Hey everyone, I recently purchased a 2006 Focus to drive back and forth to work and although it feels good not putting miles on the GT, I was wondering if it's bad to let it sit for say a week w/out starting it? I will drive it at least on the weekends always but I may not even start it Monday - Friday. Is that bad? Any advise is appreciated...
how often to start/drive a non-daily driver?
choate
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Hey everyone, I recently purchased a 2006 Focus to drive back and forth to work and although it feels good not putting miles on the GT, I was wondering if it's bad to let it sit for say a week w/out starting it? I will drive it at least on the weekends always but I may not even start it Monday - Friday. Is that bad? Any advise is appreciated...
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A week shouldn't be a problem. My only concern would be the tires. If you have a soft compound tire they could develop flat spots over the course of a week. I had this happen on another car I owned. It would ride like the wheels were lego's for a few miles and then be ok. But it seemed like it always rode rough for the first couple miles after this started happening, like it never fully went away....
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My 2011 GT is 2.5 years old bought it new,now I just turned 6000 miles, change oil once a year,drive it every week or too keep it clean and waxed you will be fine.
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2011 5.0 bought in March 2011. I have 3,400 miles on it. I keep a battery tender junior on it 24/7. I try to drive it once a week. Haven't driven it in 2 weeks because of nasty storms almost everyday. As you can tell, she is not my DD. Everytime we go out of town, we drive the GT instead of my wife's car.
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Letting the car set and running it every week or so will not hurt it. The anti-theft system uses hardly any voltage. I have let mine sit and only idled every two weeks without a problem (deployed). Sitting for months without rolling the tires can cause flat spotting, so it is important to roll it occasionally. Good luck!
I don't get why a person would own a car they love so much, but just let it sit and rot. I drive mine everywhere I go, and wouldn't have it any other way. When it has something wear out, it'll get a new and improved part to take the worn out part's place and I'll keep going. I've found that time seems to be as harmful or more so than miles are.
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Lots of reasons like depreciation, gas, money, and mainly bc I've done all kinds of mods to this thing and I don't want to rag it out. It has 18k miles and is in its prime. Cars w 80k miles on them don't run like cars w 18k even tho new cars engines are made much tighter and better now days so it's not as bad as it used to be. I will be still driving the GT, and hard, just not back and forth to work that's 50 mile round trip and now I have a car that gets 30+ mpg
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I've let mine sit for a month on a few occasions with no ill effects. And I have soft compound tires and have noticed no flat spotting first time out after sitting.
Here is my theory on an engine sitting. The oil in the engine is going to drain down fairly rapidly. So if you start once a week, that's four dry starts a month vs one dry start if you crank her up every 30 days. Dry starts = accelerated wear. Of course that can be carried to an extreme the other way too as letting the engine sit several months without starting isn't a good thing either.
Here is my theory on an engine sitting. The oil in the engine is going to drain down fairly rapidly. So if you start once a week, that's four dry starts a month vs one dry start if you crank her up every 30 days. Dry starts = accelerated wear. Of course that can be carried to an extreme the other way too as letting the engine sit several months without starting isn't a good thing either.
The cost of having a second car makes the economic issue kind of invalid. The savings in gas isn't nearly enough to justify the cost of owning a second vehicle. How much savings is there per mile? How many miles do you have to drive the Eco box to save enough money to account for the cost of owning it?
If I thought this car would be showing significant wear and be down on power at 80,000 miles, I'd have been looking for a better car. My car is quickly nearing 100,000 miles, and I wouldn't trade the enjoyment I've had in driving the car for every last one of those miles back. The car is still just as tight as it ever was. Honestly I can't wait for the motor to get tired, that's when it'll get a rebuild with all forged internals to handle more power.
If I thought this car would be showing significant wear and be down on power at 80,000 miles, I'd have been looking for a better car. My car is quickly nearing 100,000 miles, and I wouldn't trade the enjoyment I've had in driving the car for every last one of those miles back. The car is still just as tight as it ever was. Honestly I can't wait for the motor to get tired, that's when it'll get a rebuild with all forged internals to handle more power.
LOL, the question was will letting the car sit a week at a time hurt it, not whether buying a second car was a good idea or not. My GT is a daily driver all year around, but I understand where the guy is coming from.
Sooooooooo, back to the OP's original question... nah, you will be fine, a week or even a couple of weeks is not a worry at all. Sometimes my '61 Thunderbird sits for months at a time and at the very worst needs a little gas in the carb. With the fuel injection of today's cars you don't have to worry about that. Nor do you have to worry about flat spots on the tires. Even today's replica bias-ply tires are made so well that my 'Bird can sit all winter and then some and still not have any tire issues... she rides just as smooth as when she got her new shoes in 2008. It's totally not an issue with modern tires. :bigthumbsup
PS Funny, I have no room for a third car unless I get a premit and add a parking pad next to the garage, but if I did I was thinking about either a retired Crown Vic Interceptor or a Focus. Before they globbed on all the trim in 2007 when they heavily facelifted the first gen cars I thought they were quite sharp, especially the hatches. Which model did you get?
Sooooooooo, back to the OP's original question... nah, you will be fine, a week or even a couple of weeks is not a worry at all. Sometimes my '61 Thunderbird sits for months at a time and at the very worst needs a little gas in the carb. With the fuel injection of today's cars you don't have to worry about that. Nor do you have to worry about flat spots on the tires. Even today's replica bias-ply tires are made so well that my 'Bird can sit all winter and then some and still not have any tire issues... she rides just as smooth as when she got her new shoes in 2008. It's totally not an issue with modern tires. :bigthumbsup
PS Funny, I have no room for a third car unless I get a premit and add a parking pad next to the garage, but if I did I was thinking about either a retired Crown Vic Interceptor or a Focus. Before they globbed on all the trim in 2007 when they heavily facelifted the first gen cars I thought they were quite sharp, especially the hatches. Which model did you get?
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It'll be fine, when I put my GT up for the winter it doesn't get started from when it's put away to when I get it out the next spring. I just bump the tire pressure to 40 psi and put the battery tender on it. I've got a Focus as well that I run on the crappy spring/summer/fall days and as a DD in the winter because my truck only gets 14 mpg, lol.
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i drive mine either on saturday or sunday to town. thats about it. i have another vehicle i drive everyday that the gas is paid for. i
have a battery tender on it during the week.
have a battery tender on it during the week.
yeah driving it weekly you will have no problem...even monthly. When I was at college, I would come home maybe once a month and my car, Dodge Neon at the time, we fine. Tires held up great and didnt have any issues starting....
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Yea. At least get something like a rusty old truck for a second vehicle. Then at least it adds a practical capability the mustang does not have.
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Thanks for all the responses. I only paid $6500 for the car and I save $60 a month in gas but if you think about what the IRS says is the cost per mile (I don't even know what that is now days) but it would even out probably over time pretty quick.
Scott, mine is a dark red metallic (aka maroon) ZX4. It has stone gray and black interior. 66k miles. Manual trans. 2.0l
Here is a picture :cooldude:
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My company car is a 2006 Ford Focus Wagon. 180,000 miles and still feels tight and drives great. The Focus is a great choice for a DD. I'm thinking my wagon will be good for at least 200,000 miles and probably will make it to 250,000. The weak link on Focus' is the automatic transmission. Your's with a stick eliminates that.
My Focus still has the original alternator, water pump and fuel pump. The only things done to it so far are brakes at 85,000 miles, tires, new spark plugs at 125,000 miles, a new fuel filter every 50k, 2 batteries, a serpentine belt, the funky electronic air filter was replaced at 30k and has worked fine ever since. Oh a couple fuel filters, and a half dozen radio antenna's. They break real easy in car washes.
I travel a good bit, plus have a whole fleet of vehicles and I'm the only driver.
Here are some of the main issues you will face. First you start to feel guilty if you are driving the Mustang for mundane tasks. Don't do that. Treat yourself on occaisons and take the Mustang to the grocery store just because. Maybe one or two days a month take it to work.
My cars will sit for 3 weeks sometimes without being driven or started. Things are just fine with that.
Never start the car and run it for a few minutes. If it's sitting and you start it, get it up to normal operating temperature, the oil and water, which takes at least 20 minutes. If you run it a short time and don't get it hot there will be acid build up in the oil from the moisture of condensation and that will cause problems.
I would worry more about the gears not being in lubrication from sitting than the engine. Make sure everytime you start it you drive it a little bit.
A DD is just about always a smart choice and investment.
My Focus still has the original alternator, water pump and fuel pump. The only things done to it so far are brakes at 85,000 miles, tires, new spark plugs at 125,000 miles, a new fuel filter every 50k, 2 batteries, a serpentine belt, the funky electronic air filter was replaced at 30k and has worked fine ever since. Oh a couple fuel filters, and a half dozen radio antenna's. They break real easy in car washes.
I travel a good bit, plus have a whole fleet of vehicles and I'm the only driver.
Here are some of the main issues you will face. First you start to feel guilty if you are driving the Mustang for mundane tasks. Don't do that. Treat yourself on occaisons and take the Mustang to the grocery store just because. Maybe one or two days a month take it to work.
My cars will sit for 3 weeks sometimes without being driven or started. Things are just fine with that.
Never start the car and run it for a few minutes. If it's sitting and you start it, get it up to normal operating temperature, the oil and water, which takes at least 20 minutes. If you run it a short time and don't get it hot there will be acid build up in the oil from the moisture of condensation and that will cause problems.
I would worry more about the gears not being in lubrication from sitting than the engine. Make sure everytime you start it you drive it a little bit.
A DD is just about always a smart choice and investment.
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