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Everything You Need to Know About Preparing Your Vehicle for Long-term Storage

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Everything You Need to Know About Preparing Your Vehicle for Long-term Storage

Almost every car owner sooner or later finds themselves in a situation where they need to store their vehicle long-term. The reasons for this can vary from one person to another, ranging from a long-distance vacation or unwillingness to drive a car during the winter months.

Unluckily, it’s not uncommon for a car to not start immediately after an extended downtime period. The reason behind this most frequently are inappropriate conditions and a lack of proper preparation of a car for long-term storage. If you’re going to leave your vehicle for storage anytime soon, this article is for you!

Below, you will find the essential information about preparing your garage, as well as your car and its interior, for long-term storage so that you can avoid any negative consequences later on. Check it out!

Preparing the Garage

The most optimal option for long-term car storage is the garage. However, not all garages meet ideal storage conditions. For example, in insufficiently insulated garages, the temperature is far from optimal. Or questions like polyurea vs epoxy floor coating start to come up when choosing the correct flooring option. However, if the car has good corrosion protection and qualitative paint and varnish coating, it can endure even harsher conditions – for example, being stored in a tent or at an outdoor parking lot that you can find on Parkhound.

Before you can store your vehicle in a garage, you need to thoroughly sweep, wash and dry the floors, and put dry wooden boards or bricks under the wheels. Avoid hanging the car on metal structures, as the body can deform from a prolonged static load.

It is also advisable to provide good ventilation in the garage. Windows can be left ajar if you are sure that there are no rodents in the garage, as even one tiny mouse can make a big mess by eating PVC insulation or fabric.

On the other hand, it is crucial to ensure that your garage door functions properly and no stranger will get inside. If you notice any malfunctions, make sure to contact the nearest emergency garage door service.

General Rules to Follow When Prepping the Vehicle

Before long-term storage, you need to wash your car well. If there are places on the car’s body where the paint is damaged, they need to be taken care of. If possible, it is recommended to apply some wax-based preservative composition to these spots to preserve the paint and prevent corrosion.

After that, you need to unscrew the spark plugs, pour a small amount of engine oil into each cylinder with a syringe, scroll the crankshaft 3-5 times, and screw the spark plugs back in. Next, it is necessary to drain all liquids that can freeze, such as liquid from the windshield washer tank or an old antifreeze.

It is necessary to make sure that the position of the machine is stable, without distortions. At the same time, it is desirable to reduce the tire pressure to 0.5 kg/cm. You can also plug the air filter hole and the exhaust pipe with an oiled piece of cloth to prevent rust.

It is widely believed that when preparing a vehicle for long-term storage, the battery must be removed and stored in a dry and warm place. However, if there are appropriate conditions in the garage – the area is well-ventilated, dry and dark, humidity is around 50-70%, and the temperature is not lower than 5 degrees Celsius – it is okay not to remove the battery.

Nevertheless, you should also take into account the probability of battery discharge, as a connected battery will continue to consume current (e.g., to power the car alarm) – and after a certain period of time, it will discharge. So, if you plan to leave the car for storage for a very long time, it would be better to remove the battery.

There are also different opinions related to covering a vehicle with some sort of cover to protect the engine from dust. If you decide to cover it, you need to make sure that the cover is moisture permeable, as the moisture will condense on the surface of the car body, provoking rust to appear or deteriorating the paint. In order to make the right choice, you need to take into account the conditions in the garage and the overall duration of the car storage.

Taking Care of the Car Interior

When preparing a vehicle for long-term storage, most car owners pay attention to the car’s body, neglecting its interior. That is quite a big mistake, as the car interior is the space that suffers most from the absence of a driver. Without proper ventilation, mold spores quickly spread, and strange odors and stains begin to appear in a closed, damp space.

In order to avoid problems with mold, it is recommended to treat the car interior with antiseptics and deodorizing agents. You can also leave a diffuser with essential oils to prevent the appearance of a musty smell.

It is also essential to protect the plastic elements inside the car, as they can become too brittle and crack in low temperatures. Because of that, it is advisable to wipe all plastic surfaces with a cloth with silicone lubricant. Make sure the car’s floor is dried well, too, and roll up the mats and place them vertically in the trunk, as moisture can accumulate under them.

Lastly, it would be best to remove the audio system, recorder, and other electronics and take them into the house to secure such sensitive devices from moisture and cold.

Checking Up on Your Vehicle

To ensure that your car is safe and properly stored, it would be best if you checked up on it occasionally – about once every two months. When doing so, make sure to perform some simple actions – start the engine, turn the steering wheel in both directions, activate the handbrake and brake pedal several times, and thoroughly squeeze the clutch a couple of times.

In Conclusion

As you can see, allocating enough time to thoroughly prepare your vehicle for long-term storage is essential. It allows you to minimize potential malfunctions and other negative consequences, such as mold and musty odors, which might end up appearing in your car during the downtime period.

Before storing your car, you will need to ensure that your garage has appropriate storage conditions and then take care of your car’s body as well as its interior to protect them from moisture and rodents, among other things. Other than that, remember to check up on your car periodically to ensure that it’s safe and functions normally. Good luck!

Albums Out Today: ABBA, Snail Mail, Nation of Language, Emma Ruth Rundle, and More

Konstantinos Pappis
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Albums Out Today: ABBA, Snail Mail, Nation of Language, Emma Ruth Rundle, and More

In this segment, we showcase the most notable albums out each week. Here are the albums out on November 5, 2021:

ABBA, Voyage

ABBA are back with their first album in 40 years. Voyage, the Swedish pop icons’ first LP since 1981’s The Visitors, was previewed with the singles ‘I Still Have Faith in You’, ‘Don’t Shut Me Down’, and ‘Just a Notion’. “Such joy it was to work with the group again – I am so happy with what we have made,” Anni-Frid Lyngstad said of ABBA’s reunion. Agnetha Fältskog added, “When we got back together in the studio I had no idea what to expect… But Benny [Andersson]’s recording studio is such a friendly and safe environment, and before I knew it I was really enjoying myself! I can hardly believe that finally, the moment has come to share this with the world!” Andersson commented: “We’re truly sailing in uncharted waters. With the help of our younger selves, we travel into the future.”

Snail Mail, Valentine

Snail Mail has returned with her sophomore album, Valentine, out today via Matador. The follow-up to 2018’s Lush was written and produced by Lindsey Jordan and co-produced with Brad Cook (Bon Iver, Waxahatchee) between 2019 and 2020. “I wanted to take as much time as possible with this record to make sure I was happy with every detail before unleashing it unto y’all,” Jordan said in a statement. “Referring to the process as the deepest level of catharsis and therapy I have ever experienced would be a huge understatement. Valentine is my child!” The 10-track LP includes the previously released songs ‘Madonna’, ‘Ben Franklin’, and the title track.

Nation of Language, A Way Forward

Nation of Language – the Brooklyn-based synth-pop trio of Ian Devaney, Aidan Noell, and Michael Sue-Poi – have followed up their 2020 debut Introduction, Presence with the new album A Way Forward. Preceded by the singles ‘The Grey Commute’, ‘A Word & A Wave’, ‘Across That Fine Line’, ‘Wounds of Love’, and ‘This Fractured Mind’, the album “is an exploration of the band’s relationship to the music of the ’70s, through the lenses of Krautrock and early electronic music,” Devaney said in press materials. “We aimed to more deeply trace the roots of our sound, hoping to learn something from the early influences of our early influences. Experimenting with how they might be reinterpreted in our modern context—looking further backward to find a way forward.”

Emma Ruth Rundle, Engine of Hell

Emma Ruth Rundle has released her latest album, Engine of Hell, via Sargent House. “Here are some very personal songs; here are my memories; here is me teetering on the very edge of sanity dipping my toe into the outer reaches of space and I’m taking you with me and it’s very f****d up and imperfect,” Rundle said of the new album in a statement, adding: “For me this album is the end of an era to the end of a decade of making records. Things DO have to change and have changed for me since I finished recording it.” The LP features the previously released tracks ‘Return’ and ‘Blooms of Oblivion’.

Hana Vu, Public Storage

Los Angeles-based artist Hana Vu has put out a new album, Public Storage, her first for Ghostly International. Following a series of EPs on Luminelle, the record was co-produced by Jackson Phillips and features the previously shared singles ‘Gutter’, ‘Maker’, ‘Everybody’s Birthday’, and ‘Keeper’. In a press release, Vu described the record as “very invasive and intense sounding music,” adding: “I am not religious, but when writing these songs I imagined a sort of desolate character crying out to an ultimately punitive force for something more.

Aimee Mann, Queens of the Summer Hotel

Aimee Mann has shared her new album Queens of the Summer Hotel, a collection of 15 songs inspired by Susannah Kaysen’s book Girl, Interrupted. Mann revealed three years ago that she was writing the songs for a planned stage adaptation of the 1993 memoir, which she completed before the pandemic. “The book is episodic, with event and character sketches — the story doesn’t make itself obvious — so I thought about what a certain character might sing, or which episodes might culminate in a song,” Mann said of her writing process in an interview with the LA Times. “I found it very liberating. I felt like I could do anything.”

Terrace Martin, Drones

After announcing it earlier this week, Terrace Martin has issued a new LP called Drones (via Sounds of Crenshaw/BMG). The album features collaborations with Kendrick Lamar, Kamasi Washington, Snoop Dogg, YG, Ty Dolla $ign, Leon Bridges, Channel Tres, Robert Glasper, Cordae, James Fauntleroy, Smino, Hit-Boy, and more. “There are touches of R&B, touches of jazz, touches of hip-hop, touches of classical, Cuban music, West African music, house music,” Martin said of Drones in a press statement. “You’re going to hear all elements of Black music within this record. It’s not one element I can leave out if I call myself a true Black artist.”

Penelope Isles, Which Way to Happy

Which Way to Happy is the sophomore outing from Penelope Isles, the Brighton duo of siblings Lily and Jack Wolter. They began writing and recording the follow-up to 2019’s Until the Tide Creeps In in a small cottage in Cornwall when the pandemic hit. As Jack explained in press materials, “We were there for about two or three months, ultimately. It was a tiny cottage and we all went a bit bonkers, and we drank far too much, and it spiralled a bit out of control. There were a lot of emotional evenings and realisations, which I think reflects in the songs. Writing and recording new music was a huge part of the recovery process for all of us.” Out now via Bella Union, the record includes the promotional singles ‘Terrified‘, ‘Sailing Still’, ‘Iced Gems’, and ‘Sudoku’.

Tasha, Tell Me What You Miss the Most

Tasha has released her sophomore album, Tell Me What You Miss the Most, out now via Father/Daughter Records. The follow-up to the Chicago-based artist’s 2018 debut Alone at Last includes the previously released songs ‘Bed Song 1’, ‘Lake Superior’, ‘Sorry’s Not Enough’, and ‘Perfect Wife’. “When I made Alone at Last, I had only been writing songs for two years. I hardly even knew what kind of song writer I was,” Tasha said in a statement. “But this record feels much stronger as far as a representation of my songwriter and musicianship. I did feel like I was piloting it in a way that I haven’t really felt before.”

Portrayal of Guilt, CHRISTFUCKER

Portrayal of Guilt have dropped CHRISTFUCKER, their second LP of the year following January’s We Are Always Alone. Out now via Run For Cover Records, the album features the previously unveiled tracks ‘Possession’ and ‘…where the suffering never ends’. “We think of it partially in the sense of scoring a horror movie,” guitarist/vocalist Matt King said of the new record in a statement. “We wanted to create an atmosphere of anxiety and fear.”

Other albums out today:

Dijon, Absolutely; Aminé, TWOPOINTFIVE; Wendy Eisenberg, Bent Ring; Summer Walker, Still Over It; Hard Feelings, Hard Feelings; Parcels, Day/Night; Sitcom, Smoothie; Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats, The Future; Ben Chasny, The Intimate Landscape.

Silk Sonic Share Video for New Song ‘Smokin Out the Window’

Konstantinos Pappis
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Silk Sonic Share Video for New Song ‘Smokin Out the Window’

Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak have shared another single from their upcoming Silk Sonic debut. ‘Smokin Out the Window’ arrives with an accompanying retro music video, which you can check out below.

‘Smokin Out the Window’ is the third single from An Evening With Silk Sonic, following the previously released tracks ‘Skate’ and ‘Leave the Door Open’. The album, which features Bootsy Collins as a “guest host”, is set to come out on November 12.

Post Malone and the Weeknd Join Forces for New Song ‘One Right Now’

Konstantinos Pappis
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Post Malone and the Weeknd Join Forces for New Song ‘One Right Now’

Post Malone and the Weeknd have teamed up for a new single called ‘One Right Now’. It marks the first-ever collaboration between the two artists, and it’s the first preview of Posty’s upcoming studio album. Give a listen to ‘One Right Now’ below.

Post Malone released first solo single of 2021, ‘Motley Crew’, in July. His third album, Hollywood’s Bleeding, arrived in 2019. According to press materials, his next LP is “coming soon.”

The Weeknd dropped his single ‘Take My Breath’ in early August. More recently, he joined Swedish House Mafia on the track ‘Moth to a Flame’.

 

Album Review: Marissa Nadler, ‘The Path of the Clouds’

Konstantinos Pappis
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Album Review: Marissa Nadler, ‘The Path of the Clouds’

Much can be said about the explosion of the true crime genre over the past few years, but perhaps more disquieting than the stories themselves is what our fascination with them reveals about – and how it can affect – the human brain. With a tendency to prioritize fear over empathy and sensational taglines over facts, it’s an overwhelmingly conservative way of approaching not only the narrative form but the world in general. They get us hooked on paranoia and anxiety by framing them as the only rational pathway to survival, as if the only possible way to avoid danger is to disappear yourself – to obsess over trauma and scrutinize the minutiae of day-to-day life until it no longer feels like your own. Seeing as the pandemic robbed us of any semblance of normality, it’s no surprise true crime documentaries, which have always straddled the line between reality and fiction, were more popular than ever last year.

It was during lockdown that Marissa Nadler, the prolific songwriter who has spent the last 20 years developing her haunting style of dream folk, found herself watching Unsolved Mysteries, the documentary series that began in 1987 and ran for almost as many years before being rebooted as a Netflix show in 2020. Nadler may have delved into the series as a way of warding off writer’s block, but though these kinds of stories bear more than a passing resemblance to the ones she has told throughout her career, the artist does more than coldly relay them on her latest album, The Path of the Clouds. Instead, she uses them as inspiration in ways that are compelling and personal, disclosing her own relationship with the truths they convey. She neither subverts nor stays incredibly close to the narrative formula, but her framing is often subtly interesting and evocative. Opener ‘Bessie Did You Make It’, for instance, revolves around the disappearance of wilderness explorers Bessie and Glen Hyde, but recenters it as a tale of female resilience.

But though the song suggests a particular ending, it’s the titular question that echoes long after it stops playing. The mystery is what drives these songs more than the actual crime, which gives Nadler room to explore and adjust her focus as a writer. ‘Well Sometimes You Just Can’t Stay’ follows a similar line of inquiry as ‘Bessie Did You Make It’, pondering on the fate of the only successful escapees from Alcatraz – but though it starts off with a list of specifics, it ultimately lands on an emotionally ambiguous and intriguing note: “Well, you knew that you couldn’t stay,” she sings, her pensiveness transferring the song into the realm of the personal. The title track is about the infamous plane hijacker D.B. Cooper, but it mostly foregoes details in search of a poetic view of the story. “I’m lying awake thinking ‘bout the mess I made/ Did those memories fade?” she sings, and it’s like hearing her mind wander while watching an episode of the show, her conscience fading in and out.

Taking this approach to its natural conclusion, the majority of the songs on The Path of the Clouds don’t necessarily point to a particular set of events. They offer abstract meditations that are either so removed from or immersed in their original inspiration that revealing it would detract from their ambiguous, dreamlike resonance, the way it oscillates between factual and elegiac storytelling. If some of these songs could be read as allegories about love and personal transformation, however, Nadler brilliantly employs the internalized language of crime in a way that is both imaginative and powerful: “Leave your weapons at the door/ You don’t need them, you don’t need them/ Cause I’m not your killer anymore,” she declares on ‘Couldn’t Do the Killing’.

To reflect this liminal state of mind, Nadler experimented with new ways of constructing and bringing her music to life. She composed many of the songs on The Path of the Clouds, her first self-produced album, on piano, an instrument she learned during lockdown, and her process feels both intuitive and intentional as a result. More thrilling, though, is her decision to take the songs in a more cinematic direction, enlisting the likes of Cocteau Twins bassist Simon Raymonde, harpist Mary Lattimore, singer-songwriter Emma Ruth Rundle, and multi-instrumentalist Milky Burgess to add both texture and tension to the already immersive arrangements.

“Some freak storm drenched everything,” Nadler sings at one point, and some of the sounds here can feel like remnants of the past, like Amber Webber’s distant, mournful vocals and Lattimore’s shimmering harp on ‘Elegy’. Others are more like the storm itself, creating an ominous and oppressive atmosphere, like the distorted guitars and feedback Seth Manchester contributed to the mix. Nadler uses her new sonic tools to occasionally gesture at a sweeping transcendence, but there’s still a hazy quality to the music that feels apt, reserved for things that are lost to time but whose shadow one can never escape, not even when refashioned as entertainment. “I wish that I knew/ The shadow of gloom/ Is everywhere,” she continues, the proof all around her voice. “I hope it can’t find me here.”

Charli XCX Announces New Album ‘CRASH’, Enlists Christine and the Queens and Caroline Polachek for New Song

Konstantinos Pappis
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Charli XCX Announces New Album ‘CRASH’, Enlists Christine and the Queens and Caroline Polachek for New Song

Charli XCX has announced her new album, CRASH, with a new single featuring Christine and the Queens and Caroline Polachek. ‘New Shapes’ was produced by Deaton Chris Anthony and Linus Wiklund. Give it a listen below.

The follow-up to last year’s how i’m feeling now is set to arrive on March 18, 2022. The record features contributions from Rina Sawayama, Oneohtrix Point Never, A. G. Cook, the 1975’s George Daniel, Justin Raisen, and more. ‘New Shapes’ follows her September single ‘Good Ones’, as well as collaborations with Saweetie, Joel Corry, and Jax Jones (‘Out Out’), the 1975 and No Rome (‘Spinning’), and ELIO (the ‘Charger’ remix).

In addition to the album news, Charli XCX has also announced a North American and European tour; find the full list of dates here.

Christian Lee Hutson Releases Video for New Song ‘Strawberry Lemonade’

Konstantinos Pappis
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Christian Lee Hutson Releases Video for New Song ‘Strawberry Lemonade’

Christian Lee Hutson has shared a new song called ‘Strawberry Lemonade’, which was produced by frequent collaborator Phoebe Bridgers and her Better Oblivion Community Center bandmate Conor Oberst. The track also features Bright Eyes’ Nate Walcott on piano and trumpet, Hand Habits’ Meg Duffy on electric guitar, and Oberst and Sharon Silva on backup vocals. It arrives with an accompanying music video directed by Waley Wang. Watch and listen below.

“‘Strawberry Lemonade’ is a series of vignettes about memory, letting go and holding on,” Hutson explained in a statement. “I remember talking to a friend, around the time that I wrote it, about the relentless repackaging of 1960’s culture; so some of that ended up in there. The laugh at the beginning of the song is my friend Harry who plays bass on the song.”

Hutson’s debut album, Beginners, arrived in 2020. Earlier this year, Hutson released a series of covers EPs.

Charlotte Adigéry & Bolis Pupul Announce Debut Album ‘Topical Dancer’, Share New Song ‘Blenda’

Konstantinos Pappis
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Charlotte Adigéry & Bolis Pupul Announce Debut Album ‘Topical Dancer’, Share New Song ‘Blenda’

The Belgium-based duo of Charlotte Adigéry & Bolis Pupul have announced their debut album, Topical Dancer, which is out March 4, 2022. It will be released via Deewee, the label run by Soulwax, who co-wrote and co-produced the LP. Along with the announcement, they’ve shared a new song called ‘Blenda’, the follow-up to September’s ‘Thank You’. Check out its accompanying video below.

‘Blenda’ was partly inspired by Reni Eddo-Lodge’s book Why I’m Not Longer Talking To White People About Race. In a press release, Adigéry explains that the song references how “I am a product of colonialism and I feel guilty for taking up space in a white country,” continuing: “It talks about the colonial past and post-colonial present in the UK, but that isn’t merely a British or American problem, Belgium is part of that as well.” Her home country, she said,  is similarly “oblivious to a big part of its history,” resulting “in general ignorance and a lack of understanding and empathy towards Belgian inhabitants of immigrant descent.”

Of the album, Adigéry added: “I don’t want to feel this heaviness on me. These aren’t my crosses to bear. Topical Dancer is my way of freeing myself of these issues. And of having fun.”

Topical Dancer Cover Artwork:

Topical Dancer Tracklist:

1. Bel DEEWEE
2. Esperanto
3. Blenda
4. Hey
5. It Hit Me
6. Ich Mwen (with Christiane Adigéry)
7. Reappropriate
8. Ceci n’est pas un cliché
9. Huile Smisse
10. Mantra
11. Making Sense Stop
12. HAHA
13. Thank You

Robert Plant and Alison Krauss Cover Bert Jansch’s ‘It Don’t Bother Me’

Konstantinos Pappis
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Robert Plant and Alison Krauss Cover Bert Jansch’s ‘It Don’t Bother Me’

Robert Plant and Alison Krauss have shared a cover of Scottish folk singer Bert Jansch’s ‘It Don’t Bother Me’, the latest preview of their forthcoming collaborative album Raise the Roof. Check it out below.

“I’ve been a big follower of Bert Jansch’s work since I was a teenager, and of that whole Irish, Scottish, English folk style that has a different lilt and different lyrical perspective,” Plant said of his and Krauss’ cover in a statement. “I was very keen to bring some of that into the picture.”

Raise the Roof, the follow-up to 2007’s Grammy-winning Raising Sand, is due for release on November 19 via Rounder Records. It includes the duo’s previously released take on Lucinda Williams’ ‘Can’t Let Go’, as well as the original ‘High and Lonesome’.

Nils Frahm Announces New Album ‘Old Friends New Friends’, Releases New Single

Konstantinos Pappis
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Nils Frahm Announces New Album ‘Old Friends New Friends’, Releases New Single

Nils Frahm has announced a new double album titled Old Friends New Friends. It’s set for release on December 3 via Leiter, the label he formed with his manager, Felix Grimm. Hear the new single ‘All Numbers End’ below, and scroll down for the LP’s cover art and tracklist.

Old Friends New Friends is a collection of 23 solo piano tracks recorded between 2009 and 2021, which Frahm pieced together during the pandemic. According to Frahm, it offers “an anatomy of all my ways of thinking musically and playing” as well as “a different spectrum of freedom for me.” He continued:

I forgot that some tracks are ten years old, some two, and they’re all played on different pianos. Instead I remembered how, as a fan, I love albums like this. With a lot of my records there’s a point where you feel, ‘This is the centrepiece,’ but here I wasn’t really worrying about that. It still feels like my universe, though, and I’m proud that all these things which I never found a way to unite before now work together. It’s like I tossed flowers indiscriminately into a vase and then realised it looked exactly right.

Nils Frahm’s last release was a collaborative album with F.S. Blumm, 2X1=4, which came out in September.

Old Friends New Friends Cover Artwork:

Old Friends New Friends Tracklist:

1. 4:33 (A Tribute to John Cage)
2. Late
3. Berduxa
4. Rain Take
5. Todo Nada
6. Weddinger Walzer
7. In the Making
8. Further in the Making
9. All the Numbers
10. The Idea Machine
11. Then Patterns
12. Corn
13. New Friend
14. Nilds Has a New Piano
15. Acting
16. As a Reminder
17. Iced Wood
18. Strickleiter
19. The Chords
20. The Chords Broken Down
21. Forgetmenot
22. Restive
23. Old Friend

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