Recover Tesla in garage at night during winter

[Matteo Pedalà]

Hi,
I have a M3 RWD and it’s going to be my first winter with it. I live in the Montreal area so temperature gets very low and roads are full of crap during winter time. I know what I am asking is applicable to all cars but what would you suggest about my question? Should I recover the car in the garage at night? My worries is the salt and chemical products melting in the higher temperatures in my garage and provoking damages of any kind. Any suggestions? Thanks for your answers

 

[SalisburySam]

How will covering your car change the temperature of your garage? Lots of Teslas in Montreal and other cold weather areas. Perhaps just washing the vehicle more often is a better approach?

 

[GtiMart]

I'm not sure what you mean by "recover"... Yes, parking a car in a garage in winter, after having driving in snow and slush and salt means that snow will melt and the car will get wet. If you can, install a dehumidifier in your garage to reduce the humidity percentage. This does apply to all cars, not just Teslas. The alternative is to leave the car outside in the freezing cold. I'm not sure which is worse... do what makes sense for you.

 

[Shelburne]

I park my Tesla outdoors. We don't have a garage. In sub freezing weather the salt on your car will not react with the metal surfaces. Instead it just sits there. My strategy is to take the car to a car wash only when the temperature is above freezing, and then only about once a week. My 16 year old Volvo with 183,000 miles on it shows no signs of rust and it's never been garaged. I have a friend with a heated garage. Back during the financial crisis, to save money, he turned off the heat in his garage. His heating bill dropped by nearly $700 yearly. I've often wondered why anyone would heat their garage anyway. Most of the stuff people keep in their garages won't suffer due to low temperatures. Lower your carbon footprint and turn off the heat in your garage. It'll save you money and maybe even slow down the development of rust on your car.

 

[GtiMart]

Each case is different so people might do different things. My garage is well insulated and I have tools in there, a computer, I train on my bike in winter etc. As such, I heat my garage to 12C and have a dehumidifier to keep that in check. My tools don't rust and my cars have not had augmented rusting. Cleaning the car is beneficial whatever option you choose.

 

[EatsShoots]

Put it in the garage because nothing beats getting into a car not covered in snow or packed-on frost. This is more valuable than any potential rust inhibition by keeping it outside where lower temps could slow chem reactions, IMO.

Wash the car if you like how it looks; I remain completely unconvinced it will do anything to ward off rust of the parts on cars that actually rust from salt--those parts are always under the car, behind wheels, behind body panels, etc. Your car will be covered in salt again in no time anyway.

 

[Heckraiser]

I'm not scraping the car off in the morning, so it lives in the garage. End of story.

My 2019 does have some rust on the undercarriage, but nothing I can't live with. I wash the car infrequently and any public carwash's "undercarriage spray" is pretty suspect anyway. The tesla's abundance of aluminum parts helps. I did have a seized bolt that the impact gun couldn't loosen when i was working on my suspension last winter, but my hobby is old Land Cruisers, so very familiar territory. Out came the torch and BFH, and out came the bolt!

 

[EatsShoots]

I'm not scraping the car off in the morning, so it lives in the garage. End of story.

My 2019 does have some rust on the undercarriage, but nothing I can't live with. I wash the car infrequently and any public carwash's "undercarriage spray" is pretty suspect anyway. The tesla's abundance of aluminum parts helps. I did have a seized bolt that the impact gun couldn't loosen when i was working on my suspension last winter, but my hobby is old Land Cruisers, so very familiar territory. Out came the torch and BFH, and out came the bolt!

Stuck bolts are one of the reasons I started moving away from working on my own cars some years ago after first living in the south (north now). After a few years everything is locked into place. Hell, I had wheels on a two year old volvo that I could not detach from the hub. I've never even seen that--I was hitting the back of them with a sledge hammer and they still wouldn't pop off. Eventually I decided I'd rather have the mechanic deal with it.

 

[father_of_6]

Stuck bolts are one of the reasons I started moving away from working on my own cars some years ago after first living in the south (north now). After a few years everything is locked into place. Hell, I had wheels on a two year old volvo that I could not detach from the hub. I've never even seen that--I was hitting the back of them with a sledge hammer and they still wouldn't pop off. Eventually I decided I'd rather have the mechanic deal with it.

This can be remedied by applying an anti-seizing compound (e.g. "Never-Seez") to the surfaces before bolting them back together. Bolts too.

 

[father_of_6]

And to add to the topic, I don't park my Model 3 in the garage. I have more important things in there like my lawnmower, sand bags, and scraps of wood from household projects.

 

[phxazcraig]

I would have thought garaging was better until I read some of the replies. If the gunk on your car indeed melts in the garage, then it does sound better to leave it outside where it won't thaw. But run a charger out to it so it can condition the battery as needed and precondition the car in the mornings before you drive it.

 

[RCAF 73]

I live in Ottawa and I do garage my Tesla all the time. The garage is unheated but the snow and salt does often melt. I have those vinyl garage floor liners that were sold by Costco for many years and the melt just runs towards the rear of the car. I just sweep out the water onto the driveway and the salty water runs towards the street. Unfortunately the water wicks under the vinyl floor mat to some degree so does eat into the concrete a little so that is the down side. Others have used a very expensive epoxy liner to the garage floor so if you have lots of spare cash that is the best solution I know of. Cheers

 

[stopcrazypp]

I live in Ottawa and I do garage my Tesla all the time. The garage is unheated but the snow and salt does often melt. I have those vinyl garage floor liners that were sold by Costco for many years and the melt just runs towards the rear of the car. I just sweep out the water onto the driveway and the salty water runs towards the street. Unfortunately the water wicks under the vinyl floor mat to some degree so does eat into the concrete a little so that is the down side. Others have used a very expensive epoxy liner to the garage floor so if you have lots of spare cash that is the best solution I know of. Cheers

Yeah, the epoxy floors are really nice if you have the budget for it. If you are good with DIY, the price isn't too unreasonable, but you need to prep the floor really well, especially with the acid etch or the coating won't last.

 

[EatsShoots]

I live in Ottawa and I do garage my Tesla all the time. The garage is unheated but the snow and salt does often melt. I have those vinyl garage floor liners that were sold by Costco for many years and the melt just runs towards the rear of the car. I just sweep out the water onto the driveway and the salty water runs towards the street. Unfortunately the water wicks under the vinyl floor mat to some degree so does eat into the concrete a little so that is the down side. Others have used a very expensive epoxy liner to the garage floor so if you have lots of spare cash that is the best solution I know of. Cheers

I'm in NY state and my last house, built in 2005, I lived in for 13-14 winters, always putting the cars in the garage and very rarely bothering to sweep away any of the salty slush. One corner of the garage wasn't floated properly so it had a little bird bath. To my somewhat surprise I can say the concrete looked almost brand new. Very minimal pitting. I've seen severe pitting, but I think it generally takes a lot of years to get there. The epoxy is the way to go if you are okay with the permanence of it.

 

[SalisburySam]

In a previous home we built in Central Florida, we epoxied our garage floor. The appearance and durability were big pluses and worth the cost in our opinion. However, there were two big downsides: heat fussiness, and the floor was dangerously slippery. I’d caution anyone doing this to add grit of some sort into the epoxy to fix the ultrasmooth surface which when wet was like ice. As for heat, the epoxy cautioned that, before parking on the surface after any long-ish drive, to remain outside the garage for at least 3 minutes to allow the tires to cool a bit. Sounds reasonable, but very quickly became a huge PITA in real life. That was in the early oughts and I hope today’s epoxy formulations don’t have this restriction any more.

And now, back to our regularly scheduled programming…

 

[phxazcraig]

My handyman and I coated (epoxy?) my garage floor 11 years ago ourselves with paint rollers. We had a big bucket of 'stuff' that cost $30. First we pressure-washed the concrete as well as we could (used home), then we just painted the floor. As we did a section we sprinkled in some glitter that came with the paint. Took about 4 hours of labor, and that $30 of materials.

 

[stopcrazypp]

My handyman and I coated (epoxy?) my garage floor 11 years ago ourselves with paint rollers. We had a big bucket of 'stuff' that cost $30. First we pressure-washed the concrete as well as we could (used home), then we just painted the floor. As we did a section we sprinkled in some glitter that came with the paint. Took about 4 hours of labor, and that $30 of materials.View attachment 995631
View attachment 995630

Sounds like you were using one-part epoxy which is considerably less expensive (or perhaps 2 parts was that inexpensive back then?). How is it holding up?

Now the most common kit being used is this two part method, where a box that covers 450-500 sq ft costs about $200. You have to clean and use acid etch on the floors first. Then mix the 2-part epoxy before applying. Definitely doable as DIY with a helper.
Rust-Oleum EpoxyShield 240 oz. Gray High-Gloss 2.5-Car Garage Floor Kit 365187 - The Home Depot

 

[EatsShoots]

My handyman and I coated (epoxy?) my garage floor 11 years ago ourselves with paint rollers. We had a big bucket of 'stuff' that cost $30. First we pressure-washed the concrete as well as we could (used home), then we just painted the floor. As we did a section we sprinkled in some glitter that came with the paint. Took about 4 hours of labor, and that $30 of materials.View attachment 995631
View attachment 995630

Looks amazing. Crap jobs will peel and look like hell but with proper prep that was a job well done

 

[fholbert]

My handyman and I coated (epoxy?) my garage floor 11 years ago ourselves with paint rollers. We had a big bucket of 'stuff' that cost $30. First we pressure-washed the concrete as well as we could (used home), then we just painted the floor. As we did a section we sprinkled in some glitter that came with the paint. Took about 4 hours of labor, and that $30 of materials.View attachment 995631
View attachment 995630

Looks really good.

My hangar is gray, no speckles.

A friend put black speckles on his floor. Looked really good until I dropped a nut and washer on the floor. You can’t find anything on the floor with the speckles.

 

[Midnightsun]

I am just north of Montreal in the lower Laurentians. Park both Teslas in our garage all winter long, heated to 15C. 3 wintewrs garaged with the Y and 2 with the S. No issues with rust. Since you have Montreal winters I am sure your garage is designed with the proper slope and drain. The picture above has none but then again he is in Arizona. I wash my cars in the garage in winter when they get pretty bad, no issues with water drainage.

I keep the cars outside during spring, summer and fall FYI.

Teslas and all other EVs do not like the cold, they need to warm up the battery and the entire interior for your comfort every time you get in and go during the colder winter months, a heated garage solves this however if you are outside and plugged in then you can preheat your car without consuming battery assuming you are not plugged in to minimal 120v which cannot keep up. Running errands and shopping, we normally use the "keep" mode which keeps everything toasty until you come back.