Tuesday, July 3, 2018

The E46 Sleeps

As I mentioned on my E36 blog I have long had plans to retire the E36 from its status as my daily driver. The first step was to find a new place for E46 to live so the E36 could take its place in my garage.

I researched a bunch of storage facilities, including one dedicated to storing cars. The first thing I learned is that the generic storage facilities on every corner around here did not have any electrical power in the bays big enough to house a vehicle, which meant I could not plug in a battery charger. Since I didn't want to be put in the position of having to lug a battery back and forth to the car when I wanted to take it out for a drive that meant the most common storage facilities were not an option.

The owner of the dedicated vehicle storage facility about 15 minutes from me provided two quotes, the first of which permitted "limited access" of roughly 4 times a month with 48 hours notice, while the second restricted access for the entire term of the lease. Worse, the owner could not guarantee me that the vehicle would be left alone for the entire term should I decide to select that option. I reminded him that the very worst thing he could do to the engine of a low-utilization vehicle would be to start it for a few minutes and then shut it off, without it getting to operating temperature to boil off the water that would naturally condense in the oil, but he didn't seem to care.

Frustrated, I contacted my brother and proposed that we keep the money in the family and that I pay him to store the E46 in his new garage. Seeing the opportunity to use that money to offset the costs of heating and cooling the garage, he agreed, and this week I moved the car into the new garage. It now sits perched atop one of the four post lifts with its Covercraft cover installed to protect the finish. And there it will remain until I move somewhere with reasonably-priced real estate and a two (or more) car garage, hopefully around two years from now.

Naturally, while the E46 sleeps, so will this blog. Bye for now!

Mileage: 24100