Winter storage and lay-up

An E-Type stored badly for five months emerges with flat-spotted or aged tyres, a dead battery, stale fuel and fresh corrosion in the brake hydraulics. The same car stored well needs an hour's recommissioning and nothing more. The difference is a short list of jobs done before the cover goes on.

The four things that matter

• Fuel. Fill the tank to reduce the air space where condensation forms, and either drain the carburettor float chambers or run the engine periodically to use the fuel while it is fresh. Modern ethanol-blended fuel stored for months is harder on a system than fuel being used weekly.
• Moisture. Store the car dry, and keep it dry: a breathable cover, ventilation and a garage that does not sweat. Moisture, not cold, is what corrodes brake cylinders, brightwork and the insides of sills.
• Tyres. Keep them at pressure and either move the car occasionally or take the weight off them. Modern radials tolerate storage better than crossplies, but months on one contact patch helps neither.
• The battery. Remove it or connect an intelligent maintenance charger. A battery left to self-discharge through winter will be sulphated and diminished by spring.

What not to do

Starting the engine for a few minutes every fortnight and switching it off cold does more harm than good: it fills the exhaust and oil with condensation and never reaches the temperature that would boil it off again. Either run the car properly, up to full temperature, or leave it alone.

The rest of the list

Clean the car before covering it, since dirt holds moisture against paint. Leave the handbrake off with the wheels chocked so the rear mechanism cannot stick. Note anything the car was telling you in the autumn, because spring recommissioning is the cheapest time to deal with it.

Mice, rats and a stored car

A car that stands in a garage from October to March is, from a mouse's point of view, a warm dry nest box with its own food store and bedding. The engine bay holds heat for hours after the last run, the air filter box and the silencer are sheltered tubes, and the seat foam, carpet underfelt and hood lining are nesting material. House mice can get through a gap of 5 to 6 mm, about the diameter of a pencil, so an ordinary up-and-over door with daylight under it is no barrier at all.

The damage they do

The expensive item is the wiring loom. Rodents' front teeth grow continuously and they gnaw to wear them down, and wiring insulation, fuel hose, rubber trunking and sound-deadening felt are all chewed. A loom that has been chewed in several places is a rewire, and a chewed fuel hose on a petrol car is a fire risk. Nests in the air filter box and the exhaust tailpipe are found when the car will not start or runs badly in spring. Carpets, seats and door trims are shredded for bedding, and the smell of a mouse that has died in the heater box or under the carpet takes a long time to clear.

On an E-Type the air cleaner is a large canister feeding a plenum on the carburettors through a long trunk, which is a ready-made nest, and the bonnet, when closed, encloses the whole engine bay and keeps it warm. The forward hinged bonnet can be left open in a secure garage with no harm, which is the easiest precaution on this car. Check the boot floor round the spare wheel, under the rear seat pan on the 2+2, and the heater box. A Series 1 loom is expensive to replace, so look at it with a torch every fortnight.

Two further points worth knowing. Insurers commonly treat rodent damage as damage that happened gradually, which most motor policies exclude, and a UK Financial Ombudsman decision in 2018 did not uphold a complaint against Aviva, which had refused a claim for chewed engine wiring on exactly those grounds. And the story that modern soy-based wiring insulation attracts rodents is unproven; a US court dismissed a class action against Toyota on the point in 2018 because the owners could not show a defect, and Toyota said it knew of no scientific evidence that rodents are attracted to soy-based insulation. There is no reason to think an old loom is any safer than a new one.

What works

Keep them out of the building first. Seal gaps round pipes, cables and door frames with wire wool packed in and covered with filler or mortar, since mice will chew through foam, plastic and wood but not steel wool. Fit a brush strip or a rubber seal to the bottom of the garage door. Keep the floor clear, keep bird seed, pet food and lawn seed in metal or heavy plastic bins with lids, and do not leave bags of anything edible, including grass seed and bulbs, in the same building as the car.

Then make the car itself unwelcoming. Clean out every crumb before lay-up and leave nothing edible inside. Close the windows fully, or if you leave them cracked for ventilation, cover the gap with fine mesh. Bung the exhaust tailpipe and the air intake with a rag or a rubber bung, and hang a large label on the steering wheel saying so, because a forgotten exhaust bung is a classic spring mistake. Leave the bonnet up if the garage is secure: a cold, open engine bay is less attractive than a warm enclosed one, and you can see what is happening.

Set traps and check them. Conventional snap traps baited with peanut butter or chocolate, set against walls where mice run, are cheap and reliable, and a trap that has caught nothing in a month is useful information in itself. Check them weekly along with the car, and look for the signs: droppings the size of a grain of rice, shredded paper or felt, gnaw marks, and a musky smell. A fortnightly walk round the car with a torch, looking in the air filter box, under the scuttle, in the boot and under the seats, catches a problem while it is still one nest and not a rewire.

What is unproven

Ultrasonic repellers are widely sold and the evidence is mixed: one published single-house trial found fewer mice caught while a unit was running, but the general view of research bodies and pest control advisers is that rodents get used to the sound within days and that the devices are not a substitute for proofing and traps. Peppermint oil, dryer sheets, mothballs and cat hair are all repeated on forums; none has good evidence behind it, and naphthalene mothballs have not been legal to sell in the UK since 2008. By all means use them, but not instead of the measures above.

Poison

Rodenticide is a last resort. It is sold to the public only in small packs for use in and around buildings, it must be kept where pets and children cannot reach it, and a poisoned mouse often dies somewhere in the car, which is the smell problem again. If you have an established infestation rather than a single visitor, a professional pest controller is a better call than more bait.

Glue traps are banned for the public across Great Britain: in Wales since 17 October 2023, in England since 31 July 2024, where only licensed professional pest controllers may use them, and in Scotland since 1 July 2026, where sale and possession are banned as well. In England and Wales they are still on sale, which is not the same as being legal to use.

In spring

Before the first start, take the air filter off and look inside the box, lift the carpets and check under the scuttle and round the fuse box and loom for chewed insulation and nesting. Remove the bungs. If you find chewed wiring, trace it fully before switching on; a short to earth is cheaper to find with a meter than with a fuse.

Short version

Seal the garage with steel wool and a door strip, store nothing edible in it, bung the exhaust and intake and label the car, set snap traps and check them and the car every week or two, and treat ultrasonic devices and peppermint as extras rather than a plan.

Common questions