Is car storage worth it for a car you rarely drive?

Car storage is worth it for a car you rarely drive when the car matters to you, you have nowhere dry and secure to keep it at home, and it will stand for months at a time. It usually isn't worth it for a car you drive most weeks, or if you already have a dry, secure garage and are happy to look after the battery and tyres yourself. With us, storage costs £30, £35 or £40 a week depending on the package, which works out at about £130, £152 or £173 a month, with a minimum term of three months.

What tips the decision is what the car would face otherwise. A car left outside spends the winter in the wet and the cold, a damp garage does slow damage of its own, and a car that stands for months with nobody looking after it can come out in the spring with a flat battery and flat-spotted tyres. Storage is a fixed cost you know in advance, set against those.

What car storage costs

Our three packages are priced by the week, and every one includes the same starting point. The car is kept indoors in a dry building with an alarm set around the clock, the facility is manned seven days a week, the car goes under a luxury cotton cover we supply, and its tyres are rolled regularly.

Storage Type A is £30 a week, about £130 a month, and the battery is disconnected or removed by the owner. Type B is £35 a week, about £152 a month, and keeps the car connected to the owner's own battery conditioner. Type C is £40 a week, about £173 a month, and adds an engine run once a month, all the way up to temperature.

The minimum term is three months, about 13 weeks, so the shortest stay costs about £390, £455 or £520. A full winter from the start of October to early April is about 26 weeks, which comes to £780, £910 or £1,040. The pricing page sets out exactly what each package includes.

When you compare prices for long-term car storage, check whether a quote is weekly or monthly, what's included and what's extra, and how long the minimum term is. Two prices that look alike can buy very different things, which is why it's worth knowing what to look for in a car storage facility before you compare them.

What storage can save you

Some of the cost comes back. If the car won't be driven at all over the winter, a SORN cancels its vehicle tax and brings a refund for any full months left, as GOV.UK explains. For most cars first registered since April 2017, GOV.UK's rate tables put the standard rate at £200 for a year, so a six-month lay-up saves roughly half of that, and more for a car that pays the expensive car supplement. A car built before 1986 can already stop paying tax, so there's no saving there, and whether to SORN a car in storage depends on whether you'll want to drive it before the spring.

Insurance is the other line to look at. Laid-up cover is designed for a car that's off the road and not being driven, and whether it costs less than your current policy is a question for your insurer. Our advice is still to keep cover going, because a SORN removes the legal need to insure a car in storage but not the risk of fire or theft.

The bigger saving is usually the damage that doesn't happen. The RAC warns that a battery left unused for a long time can be damaged beyond repair, which is why whether to disconnect a car battery for storage is one of the first decisions to make. Tyres that stand on the same patch for a month or more can develop flat spots that, as Continental explains, normal driving won't remedy, and rolling them regularly is how we prevent flat spots on tyres.

When storage isn't worth it

Storage is the wrong answer for a car you drive most weeks. We need 24 hours' notice each time you want the car, and every package has a minimum term of three months, so storage suits a car that stands for long spells, not a weekend runabout.

It's also hard to justify if you already have a dry, secure garage and will do the work yourself. That means keeping the battery on a conditioner, checking the tyre pressures every month and moving the car so the tyres don't sit on one patch. Hagerty UK's winter storage advice is to keep a garage's relative humidity at around 55% with a dehumidifier, and a garage that stays that dry is a good home for a car.

And if a winter in storage would cost a large share of what the car is worth, a good indoor cover and a battery conditioner at home may be the better way to spend the money.

When it is worth it

The clearest case is a car with no good place to live at home. A car with no garage spends the winter outside, and a garage that's damp, or full of everything else, isn't much better. If the cover alone is all that stands between the car and a damp building, the building is the problem.

Security counts for a car that's valuable, or simply irreplaceable to you. Our building is alarmed around the clock and manned seven days a week, we don't publish our address, and visitors are shown round only by arrangement, with ID, and never under anyone's car cover.

Then there's the looking after, if you'd rather not do it yourself. On Type B the battery stays on its conditioner the whole time, and on Type C the engine is also run up to temperature every month, and a private road on site means engines can be run without a car going onto a public road. That matters most to owners who are away for long spells, which is why we can also arrange transfers to the airport or the station and collect the car and deliver it back.

A winter in storage, start to finish

A winter lay-up usually runs from October to the spring. The car comes in once the jobs in preparing a car for winter storage are done, and goes back on the road when the weather turns. If you want a dry day out in between, one of our check-out options is a drive out and back the same day, provided the car is taxed and insured, and there's guest parking for your everyday car while it's out. When you take it home for good, it can be valeted before you collect it.

Talk to us about your car

If you're weighing up whether storage is worth it for your car, get in touch and tell us what you drive, how often you use it and how long you'd like to store it for. We look after modern and classic cars of every kind at our facility just off the A21, 10 miles from Tunbridge Wells, and there's more about how we work on our About page.