Additional maintenance required for a vehicle that is hardly driven?

Greetings all,

I was just wondering what additional maintenance needs to be done on
vehicles that are hardly driven? I was just sitting here and thinking
about it and I believe I put 4,000 miles on one car and 3,000 miles on
the other car in one year's time.

On one vehicle, my Mustang, the miles were mostly long trips in excess
of 100 miles. On the other vehicle, my Civic, the miles were mostly
from short trips with an occasional 100+ mile trip. As the price of gas
went up, I left the Mustang at parked and started driving the 1997 Civic
more.

Regardless, I keep hearing that it is just as bad to not drive a car as
it is to drive a car and was wondering if I needed to do anything above
and beyond the regular maintenance that I perform on my cars now?

-Chris

 

Aside from the, "use it or lose it" aspect of things needing to be
lubricated now and then, you will need to keep the battery charged or it
will go south on you. I have a motorcycle that I rarely use. The battery
goes dead. I tried a trickle charger but it does more than trickle and ends
up cooking the fluid out of it. I bought a "battery maintainer" and have had
good luck with that.

 

WRT your Civic,you will find rubber seals drying out/becoming brittle from
lack of use. Rust will form on steel parts not kept lubricated by use and
then their abrasiveness will grind on other seals,making them fail sooner.

short trips don't "bake off" moisture that builds up in your oil,then you
get "mayonnaise" forming;a sort of white goop/sludge made of water and
oil.So,you need to change oil more frequently/use a synthetic oil,and drive
the car long enough to fully heat up the motor periodically.

brake fluid also absorbs water and then corrodes the cylinders and
pistons,making them more abrasive and wearing seals faster.

 

My sister had to replace the muffler in her 90 CRX at about 40K
because it was 15 years old and her average commute is about 15
minutes. Which agrees with you comments. She did do the oil every
4-5 months, but she did that herself, so it wasn't too pricey. But
the muffler rusted through.

 

Two years ago, I had to have the tail pipe on the 1997 Civic going to
the muffler replaced because it rusted through where it bent right
before the muffler. A local muffler shop just cut the rusted section,
fabricated a new section, and welded it in.

The funny thing, even with a hole in the pipe the size of a quarter, my
car still didn't make as much noise as those Civics with the fart cannon
exhausts.

 

But when the pipe that runs from the cat to the front of the car (sometimes
called the "A" pipe) goes bad, then it could get as noisy as a fart pipe.

 

the exhaust system on my 94 Integra GS-R lasted right up to when it was
stolen last year.(Florida...)

 

How many miles did it have on it? If you drive it, you don't have
those sorts of problems. But when the driving consists of start it
up, drive 3 miles and park it, then condensation becomes an issue.