Topic: When do you park your toy?

[ChopTop]

Getting to be that time of year where some of us start thinking of parking their toy for the season  (fill-up, gas stabilizer and battery tender time).  Only bright side is insurance is cheaper. 

So when do you folks park your toy?

[miller11386]

Around the Beginning of November.

Still have an open house to attend!

[wspohn]

When it snows.  And it often doesn't snow here at all.

[DirtyMike]

Never........

[EarthNTX]

Probably never unless it snows and the road's are icy. But, they usually melt in a day or two.

[Go-N Def]

Mine has been parked for almost 3 weeks now but tomorrow it's gonna be on the road again.  The weather was great in Korea the whole time only I was on vacation in Subic Bay.  It rained every freakin' day!  I got to Manila yesterday in time for a typhoon to roll through.  It almost cancelled my flight tonight....

[dengel]

When it snows and the salt gets put down on the roads.   If we get a warm stretch in the winter and some rain to wash the salt off the roadways, I have been know to take the car out of the garage.  I don't do much to place it into "storage" other than put it on a battery tender.

[Dr. Gronk]

I try to park my toy everyday.  It would be dangerous to keep it out all the time. 

[idkfa]

I park it when it snows.... my Star Specs are worse than the RE01Rs in the snow

I really need some Blizzaks for my spare wheels.

[GXPinKC]

I try to park my toy everyday.  It would be dangerous to keep it out all the time. 

Same hear Dr. Gronk!  "Miss Red Eagle" always sits by "the Beast" our 2000 Lincoln Navigator in the garage.  It is beautiful here in Kansas and the the trees have not net begun to show colors so the weather is perfect for driving  Miss Red Eagle.  The first snow  has not happened yet and that is indeed when the Eagle will be parked for the winter.  Last few years have been very mild in the winter months.  I do hope that continues this year.  As the years pass winter is becoming my least favorite season!!!

[1LILNDN]

Mine is in front of my house with cover on the top. and a 6 foot highX3foot thick wall of SNOW in front of it just to make it harder to drive if i want to.       

[R2112]

Year round

[Sly Bob]

Park mine in heated storage about the end of October.

[timlange3]

Only if there is snow/ice/salt on the roads does it stay parked.  Last winter the longest it sat was six weeks.  My garage is unheated but insulated so it is rare to drop below freezing.  From November to April I put 2,000 miles on it, so there were a bunch of good days.

[Dr. Gronk]

I try to park my toy everyday.  It would be dangerous to keep it out all the time. 

Wait a tick... are we talking about our kappa's? Ohhhh...  In that case I park it every time I think I may get out of it. That helps in finding it again when I want to drive it.

In all seriousness I'm not putting mine away for winter, it's just kept indoors on standby for nice days.

[J_Bond]

I don't find it that absurd for people to drive their Kappas in the snow.  The car is is short with a great weight bias.  (almost 50/50)
With a great set of snow tires, they should get around just fine!  I think the biggest problem is the 'lowered' Kappas risk being 'high-centered' as it's called here in the midwest. 
I drove my SC430 hardtop vert a bunch last winter with ZERO problems with Blizzacks and a lowered coil over suspension while the 4x4 was in the shop (british electrical systems...)  Had to put 130lbs in the trunk to even the weight bias, but was just fine. 

[wspohn]

PS - I take mild exception to the characterization of these cars as toys.

Maybe that's the case for some of you, but for many of us these are every day drivers.

[EarthNTX]

PS - I take mild exception to the characterization of these cars as toys.

Maybe that's the case for some of you, but for many of us these are every day drivers.

It's my second vehicle and I shop with it and take trips and drive it every day. The van is for heavy duty jobs, since not much fits in our kappas.

[tazz]

Every day driver hear unless it snows more than 3-4".
I bought the car to enjoy and drive (Top down or Top Up) NOT to STABLE it. 
Now if I had some of WsPohn's cars that would be a different story.

[wspohn]

Every day driver hear unless it snows more than 3-4".
I bought the car to enjoy and drive (Top down or Top Up) NOT to STABLE it. 
Now if I had some of WsPohn's cars that would be a different story.

Several of those are admittedly what could be called toys, in that I only license a couple every summer and use them sparingly, although my wife always drives the MGC, I usually drive the Fiero and sometimes the Jensen Interceptor.  The others are usually in the 'down' cycle for maintenance, which happens more slowly now as my knees and back are less forgiving of the punishment necessary for crawling under cars.

Her minivan and my Solstice are the family working cars - and you'd be surprised how much you can fit into a Solstice coupe (more than in a convertible!)

[dengel]

I guess I am fortunate to be able to own two fun, fast, sporty cars so that I don't have to force my Solstice to do the heavy hauling and driving in dangerous conditions that it would experience if it was my only car.

I simply don't consider the Solstice the safest choice for me to drive in rainy, snowy or icy conditions with its summer tires and light weight.  I've got the G8 with its snow tires and about a thousand extra pounds for bad weather driving, not to mention that the trunk on the G8 holds about 10 times the volume of the Solstice trunk.

Just because some owner's have more than one choice of vehicle in their garage and choose not to treat their Kappas like a farm truck doesn't mean we never drive them or treat them like garage queens either. 

[wspohn]

Hey - you can use these cars for quite a bit of 'normal' activity. Don't know about the convertibles, but the coupes give you room to put a lot of stuff in there, including some lengths of sono-tubing I picked up on the weekend for making speaker ports for home theatre (I admit that I had to cut the tubing down as an 8' length wouldn't quite have fitted). And I won't tell you how much wine you can get in there (in case my wife reads this).

The old cars get used for the same thing - we have a collector car plate here in BC that doesn't allow you to drive to or from work, so we use them weekends and after work for chores just to drive them.  I once used the Lamborghini to pick up bales of steer manure for the garden and the kid wheeling the hand truck thought I was kidding when I said 'Drop it by the old Lambo'.

The Interceptor is good for 6 cases of wine, or around 12 pots of rhododendrons, or 2 folding deck chairs (old style wood) etc.

I even brought an entire spare engine home in the passenger side of a Triumph TR-3 once.

These cars are made to be used and enjoyed, not polished and coddled!

[Dr. Gronk]

I'm definitely in the daily driver camp (it's my primary vehicle), just try to avoid bad weather when I can.  Case in point, while I was tossing around the idea of covering the wheel wells with vendor stickers (replicas or even new originals depending on if the vendor had anything and/or was still in business), I threw together this one below to tag the car as a daily driver.

[Mihela816]

Ours will get put away at the first snowfall, the salt they use here and the possibility of hitting large ice chunks and damaging the underbody are just too much when we can drive the Silverado.

[EarthNTX]

I hear you! I lived in Quebec and know all about that blasted salt and chunks of ice. I wouldn't drive it either.