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What advice or food for thought can you offer to someone who wishes to work abroad next year, for an extended period of time, but has a car in the States?
I want to work abroad starting in January, but I will not take my car with me. I have several options worth weighing, but would like some opinions or advice from others' personal experience. My options are as follows:
sell the car.
give it to my mom so she can continue using it.
carefully store it at my grandparent's garage.
I am not certain how long I wish to work abroad, since I would be a teacher of English and teachers usually have fixed periods of times to work under: a semester, a year, two years, summer, etc. Since I am entertaining this thought, I wanted to be prepared about my car so I can properly handle it later. There are pros and cons to each of the points I listed, but can explain them in a later post.
My car is a 2013 Scion xD. It was bought new and has 23K on it. It is a manual, so I would have to teach my mom how to drive it. Upon researching this topic on the internet, I've come to the conclusion that depreciation, storage, and insurance would be problems. Ideally, I would return to the US and would like to continue using my old car; however, it's a tough decision -- I shouldn't burden others with my property.
Does anyone have experience or advice about these issues that are worth considering? Thanks in advance.
Take the tags off of it so that you don't pay taxes on it, then garage it. However.. You'll want to make sure that whoever you store it with is willing to go out and crank it up once a month or so and let it idle for 10-15 minutes.. Just to keep the fluids moving and the battery with a charge on it. I'd also have them turn on the A/C during this time to get the refrigerant (and lube in the refrigerant) circulated through the system.
If you're going to be gone for more than a year.. I'd have someone come over and do an oil change on it once per year. even though the oil will have no miles on it.. It'll have age.
Preferably.. You'd have someone actually take it out and drive it. but.. Do you want to keep paying the taxes on it for it to be driven rarely, if at all? Or the insurance? You can talk to your insurance company about 'garaged insurance'.. That way, if the garage caves in, there's coverage on it. Should be pretty cheap, and would likely be a supplement because Homeowners would likely cover it in that situation.
Location: We_tside PNW (Columbia Gorge) / CO / SA TX / Thailand
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If you can live without it in the future...sell it if possible. One important (expensive) thing to not be worried about,
It is replaceable, your plans my change. It will not grow in value.
I have done several international stints and stuff BREAKS if stored for a long time. (wash machines and gas powered stuff)
but... I don't sell my cars, cuz they are old, cheap, and not replaceable (50mpg),
They are diesel, so can sit for yrs without needing to be started or exercised.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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If you can't find a friend or relative willing to keep it in their garage or driveway, and run it once in a while, you can store it in a storage unit (most have covered RV/car areas) but for a long time it would be best to raise it onto blocks to keep the tires off the ground. Then when you return change the oil before starting it the first time, and you will probably have to charge the battery. The worst part of that is the possibility of mice/rats eating the insulation off the wiring, or other creatures nesting in the engine compartment.
It's a depreciating asset while sitting in storage, and it's a burden on you and others to keep it in good condition in the interim. Proper "pickling" of a car for storage and keeping the battery on a charge maintainer is a burden, too.
If you really foresee being gone for years, with only short visits back to the USA, your best option is to sell the car.
I have to agree with most here, I don't see anything particularly special about a '13 Scion, and suggest you sell it outright. It's new enough that you would take a beating on depreciation alone, beyond any problems it might develop from sitting so much.
When we leave for extended periods of time, in the garage we disconnect the battery, put the car upon blocks to save the tires from squaring off, get renters insurance just in case, and file an affidavit with the MVD when returning that the car was in storage and not driven to save some fees. Changing the oil on it depends on the mileage put on it from previous oil change. If it looks dirty then we change it.
Sell it..! It will lose value while you're gone. Sell it and buy a new one when you return.
I sold a really nice, almost new pick-up ruck when the company offered me a company car to drive. I loved the truck but knew it would rarely get used if I had a free car with free gas to drive, so I sold it and put the money in the bank. When I retired and gave up the company car, I bought another truck and am living happily ever after.
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