Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General General Dangers of letting a car sit without being driven?

What should my biggest concerns be about my car and the fact that it has been driven twice since 3/2003 and only started up a few times? I am finally going to sell it and I just want to know what things I can do to prepare her for the sale. It is a 99 se v/6 5 spd with 80k miles. Brakes were done at 60k, roush springs and st/200 struts were put in at 78k, new plugs and ford racing wires were done at 70k. I also had the tranny fluid changed and added the friction modifier(it already has a synchro problem) My biggest concerns are things like gaskets drying out. Anything else I should be worried about? Anti freeze was never changed since I bought it so I know that should be done. Are the other cheap and easy things to do like cleaning the intakes that I could do myself? I am somewhat mechanically inclined but not great and my access to the car is limited because I live in NYC and the car is in Boston. I would be coming home for 2 days at best to get things done to it.

Good luck getting it to start, gas goes to [censored] after 90 days, unless stabilzer was added. Anyways letting it sit is bad for all fluids, plugs and wires, secondly nothing was lubriacted, unless your drove it for 25 feet after 15 days, also the battery is most likely shot unless you disconnected it.

Good luck selling it, doubt you will if the buyer finds out about its history.

REally? Hmm, wonder why my car fired right up after the gas sat for two years, granted its not ideal, but goes to [censored]? hmm, I don't think so, plus you can put additives in there to keep it good.
Its only a been a few months, I doubt anything has gone bad in that short amount of time. Battery might need charged and thats about it...

Originally posted by HITMANinMI:

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Good luck getting it to start, gas goes to [censored] after 90 days, unless stabilzer was added. Anyways letting it sit is bad for all fluids, plugs and wires, secondly nothing was lubriacted, unless your drove it for 25 feet after 15 days, also the battery is most likely shot unless you disconnected it.

Good luck selling it, doubt you will if the buyer finds out about its history.

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The battery was [censored] anyhow from being hooked into my old stereo system and getting run down and it has needed to be jumped to get started the last few times. That is an easy $50 fix. I know it will run like [censored] until the computer can relearn. i didn't park it with a lot of gas in it on purpose. anything else to worry about anyone??

First thing is don't try to run it before you put some work into it.

Drain the fuel out for sure. It's not worth the risk of some nasty crap getting in the lines, the pump, or the engine. Hopefully it hasn't already gone bad and polluted the system causing a serious problem.

Change every single fluid -- coolant, oil, transmission, PS, brakes, even windshield washer. It'll only cost a little bit of money and it's a lot easier than trying to sell a car with poor power steering and spongy brakes.

The battery, as you've already stated, needs to be replaced

Depending on how it was stored, the tires are likely dried-out and shot. They'll likely need replacing, if not by your then by whoever buys it.

And once you get things running a some good fuel-injector cleaner and some decarb stuff would probably be good too.

There's a good chance some of the gaskets are shot too, but you could probably get by passing that problem on to someone else as I don't know if the problem would be immediately noticeable.

the people we're renting our house from (parents are waiting for a house to be built) left their porsche 911 in the garage, sitting there with just a car cover on it. i think the guy is absolutely clueless, he's going to be gone for over a year . he left the doors to the car unlocked, but unfortunately i have yet to find the keys (yeah, right) .

I let my 95 tour sit for four months, started it once, to move it into the garage. and back out. battery was as dead as can be but thats it.

the tires are pretty worn out as it is and the owner will need new ones. I honestly don't know how often my brother started the car up but I highly doubt that he did it very often for me. So far it seems that I need to change all of the fluids and the battery, that is easy enough. Anything else guys? The plugs and wires only had about 10 k on them, do they really need to be changed? Again, not expensive, just a pain in the ass to get at. Ultimately, I want the car to be running well and certainly some of this stuff is things that a new owner would probably do to a car anyhow to be on the safeside. I just want to avoid any major problems. The last time I drove the car was to the car wash and around the neighborhood last fall. Everything seemed to be fine. My brother has started it and driven it recently since he sold his house where it is garaged