How to Store a Car Long-Term: 8 Steps and Where to Park

When a car sits for months, most of what can go wrong costs real money to fix. Knowing how to store a car long-term means you won’t risk a dead battery, flat tires, or a tank full of sticky varnish.

How to Store a Car Long-Term: The Full Prep Checklist

If you’re stashing your car for a couple of weeks, you don’t have too much to worry about. Long-term car storage means parking a car you won’t drive for 30 days or more. 

There’s a risk of damage, but all of it is preventable. These eight prep steps shouldn’t take more than an afternoon, and it means you’ll come back to a fully functional car.

Step 1: Wash and wax it before it sits

You’re about to cover the car and walk away, so this seems counterintuitive, but it isn’t. Anything left on the surface can eventually eat into the paint, including bird droppings, tree sap, and road salt.

To minimize the risk of tarnishing, wash the whole car, let it dry, then lay down a coat of wax as a moisture barrier.

Here are some more tips: 

• Clean the inside, too: Crumbs and trash are an invitation to pests, so vacuum out the interior and wipe everything down.
• Treat the leather: A conditioner keeps your seats from drying out and cracking.
• Place an open box of baking soda on the floor: It soaks up the stale smell that builds in a closed-up car.

If you’re storing for a year or longer, consider using a ceramic coating. It bonds to the paint and protects it better than wax. And if you have a convertible, keep the top on, so the fabric doesn’t shrink.

Step 2: Change the oil

Old oil holds acids and moisture that eat at the engine from the inside. Get an oil change right before storage, even if you’re not due for one yet. Then drive for a few minutes to let the clean oil circulate.

A standard oil change and filter at a shop will cost $35 to $75, depending on your area. If you do it yourself, the oil and a filter come to around $30.

Step 3: Fill the tank and add fuel stabilizer

Empty space in your tank lets moisture build up, which can rust the tank and clog the fuel system. Repairs can run over $1,000, so it’s a step you don’t want to skip.

Plain gas also starts to break down after a few months, leaving behind sticky deposits that clog things up. Stabilizer prevents this and keeps the fuel usable for up to 1 year. Pour it in, then drive a few miles so it runs through the whole system.

There’s one exception to this: If your car has a plastic tank, a few gallons plus stabilizer is enough.

Step 4: Protect the battery 

Even switched off, your car keeps drawing a trickle of power to run things like the clock and alarm. Left long enough, the battery goes flat, and a battery that sits dead for months often won’t take a full charge again. 

You’ve got three ways to handle it, depending on how long you’ll be gone:

• Hook it to a maintainer: Also called a trickle charger, this keeps the battery topped off. It’s the easiest option, but you’ll need a power outlet in your storage space.
• Disconnect the negative terminal: If there’s no outlet, loosening the negative cable cuts the draw of power while the car sits.
• Pull out the battery: For very long-term storage, remove your battery and keep it somewhere temperature-controlled so it doesn’t leak.

Always-connected features, like OnStar or Hyundai Bluelink, keep pulling power even when you’re parked, so switch that off before you go.

Step 5: Sort out the tires

When a car sits in one spot, the tires slowly lose air, and the parts touching the ground can flatten out. These flat spots mean you’ll feel thudding and vibrations when you drive again. There are two ways to prevent them:

• Over-inflate before you park: Inflate to the max pressure on the tire sidewall, often 10–15 PSI above the door-jamb number.
• Take the weight off: For storage longer than a few months, set the car on jack stands, so the tires aren’t holding the weight. But some cars don’t do well on stands for months. They can develop suspension problems, so check your owner’s manual first.

If you’d rather not risk the stands, you can roll the car forward a few feet every couple of weeks so the same patch of rubber isn’t always against the ground. 

Tires age in storage, too. If yours have some miles on them, here’s our guide to how long tires last.

Step 6: Leave the parking brake off

If you’re parking for longer than 2 weeks, you can leave your handbrake down. When the brake stays engaged for months, the pads press against the rotors. This can lead to rust and keep the wheels from turning freely.

Slip a set of wheel chocks behind the tires, or wedge blocks of wood under them if you don’t have chocks on hand.

Step 7: Keep mice and bugs out

A parked car is an easy nesting place. Once rodents settle into the engine bay, they tend to chew on wiring and hoses. The fix is to close off the openings into the car.

• Plug the tailpipe: A wad of steel wool or a rag stops mice from crawling up. Leave yourself a note on the steering wheel so you don’t forget to pull it out when you pick up the car.
• Cover the air intake: Tape over it, and check for any other gaps under the hood, where something could squeeze through.
• Scatter a repellent: Peppermint, dryer sheets, or food-grade diatomaceous earth under the hood and in the cabin send vermin looking elsewhere.

Step 8: Choose the right cover

Your car is clean, rodent-proof, and almost ready. Use a breathable cover made to fit your model, not a tarp and definitely not a bedsheet.

A tarp seals moisture against the paint instead of letting it escape, and anything ill-fitting can flap around, slowly rubbing at the finish. If your car is indoors, a light cover is all you need. If the car is outside, spend a little more on a weatherproof wrap.

Storing a Car for Years? Take These Extra Steps

Most cars come through a season or two just fine if you’ve done these steps. But if you’re looking at multi-year storage, like a deployment that keeps getting extended, a few extra precautions are worth the effort: 

• Fog the cylinders: The bare metal inside the engine’s cylinders can start to rust. Pull the spark plugs, spray fogging oil into each cylinder to coat the walls, then thread the plugs back in.
  
  It’s an hour of work that protects the most expensive part of the car. If you’re not comfortable pulling the plugs yourself, any mechanic can do it quickly.
• Bring the battery home: Keep it somewhere cool and dry indoors. Stored away from the car’s slow power draw and any temperature swings, it has a much better shot at working when you return.
• Replace the fuel right when you get back: Fuel stabilizer keeps gas usable for about 1 year, not forever. So plan on draining the old fuel and filling it up fresh. You’ll also need a quick once-over on the tires and fluids before that first drive.

Where to Store Your Car

Three types of storage cover the range from bare-minimum to fully protected:

• Indoor: The most protected and priciest type of storage keeps your car out of the sun and rain. Some facilities also run HVAC cooling systems to prevent damage from temperature swings and humidity.
• Covered: A canopy or roof blocks the sun and keeps some weather damage at bay. 
• Outdoor: Paired with a good car cover, it’s perfectly fine for shorter stretches.

The longer the car sits and the more it’s worth to you, the more indoor storage makes sense. Compare all your options on Neighbor.

What size space your car needs

Pick a space that fits the car, with room to open the doors and walk around it. As a rough guide, a 10×20 unit fits most cars and trucks. Smaller cars can fit a 10×15, while big SUVs or pickups may need a 10×30.

• Measure before you book: Factor in the car’s length, height, and width (including the mirrors) when you’re judging the size unit you’ll want.
• Check the facility’s rules: Not every storage place allows vehicles, so confirm this before you book.

Caught between two sizes? This storage unit size guide walks you through what fits where.

What it’ll cost

Here are the national averages for what it costs to store a car in a standard unit without HVAC cooling:

Going from a compact-car unit to one that fits a full-size pickup doesn’t move the bill too much, so there’s no reason to squeeze your car into a tight spot. The bigger lever is how much protection you’re paying for: 

Extra Tip: Don’t Cancel Your Insurance

You aren’t driving anywhere, so do you need insurance? Generally, yes. A gap in coverage can push you into a higher-risk tier when you reinsure. Plus, if something happens to your car while it’s sitting uninsured, that bill is fully yours.

The smarter move is to trim what you won’t need. Since nobody’s driving it, you can cut collision and liability and keep comprehensive insurance, which still covers theft, fire, hail, and vandalism. Your agent will tell you what’s available for stored vehicles. If you’re dropping liability, file your car as non-operational with your DMV first, or you may face fines and a registration suspension. 

If you’re still making car payments, your lender may require full coverage for the life of the loan, so check first. And most storage facilities want proof of insurance before they’ll take the car, which is another reason not to go uninsured.

How to Take Your Car Out of Storage

You’re back and ready to drive. You’ll be undoing what you plugged or blocked, and you’ll need to give the car a once-over to catch anything that might’ve gone wrong.

Run through this checklist before your first drive:

• Reinstate your insurance, so liability and collision are active before you pull out.
• Remove the tailpipe plug and any covers over openings, then check under the hood for nests.
• Reconnect or reinstall the battery and check the terminals for corrosion.
• Check the fluids and look for any leaks.
• Read the tire pressure and look for cracks or bulges.
• Start the car, let it idle a moment, then take a short drive to make sure it brakes, steers, and runs right. If something feels off, get it looked at before you trust it on the highway.

Find a Long-Term Spot for Your Car

You’ve got everything you need to store a car long-term without coming back to a dead battery or cracked dashboard. Now you need somewhere to put it. A neighbor’s unused garage, driveway, or outbuilding is often cheaper to rent and easier to access than the nearest big storage facility.

Neighbor puts traditional storage units and local parking spots in a single search, so you can compare everything available and pick what fits.

Vehicle storage on Neighbor averages $50 to $75 a month, compared with the $200 market rate, and eligible spaces come with up to 50,000 in renter property protection. We’ve got a 4.9-star ranking across 689,000+ reviews.

Browse photos and reviews of every listing, or give us a call to chat through your options.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long can a car sit without being driven?

Most cars handle about a month, but it’s best to go for a short drive every 2 weeks if you can. This gives the battery a chance to recharge, the fluids a chance to circulate, and the tires a break from carrying weight, if you’re not using jacks.

Do you fill the gas tank or empty it for storage?

For most cars in storage, you should fill the tank. A full tank plus fuel stabilizer keeps condensation and rust out of the fuel system. The exception is newer cars with plastic tanks, where leaving just a few gallons with stabilizer is fine.

Should you start a stored car every now and then?

Sometimes, but only if you can take it for a real drive. A quick idle in the driveway adds moisture without warming the engine fully, which does more harm than good. If you can’t drive it, leave it prepped on a battery maintainer or remove the battery and leave it somewhere cool indoors.