Car Sitting Idle For 2 Years, Service Advice Please.

leftfooter · January 17, 2013

Hey Guys,

Two and a half years ago I had to return to europe for family reasons. It all happened in a hurry & I was forced to leave my 92 LS400 with a friend. It was last started 18 months ago and driven for about 20 miles, before that off and on every couple of months.

I'm returning to the States next month and was wondering what should I include in the service. My friend tried to start it recently but the battery was dead, although some of the lights came on initially, there was just not enough juice to crank the engine. I'm going to recharge or replace as needed.

The car has been stored outside in Austin, Texas, just to give an idea on the temperatures it has been exposed to.

I was going to get all the filters and fluids changed (oil, transmission, coolant) as well as check the tires. Does anyone have any advice about a car that has been in storage like mine and putting it back on the road?

Thanks guys.

PS. Before I left the car had been putting out some black/grey smoke, and at he time everything pointed to the Trottle body needing cleaning, so I was going to do that as well.

http://www.lexls.com/tutorials/EFI/throttlebody.html

curiousB · January 17, 2013

Keep in mind this is a 21 year old car. I'd get it running, fill up with a tank full of fresh gas and do an oil change. Then I'd drive it for a bit before launching off in many other things. See what you have after a couple weeks of driving.

The throttle body is a good maintenance item but it isn't likely your smoky exhaust issue. That may be faulty ACV in PS pump (leaking some PS fluid into intake) or maybe just oil consumption by a well worn engine. Again I'd wait to see what is the laundry list of issue to fix before jumping into a preventative throttle body job.