Pulling my 2005 Aveo out of storage for the first time in 4 years this week

Hello! Long time lurker on another account that I always hated the name I chose for it. I am about to get a lot more active on these forums because my old daily driver is coming out of storage this week!

About 4 years ago I bought myself a 2011 Chevy Cruze after driving the Aveo (which I bought used in 2009) for a few years. I put the Aveo in outdoor storage on my Grandmother's property because I expected to put it back on the road as a second car for my Fiancee. Unfortunately it was not financially feasible to have the second car on the road until now so it sat for the past 4 years.

I tried to take as good care of it as possible while it was in storage, starting it every so often, driving it around a little in the small space it had and changing the oil a few times over the course of the 4 years.

I went down to start it up last week for the first time in a few months and although I had to jump it because the battery was now toast it fired right up and ran perfectly. I am going down tonight to install a new battery I bought, replace the ratty windshield wipers, check tire pressures and lubricate everything that got stiff. Thursday night we are getting plates and bringing it home.

I bought the car at about 60,000km and currently it sits at 129,000km. Over the course of my ownership I have done the following:

- Thermostat and housing
- Alternator
- Ball Joints
- Brakes and rotors
- Timing belt at 120,000km
- Spark plug wires
- One transmission fluid flush
- Upgraded radio and rear speakers

I plan to change the oil when I get it home, replace the air filter, change the valve cover gasket because it is leaking and probably flush/change the transmission fluid again. I was wondering if anyone had any other suggestions for maintenance on a vehicle that has sat for 4 years?

Oh and here is a picture of her pulled up to the top of the driveway last week once I freed her from the piles of snow at the bottom of the driveway.

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One of the best things about pulling her out of storage now is there is finally a abundance of Aveo's in my local scrap yard whereas when I was driving the car they were scarce.

Welcome back. The thing about spring time up North, everything looks like crap. It takes a while before real spring kicks in after the melting. Nice Neighborhood. I think you have covered everything. I would drive it easy for about a week to shake the bugs out.

Spent about an hour last night continuing to get it ready for the trip home. I installed a new battery, new battery hold downs (bolt snapped when I was taking the old battery out) and put the wheel covers back on, unfortunately when I was down near the tires I noticed this.

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So looks like I am in for a new set of tires immediately now. All 4 have some degree of this kind of cracking.

Other than that, she is turned around and ready to go Thursday!

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Bummer news about the dry rot. Only one drive left to the tire store. Spring is getting closer

Tires def need to be changed. I would check your brake fluid; that y]usually hold up to long term storage. I would do a brake flsuh just to be safe.

Congrats on running the 2nd car, for your now wife I guess. The car looks like it cleaned up nice. I agree on the brake fluid, in fact I'd change all the fluids as cheap insurance. For coolant, I'd run the car for a week or two keeping an eye on any leaks, then flush that as well. Just keep an eye out for any other dried gaskets or rubber lines. Your rotors may have seen better days sitting that long.

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Originally Posted by PoisonIvy

Congrats on running the 2nd car, for your now wife I guess. The car looks like it cleaned up nice. I agree on the brake fluid, in fact I'd change all the fluids as cheap insurance. For coolant, I'd run the car for a week or two keeping an eye on any leaks, then flush that as well. Just keep an eye out for any other dried gaskets or rubber lines. Your rotors may have seen better days sitting that long.

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Well still Fiance till this summer actually, its been a looooong engagement. Yea, the rotors look a little rusty to say the least. I will see how they preform and probably take off the front wheels this weekend or next and see how everything looks in there.

So I figured I would do a quick update, the good news is she made it home just fine and we have been getting pretty reliable use out of her for a full week now. (including a 300km round trip drive to Orillia)

So far we have:

- Changed the oil
- Replaced all 4 tires with new Hercules iMove tires
- Cleaned up absolutely everything including the engine bay (I want to be 100% sure it has a valve cover leak and not just spilt oil before I order a new gasket)

However we have also noticed that it needs new Struts ASAP and we also decided to replace the spark plugs and air filter so we ordered new Struts, strut mounts and sway bar links from Prime Choice and a new air filter and spark plugs from Rock Auto. Everything arrived this week so we have a long day of work ahead tomorrow.

Here she is at home in my driveway

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And a picture of the struts we got (they were cheap at about $50 each but honestly they are so well built you could put Monroe stickers on them and I would be fooled)

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I just went back to struts. The get off you will need 19mm 22mm and a 10mm wrenches and sockets.

Hi, sorry if I'm 'hijacking' this thread but I'm considering storing my Aveo and needed some advice. My situation is that I've had my Aveo for five years now in Thailand and I wondered what would happen if I left it for six months or a year.
Could you give a checklist of things to do, or things that you did, please? I
don't have a garage but my condominium has partially covered parking spaces underneath. People I've asked about storing cars suggested that rats or vermin could get into the air intake and I should cover this - did you do this? I see from your post that you were running the car every so often so maybe it wasn't necessary. To be frank, I don't even know where the air intake is - here's a shot of the engine bay, any pointers?
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The other thing was putting the car up on jack stands to save the tires while keeping the suspension under compression, can anyone suggest at which point do you even position stands under the car?
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I didn't do much special, the car was stored outside and I didn't cover anything up as I don't have much of a vermin issue where I stored it, maybe its different where you are. The only thing I did was start it up and move it around every few months (but it sat for 6+ months straight over this winter because the winter was particularly bad here and I also changed the oil every year, that's really it, overall it came out pretty good except for the few things I had to do which are mentioned in the thread.

So, the struts are now replaced and the car handles much better, the driver's side was completely shot and had almost no resistance left and the passenger side was so-so. The whole thing was super easy and quick if it weren't for the lower bolts on the stabilizer links, they gave me 1+ hour of trouble combined and the driver's side had to be cut off in the end). I have lots of pictures so when I find time I may contribute a write up on the process.

We also had a guy come out on Sunday and replace the windshield glass so the car is pretty much done now, I just have to replace the valve cover gasket because I now 100% know i have a leak as when I checked the spark plugs the spark plug wells had a nice pool of oil in the bottom leaking down from the valve cover gasket.

Some pictures from replacing the struts.

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I had to cut my end links off too. I really have gotten use out of my grinders. The valve cover is easy. The instructions say you need a bit of gasket seal here and there, that's just really to hold in place when you flip the cover over. If you careful you don't need the gasket seal.

Whooohoooo!!! Took a trip to the junk yard today to scope it out before next Saturday's $50 all you can carry day and I couldn't be happier. I found a 2007 Wave in the same blue with the passenger side doors in perfect condition.

I don't know if you can tell but in the last picture I posted there is damage to the passenger side rocker panel and the bottom of the doors. I bought the car like this and got a good deal because of it. So hopefully come next Saturday I will have two new doors for only $50 and then I will pull out the dent in the rocker panel as soon as I have time and money for the puller kit I need.

Very cool. Princess Auto?
9 pc 5 lb Slide Hammer Dent Puller Set | Princess Auto

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Originally Posted by PoisonIvy

Very cool. Princess Auto?
9 pc 5 lb Slide Hammer Dent Puller Set | Princess Auto

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Exactly the one I was going to get!

Another update! I was successful in getting a new set of doors for the passenger side of my Aveo and I installed them this past weekend as well as taking the opportunity to put in some new 6.5" speakers I had had sitting around waiting to be installed.

Everything went pretty well and I think I have the alignment pretty good, the speaker install was easy and I had my father make me some spacers out of wood that did the trick pretty nicely. I also scored a bunch of other good parts including a new valve cover, gauge cluster, shifter and a grill that isn't cracked.

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And here is an up close picture of the damage I was dealing with on the old doors

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Now I just have to take care of the rockers. So far this will only cost me a little over $100 to fix, the body shops I went to when I first bought the car wanted $1300-$1500

No pictures to show for it this time, but we did a ton more work so I figured I would post an update.

We could not get some vibrations at highway speed to stop even after the struts were replaced and we had the wheels road force balanced so we ended up practically rebuilding the entire front end suspension.

We now have new:

- Ball Joints
- Steering end links
- Two new front wheel bearings
- Rotors
- Ceramic brake pads

She drives like new on the highway now! And the steering so so much tighter and responsive.

Also the odometer on the gauge cluster went so I had to replace the cluster with a junk yard one. Who knew the odometer reading was stored in the cluster itself though? I figure it was fed from the cars computer. So now the odometer shows about 50,000KM more than the car actually has so I had to document that well for future.

Still haven't got to pulling out that dent, but I have the tool now. Also just picked up a new valve cover from the junk yard to replace the one I can't screw the plastic valve cover cover to anymore because the screw holes rusted so I will be replacing that and putting in a new gasket and spark plugs now that oil won't be leaking into the spark plugs anymore with a new gasket.

Good job man. Very happy to see the Aveo being used again!