[alfa] Re: Milano in storage

[Will Owen <nashwill912@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Josh Smiley wrote:

"Subject: [alfa] re: Picking up a car in Buffalo, NY Storage is that bad?

"So you mean to tell me that a car that has been in storage like this
can be prone to having a few things rotted away or may need to have alot 
replaced?????"

Ho-ho-hoooooooo.....ESPECIALLY one that's been in storage. Depending on
how temperate (and humid) the climate of said storage might have been,
I'd give some thought to (for instance) anything made out of rubber or
flexible plastic, since a rubber suspension bushing (for instance) that
has inhabited a hot, dry showroom for a few years will probably have
transformed itself into a substance resembling balsa wood. Just go ahead
and ask me how I know... 

I would actually worry more about driving a Milano kept under such
conditions than a 105 car ditto ditto, simply because there are many
more heavily stressed soft parts involved: giubos, timing belt, lots
more fan belts and coolant hoses. Dry storage is not necessarily kind to
electrical systems, interior appointments, or even plastic body parts,
either. Not so much a question of things having rotted away, but simply
having become stiff with disuse.

I've bought several cars that had been pretty much retired from the
road, and it really is an awful lot like getting a stroke victim used to
walking again. The only one I subjected to a serious road trip was the
'64 Giulia Sprint GT that I bought - yes, from a showroom - in De Kalb,
Illinois, and after having installed seat belts I drove it (and my
wife!) to Nashville, Tennessee. Eventually. And damn good thing we had
friends in Chicago, Terre Haute and Evansville...

Will Owen
Pasadena, CA
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