Parking your car during Covid-19

Never before have so many cars been parked up and not moved for weeks on end - once the lockdown ends many will stay exactly where they are, why? A lot of modern petrol,

diesel, hybrid and electric vehicles are very sophisticated and their power hungry electronics mean that they are constantly ‘on’, using battery power to keep them ready for operation and maintain the ‘memory’ of all the ECU’s and computers, so this enforced lack of use could mean that the vehicle battery is drained of power and will not start the vehicle when needed.

Most of these vehicles are designed to retain their battery status for a few weeks - think long term parking when on holiday - but not for much longer.

An unattended battery in any vehicle will eventually lose its charge. Failure to keep the battery topped up could leave you in trouble, remove the battery from the vehicle to charge it and you could end up needing a full ‘re-boot’ from the local dealer, best option in this

circumstance would be to bring one of the vehicle recovery services out to put a booster on the battery so the vehicle can be started and the battery then brought back up to full power.

To be certain, make sure you start and run the car every week and once it has armed through drive it for about 15 minutes if possible. Driving the car periodically has several benefits. It will maintain the battery's charge, keep the engine and other components adequately lubricated and using the brakes will keep the discs clean and free from rust.