WINTER
STORAGE.

Every autumn the same thing happens. The car that has been out most weekends since April goes back into the garage, a cover goes over a warm engine, and it is not looked at again until March. What comes out in spring is rarely what went in.

What winter actually does

It is not the cold. It is the damp. An unheated domestic garage swings through the dew point twice a day, so condensation forms on cold metal — inside the engine, inside the exhaust, on brake discs, behind trim. Add road salt carried in on the underside from one last November drive and you have an actively corrosive environment sitting against the car for five months.

Then the smaller things: a battery that flattens and sulphates, tyres that flat-spot under a stationary load, brakes that seize to the discs, perished rubber, and rodents, which find a cold quiet garage in October and stay until spring. Wiring looms are a favourite.

Why the garage at home often is not enough

Most home garages are single-skin, unheated, sometimes not even fully dry. They are also where the bikes, the freezer and the garden furniture live, which means the car gets squeezed and the doors get opened all winter. A cover over a damp car makes it worse, not better — it traps moisture against the paint.

What storage here means instead

Inside a monitored, enclosed building. Dry, out of daylight, out of sight, and not being walked past by anyone with no reason to be there. Because access is arranged in advance rather than open to anyone with a code, the building stays closed, still and stable — which is the entire point when the thing you are fighting is moisture.

When to book

September and October. Not because of a deadline, but because the collection is deliberately limited and winter is when it fills. If you are thinking about it in November you may be having a different conversation.

Getting the car ready

• Wash and dry it properly first — salt and moisture left on paint do the damage
• Fill the tank to limit condensation inside it, and treat the fuel if it is a classic
• Fresh oil if it is due, so acidic old oil is not sitting in the engine for five months
• Tyres up to pressure, and leave it out of gear on chocks rather than on the handbrake
• Battery: we can talk through whether to disconnect or maintain it

None of it is compulsory and we will talk it through before the car comes in.

What it costs

From £165 a month for standard cars and similar vehicles, and from around £70 for motorcycles. A good number of winter cars never leave — the owner works out that the driveway was never really the answer.

All pricing →

Long-term storage →