During the COVID-19 lockdown, it is only natural for cars to stay parked for extended periods of time. Food orders, electronic good deliveries, and almost all grocery items can be delivered to your doorstep, so very few people have a good reason to take their car for a ride.
However cars were made for moving, and if they stay still for too long, things will start to degrade. For example, the inner wall of your engine’s combustion cylinders is meant to receive lubrication regularly, and if it doesn’t, rust will begin to form on this crucial surface.
Another example of a problem would be the battery, which keeps your radio, immobilizer, ECU, alarm, and other little bits powered when the car is parked. Typically, whatever energy is lost during this time is replenished by the charging dynamo when the engine is running again, but if that doesn’t happen for long, the battery will empty to a point beyond return. And then there are the tires that can get “squared” due to prolonged periods of holding the weight of the car on the same spot, and thus staying deformed in the exact same points.
What can you do in order to avoid all of the above?
Get in your car, start it up and let it run idle for 5 minutes. This should be enough to provide the battery with adequate charge.
Then, try to maneuver it around the parking, but note that merely going back and forth won’t work as the tires will end up rotating back to the same spot.
You need to add an 180-degree turn in the mix, just to be sure. Ideally, just do a round around the block and return to your parking spot. While you do that, full-blast the air to allow some circulation in the HVAC system, and light up your headlights so that any moisture that they may have crept inside is evaporated due to the heat.
