charger unattended for a YEAR AND A HALF..

Thanks everyone for your responses, I never thought to look in the owners handbook, duh! thanks SB1500.

As for the other responses, yes, I agree I can probably say goodbye to a set of tyres unless I block up the car. Also Martroy, your suggestion to bury it because it's a Dualogic also made me laugh out loud! I know exactly what you mean though.... a great concept but silly $$$ when needing repair and that goes for all makes, not just Fiat. We have had 2 Dualogics now and no trouble so far.

Thanks for the suggestions re rust finding every hidden place DaveMcT, I like in a severe costal environment so salt air corrosion is a fact of life here. I would store the car away from the coast though but salt residue in hidden corners would still be corroding...

Thanks again everyone, not yet fixed in mind what to do, but very good advice on this forum as always!

Bergi.

If you're store an engine for >3months it will corrode internally unless properly inhibited.

Standard practice if laying up a light aircraft; I've been caught out personally many years ago with microcrystalline corrosion on the valve gear & conrods that cost me c£14000 to fix, and that's in 1985 money. The damage was barely visible to the naked eye but the engine was close to scrap and it had only been laid up for about 7 months.

Ideally you'd replace the engine oil with an inhibited storage oil & replace the spark plugs with dehydrator plugs, though I've never seen any off the shelf in the correct size for the Panda.

I know when one of the HSS fast ferries in Belfast was laid up for a year they used to pay a guy to sit on it monitoring it as well as having ventilation systems (hired mobile ones, not the built in machinery) to stop it all from rotting on the inside.

They also used to start up the engines every Wednesday to keep everything 'right'. That's a fully aluminium ship and two twin sets of massive GE LM turbines - presumably aluminium too.

Quite different to a humble Fiat Panda but maybe if you could get someone to start it up every so often for the year and a half? Just to keep things right.

I successfully recommissioned a land rover that had sat for nearly 10 years, but that was a series 2. It had about 5 wires in total, and no interior apart from 4 cushions. Took about 4 hours work. New battery, 4 tyres and MOT next day. Failed on headlight reflector and brake efficiency. Fixed at garage & passed. Simple=good!

On the other hand, our old 1.1 active took a couple of days to sort out when it had been left unused for 3 months. All electrical issues, and nearly all dirty connectors. Used a whole can of contact cleaner.

Not sure how well a Panda will come back from a long hibernation. If it is kept dry and well ventilated then it probably won't degrade too much physically. The 1.2 engine is a pretty basic old thing, so will probably be ok with fresh oil (I would change it, then do 5-10 miles of gentle driving to make sure the fresh oil has circulated fully. I know it will contaminate the new oil slightly, but it will get new oil onto all of the moving parts, rather than leaving the old oil in the rest of the engine).
My biggest concerns would be the electrics and the dualogic mechanism. They should be fine, but no real way to tell without trying it. You could coat everything with ACF50 - it is certified for use on pcbs and solenoids, so it could make a difference. Check out their website or reviews to decide.

PS: Bought my Dualogic for parts, but was too good to break. Just had a sticky pump motor. Of course a new pump motor cost more than the car, but I think it is great to drive. I know it could break one day and be uneconomic to repair, but I think I would risk getting another if/when it does. They are addictive.

SB1500 said:

Quite different to a humble Fiat Panda but maybe if you could get someone to start it up every so often for the year and a half? Just to keep things right.

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Just starting it up and letting it idle for a few minutes will likely do more harm than good.

With the aircraft the advice was always not to start it unless you were going to fly it.

Unless you use an inhibiting oil the engine will certainly corrode internally if it's parked up for 18months. The long term effect of that corrosion is hard to quantify; any corrosion on the contact surfaces will quickly end up in the oil once it's back in service so changing the oil & filter 500 miles after it's recommissioned would be a sensible precaution.

Another issue is the fuel, particularly if it contains ethanol; motor fuels are unstable and the shelf life is probably a year for ethanol-free UL95 and 3 months for most currently available pump UL95. If leaving it for 18 months, I'd consider draining the fuel system and running the engine until it stops from fuel starvation.

There's Fuel stabiliser. We use that for outboards (and inboards) that are not used in Winter. 95 is 5% ethanol.

gr J

A3jeroen said:

There's Fuel stabiliser. We use that for outboards (and inboards) that are not used in Winter. 95 is 5% ethanol.

gr J

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95 is the octane rating. An E5 95UL fuel should never be more than 5% Ethanol, but actual percentage may vary from batch to batch, and some may not contain any at all. Fuels with added ethanol are not stored in that state in the refinery; the ethanol is added to the blend in the tanker, immediately before dispatch to the filling station, precisely because ethanol blended fuels deteriorate rapidly once blended.

Fuel companies like ethanol because it is cheap and raises the octane rating of the blended petrol. Informed motorists hate ethanol because of its affinity for water and the corrosion, fuel degradation and material compatibility issues in older vehicles.

No fuel stabiliser exists which can prevent fuel containing ethanol from absorbing water. There's more information here, and another interesting article here.

varesecrazy said:

I wouldn't trust to leave a charger unattended for a YEAR AND A HALF..

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The Optimate is designed to do this. It "floats" the battery at full charge where it can't get sulphated.

The alternative is chuck the battery when you come back. Which is also a fair enough option.

By the way whatever fuel you have it will have degraded or caused damage if you leave the car with fuel in the tank. Drain the fuel and run the engine until it stops.

Buy a set of cheap axle stands and park the car on them. Jack it up high and you can treat the underside with a rust inhibitor. ACF-50 is great stuff. It soaks into bare metal and really does stop corrosion. It's also harmless to paint so apart from needing a degreaser the paint will be fine. Another product called F365 is water soluble. A cheaper option is engineering cutting oil which is diluted with water. It inhibits corrosion and leaves a protective layer after the water has dried away.

If these are not available, chain saw oil is amazing for stopping corrosion. Thin it with white spirit and spray everywhere you want to protect. It will polymerise (changes over time to sticky varnish) so spatters on bodywork paint are a pain to clean off.

If you are concerned about the engine cylinders, drop 10ml of ACF 50 into each cylinder replace spark plugs and crank the engine (after you have drained the fuel). This will coat the cylinder bores with protective oil. If you can't get ACF-50 then 2 stroke oil will do.

Cheap new oil in the sump will protect the engine internals. Used oil contains acidic soot that will deplete the oil's corrosion inhibitors. But unless the oil is really ancient an 18 month wait should be ok. Ive got a 1976 bike that's all fine despite many years left standing.

I also have a permanent connection smart charger..but there is NO WAY Ill leave it unattended for that long

jrkitching said:

95 is the octane rating. An E5 95UL fuel should never be more than 5% Ethanol,

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Really?
I think (according to EU regulations) E5 has to have at least 5% Bio-Ethanol.
E10 (standard in more and more countries) 10% and E85... Oh well... You get the picture. Since this CO2 is not from crude oil it's supposed to be better for the environment.
Not unlike hybrids or full EV's. You produce the CO2 at a (preferrably coaldriven powerplant cause it's cheap) instead of in the vehicle and presto: a clean car.

Octane ratings (MON RON) knocksensors and timing aren't things I need a lecture on

gr J

A3jeroen said:

Really?
I think (according to EU regulations) E5 has to have at least 5% Bio-Ethanol.
E10 (standard in more and more countries) 10% and E85... Oh well... You get the picture. Since this CO2 is not from crude oil it's supposed to be better for the environment.
Not unlike hybrids or full EV's. You produce the CO2 at a (preferrably coaldriven powerplant cause it's cheap) instead of in the vehicle and presto: a clean car.

Octane ratings (MON RON) knocksensors and timing aren't things I need a lecture on

gr J

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Whatever the EU regulations may say, I suspect there are variations between what is done in different countries. Also the rules and practices change with time; you are for sure right in saying the move to increase the percentage of ethanol in motor fuel is coming .

You could be right about that E5 labelling; motor petrol sold in the UK isn't labelled as such but may contain up to 5% ethanol, although it can contain less or even none at all.

Here's the AA take on the subject.

What's for sure is that the addition of ethanol to fuels does not help with the long term storage problem, and it isn't easy to find ethanol free unleaded petrol anymore.

There are new industrial processes that make ethanol from waste material - wood chips, straw, etc. Enzymes convert the cellulose (a sugar) into a form usable by yeasts. It's then fermented in ways that don't kill the yeast giving a high quality ethanol with a very low fossil CO2. The CO2 released was trapped from last year's sunshine. The plant waste goes back to the land as fertiliser. Win Win.

People moan about ethanol but its no worse than having to avoid cheap rubber seals in diesel systems when methyl esters came along during the 1990s.

Anyone seriously upset about fuel quality can always convert to LPG. The cost savings on a Panda wont add up to much (it's too cheap to run) but you'll have a nice clean engine and considerably less fossil CO2 emissions.