I am going to be out of town for a month and my 2007 Mini will not be run for that entire period. Should I be worried about any gaskets or seals drying up and subsequently causing the car to develo oil leaks?

Steve Hawkins
Boulder CO

 

i let my old MINI (04' MCS) go for 3 months and it started up fine. don't know if climate plays a role, I'm in Florida.

 

You will be fine & so will your MINI. If I lived closer to you I'd offer to come over & exercise your MINI for ya.

 

Only thing to worry about is possibly the battery but I too have let my car sit for 6 weeks and it started right up.

 

No problems with the seals and such.....but you might want to put the battery on a trickle charge if it gets cold.

 

Lift the negative lead on the battery and everything will be fine. Dont close the bonnet as you will need to access the battery to reland the lead as you need power to open the doors.

 

Don't put a trickle charger on unless it is one that will shut off when the battery has a full charge. Otherwise you risk over charging your battery. At best it will boil the fluid out of the battery at worst it will burn your car down.

A battery tender that has a float mode is what you need. For the length of time you will be gone I would not worry about the battery. Pull the negative cable if you'd like.

 

That's a very short period of time on a pretty new car. There shouldn't be any reason that you should worry about anything, seals or otherwise. A month sitting shouldn't drain your battery, either, even in the bitter cold, unless the battery is getting close to dead already.

Rest easy.

 

Absolutley correct. Your Mini will be peachy king. I leave my Mazda 3 for at times 3 months at a time and never do anything except check the tire pressure before firing up the car and driving off.

Regards,

Pat