How to ensure your car stays in shape during lockdown

Locked down, but not locked away

Just like humans, cars also need regular exercise to remain healthy. Exercise keeps our joints flexible, blood pumping, and everything in shape, and much the same applies to cars, albeit in a different way. A car might be a mechanical object, but there are still a myriad of moving things inside it that require regular movement and circulation. So, just as you need to exercise your mind and body during lockdown, you need to do the automotive equivalent for your car. Let’s look at some of the things you could do to preserve your car’s mechanical integrity while it waits out the confinement period.

 

Electrical system

Modern cars are generally equipped with some pretty serious electronic circuitry: there’s the car’s own main electrical system, the immobiliser circuit, and the vehicle tracker working behind the scenes, to name but a few. And here’s the thing: many of those circuits remain on (albeit in a low-power state), even when the car is switched off, resulting in a small current draw at all times. This is generally not an issue in cars that are driven daily, because their alternators always keep the battery topped-off, but if a car stands for a few weeks, the battery could lose enough charge to render itself damaged and useless.

Combine this with a car battery’s natural tendency to slowly discharge over a long period (caused by the battery’s internal resistance), and you could find yourself literally powerless the next time you try to start the car. If you have a battery charger at hand, you could simply connect it to your car’s battery for a while every few days, but what if you don’t? Well, read on to find out a single solution to this problem – and a few more besides.

 

Related: Can you jump-start a car with a dead battery?

 

Engine- and related seals and pumps

All engines use rubber seals at critical points, to keep oil and coolant inside the engine, and to keep external debris from finding their way into the engine. These rubber seals are designed to function with the aid of oil (or coolant, if applicable), and prolonged periods of inactivity could lead to the rubber degenerating to the point where it causes a leak. 

Additionally, many coolant pumps rely on circulating coolant for lubrication and to keep the seals pliable, and could start leaking when its bearings and seals dry out. As a further bonus, a car’s air conditioning system is reliant on circulation of the air-con gas/oil mixture in the system, and prolonged inactivity could also destroy air conditioner compressor seals in short order.

 

The Solution

Every 5 days or so, start your car wherever it’s parked, after making sure that the handbrake is fully engaged and the transmission is in Neutral or Park. And then let it idle until it's up to temperature. You’re literally asking your car to do the same as you’re doing – idling away some time.

NB! Ensure that this happens in a well-ventilated area (i.e. outdoors or with an open garage door), as car exhaust fumes are toxic, and can be fatal. 

Remember one thing: if an engine starts from cold, it experiences accelerated engine wear (due to a whole lot of technical reasons), so we don’t suggest that you do this every day. If your car still starts easily after 5 days, with no strain from the starter to indicate a depleting battery, you can extend this interval to 7 days, and if it struggles to start on day 5, you’ll have to start it more frequently. 

It is however important to, once you’ve started it, always let the car idle until it reaches normal operating temperature. If you shut it down too soon, the battery’s charge may not be fully replenished by the alternator, and water vapour (a natural product of combustion) could collect inside the cold exhaust piping, leading to corrosion and premature failure. 

Meanwhile, while the engine is still running, turn on the air conditioner. Doing so will see lubricating oil circulate inside the system, keeping seals lubricated and compressor pistons moving freely. 

(Pro tip: Turn on your air conditioning once every 2 weeks even during wintertime, to keep the seals sealing and the pistons moving. This will improve your air conditioning system’s durability by an order of magnitude.) And, while you’re busy operating the air conditioner, give the steering wheel a whirl from lock to lock a few times as well – power steering pumps and motors also need to stretch their legs, and hydraulic steering racks and pumps should always maintain lubrication on their seals.

 

How do you know when your car is up to temperature?

It’s very simple, but it doesn’t really involve trusting your car’s temperature gauge. Rather listen out for the engine’s cooling fan, which will cut in with an audible “whoosh”, as this will give a far clearer indication that the entire cooling system (and thus most of the engine itself) is really up to temperature. In fact, your car’s temperature gauge will show that it’s warmed up long before it actually is, so rather listen out for the cooling fan.

 

Related: Basic tools to get you started on your own auto DIY.

 

(Non-technically-minded readers can skip to the next heading now, unless they want to learn some cool things about their car’s engine.)

To understand why, you have to realise that the coolant in your car is the first vital fluid to warm up to any noticeable degree after start-up. The engine oil also starts heating up from the moment of start-up, but it takes much longer for the oil to get up to temperature than it does for the coolant to reach its peak temperature. 

Meanwhile, the temperature gauge on the dashboard is merely meant to be an indication of engine temperature, and often shows normal temperature long before the engine is actually warmed up. Here’s the sequence of events: First, the thermostat opens, which sends coolant through the radiator, bringing down the coolant’s temperature, and absorbing yet more heat from the engine after shedding some through the radiator.

It might take up to 4 thermostat cycles before the entire cooling system (and thus, most of the engine itself) can reach a stable temperature state, where the cooling system sheds exactly as much heat as the engine produces. By this time, the engine’s cooling fan will have kicked in a few times. The system will converge towards this state of equilibrium, and the oil temperature will be high enough to maintain the appropriate pressure. 

As a bonus, the exhaust system will be warm enough to let any condensation evaporate naturally, reducing the chances of corrosion taking hold. And, because fuel’s composition changes when it’s standing still, sending some fresh fuel through the fuel system by starting the engine will make sure that its pump and injectors remain adequately lubricated as well.

 

Look after your tyres

You don’t have to wait for multiple radiator fan cycles to complete, and can switch the engine off as soon as the fan comes on and has switched off for the first time. But not before you’ve moved the car a little bit. Really, only about 30 cm should be enough. What difference does 30 cm make? A surprisingly large difference, to be honest. 

 

Related: When are car tyres unsafe? This video will explain in some detail.

 

Here’s why. When your car puts weight on its tyres, the tyres deform slightly at the point of contact with the road. Normally, this won’t be a problem, as rubber is generally elastic enough to return to its proper form when the load is moved away (as the tyre rotates, it puts its load on a constantly changing area). The issue arises when a tyre has been left with a constant load on only one part of its tread for an extended period (as in, under a standing car), because the tyre eventually deforms permanently. This leads to the formation of flat spots, which can ruin a perfectly good set of tyres within weeks.

To solve this problem, all you have to do is rotate the tyres slightly every week or so, to put a different part of the tyre tread under load. The easiest way to do this is to move the car about 30 cm in either direction. Problem solved: you tyres won’t go square on you anymore. As a bonus, the wheel bearings (which are under even greater load than the tyres) also get a chance to rotate, redistributing their internal load and reducing the possibility of failure in the near future. 

 

If you follow these simple steps, you can help ensure that your car will emerge from lockdown in no worse mechanical condition than it was when it was parked. It might not fix existing problems, but will help keep new problems from cropping up. Once you can drive again, all you’ll need is to check the tyre pressures, wash the car down, and hit the open road. But until then, keep your four-wheeled friend in good shape.