Six months in a Las Vegas garage will do more damage to a collector car than six months of weekend driving. The prep work is what decides which one you get back.
Preparing a car for long-term storage is not a checklist you rush through the afternoon before you drop it off. It is a sequence, and the order matters. Fuel gets treated before the last drive, not after. Tires get pressured up before the car sits, not once it is already resting on its sidewalls. Get the sequence wrong in a climate like this one and you are paying for it in gaskets, brake rotors and battery cells. REVCity Auto Storage runs this protocol on every vehicle that comes through the gate at 7185 Bermuda Rd, Las Vegas NV 89119. Call 725-272-1803 and we will walk your car through it with you.
Most long-term storage advice was written for the Midwest. It assumes the enemy is cold, road salt and damp. In the Mojave the enemy is the opposite: dry, relentless heat and an ultraviolet load that runs a 10–12 index from May through September. That inversion changes what you actually need to do.
Heat accelerates every chemical process happening inside a parked car. Gasoline oxidises faster. Brake fluid pulls moisture and then bakes it. Rubber loses plasticiser and goes hard. Lead-acid battery self-discharge roughly doubles for every 15°F rise in ambient temperature, which is why a battery that would idle happily for five months in Ohio is dead in nine weeks in a Las Vegas garage. We cover the full mechanism in our breakdown of what Las Vegas heat does to a car.
In a hot, dry climate you are not fighting corrosion first — you are fighting evaporation, oxidation and ultraviolet degradation, and those three demand a completely different prep order than a damp-climate checklist gives you.
The second Las Vegas variable is monsoon season. July through September brings sharp humidity spikes onto surfaces that have been bone dry for months. Condensation forms on cold metal inside an otherwise arid building — the worst of both climates in the same week. A facility that only controls temperature and not humidity will let that happen. The distinction is real and it matters: see climate controlled versus temperature controlled storage.
Run these steps in this order. Several of them are irreversible if you do them out of sequence — you cannot circulate stabilised fuel through an engine you have already parked.
Steps one through three are a single continuous session. If you stabilise the fuel and then let the car sit for a week before the oil change, you have kept the benefit of the stabiliser but lost the benefit of the warm-oil drain. Block out an afternoon.
Pump gasoline in Nevada is E10 — ten percent ethanol by volume. Ethanol is hygroscopic and it is the reason untreated fuel becomes a problem in storage. Left alone, it separates, drops water to the bottom of the tank and attacks aluminium and zinc in the fuel system. On a carburetted classic, phase-separated fuel will varnish a float bowl solid in a single summer.
Fill the tank to roughly 95 percent. A near-full tank leaves minimal air volume for moisture to condense in, but still allows for thermal expansion. Then treat it. Sta-Bil 360 Protection is the sensible default for a modern injected car because its vapour-phase corrosion inhibitor protects the empty upper portion of the tank as well as the liquid. For a carburetted collector or anything you want protected past twelve months, PRI-G is the stronger choice — it is a refinery-grade treatment that measurably restores degraded fuel rather than only slowing decay.
More on this in storing a car on ethanol-free fuel and how long fuel actually lasts in a stored car here.
Oil. Change it warm and change it last thing before storage. Used engine oil carries combustion acids and fuel dilution in suspension. Those acids do not stop working just because the engine stopped turning; they sit against bearing shells and cam lobes for however long the car rests. A $95 oil change is the cheapest insurance in this entire article.
Brake fluid. DOT 3 and DOT 4 are glycol-based and hygroscopic. Fluid that has been in the car more than two years is already carrying enough absorbed water to drop its boiling point and start pitting caliper bores. Flush before a long sit, not after.
Coolant. Check concentration with a refractometer rather than trusting the bottle. Weak coolant in a hot building is a corrosion problem in the block and heater core, not a freezing problem.
Never store a car with the parking brake engaged. Over months, rear pads bond to rotors through a combination of pad-binder transfer and surface oxidation, and freeing them can mean new rotors. Use wheel chocks and leave a manual in gear or an automatic in park.
Battery. Use a microprocessor-controlled maintainer — a CTEK, NOCO Genius or Battery Tender Plus — not an old trickle charger. A trickle charger pushes constant current with no idea what the battery is doing, and in a hot building it will overcharge, gas off electrolyte and warp the plates. A maintainer floats at a target voltage and steps back. The distinction is explained fully in battery tender versus trickle charger. If the car has an AGM or lithium pack the charging profile is different again — see AGM versus lithium in storage.
Tires. Inflate to the sidewall maximum, or roughly 8–10 PSI above your normal cold setting, and do it when the tires are cool. Soft high-performance compounds are the most vulnerable: a set of Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 or Pirelli P Zero Corsa will begin developing measurable flat spots inside 30 days at normal pressure. At $600–$900 per corner, that is a five-figure mistake on a four-tire set. The physics and the fixes are in tire flat spotting in storage and how to remove flat spots afterwards.
The better answer is to take the load off entirely. Every space at REVCity has a BendPak four-post lift, and a car stored on jack stands or a lift carries zero sidewall load for the entire storage period. Here is how the lifts work.
Ultraviolet exposure is the single largest driver of cosmetic depreciation on a Las Vegas car. Leather dries and cracks along seat bolsters; dashboards develop the fine crazing that no amount of conditioner reverses. A UV-free enclosed building removes the variable entirely, which is why we do not sell car covers as a substitute — a cover on a car parked outdoors here traps heat against the paint rather than protecting it. That trade-off is measured in do car covers trap heat in Las Vegas.
A ceramic coating is worth serious consideration before a long sit, because it gives you a sacrificial layer that handles the first dust cycle when the car comes out. Details in ceramic coating and car storage.
Photograph the car before it goes in — all four corners, both interiors, the odometer and the VIN plate. Then write down the mileage, the date, the fuel level and the tire pressures. Hagerty asks for exactly this documentation on an agreed-value claim, and a dated photo set is the difference between a smooth settlement and an argument about pre-existing condition.
The prep changes with the duration. Treat these as three different jobs, not one job at three intensities.
What you should not do at any duration is start the car once a month and let it idle for ten minutes. It is the most widely repeated piece of bad storage advice in circulation. A ten-minute idle never brings oil to a temperature that boils off condensation, so every start adds water and unburned fuel to the crankcase and then shuts down before it can be removed. Hagerty has taken this position publicly for years, and it is the right one. The full argument is in how long you can store a car without starting it.
If you are storing seasonally because you split the year between Las Vegas and somewhere cooler, the calculus is slightly different — the snowbird guide covers the arrive-and-drive side of it.
REVCity sits on Bermuda Road just east of the airport, which puts it inside a 25-minute drive of essentially every collector-car neighbourhood in the valley. Drop-off and pickup do not eat a day.
Approximate drive times from 7185 Bermuda Rd, Las Vegas NV 89119. Actual times vary with traffic and route.
Run six steps in order: add fuel stabiliser and fill the tank, drive 15–20 miles to circulate it, change the oil and filter while the engine is warm, wash and dry the car completely, inflate tires 8–10 PSI above normal while cool, and connect a microprocessor battery maintainer. Do not engage the parking brake — use chocks instead.
Yes. Fill to roughly 95 percent and add stabiliser before the final drive. A near-full tank minimises the air volume where moisture can condense. Never drain the tank on a steel-tanked classic, because an empty steel tank rusts internally the first time humidity spikes during Las Vegas monsoon season.
No, and you should not. Short idle cycles never get the oil hot enough to evaporate condensation, so each start adds water and fuel dilution to the crankcase without removing any. Hagerty and most collector-car specialists advise against periodic start-ups. Leave the car on a maintainer and let it rest.
Inflate to the sidewall maximum, or about 8–10 PSI above your normal cold pressure, and set it when the tires are cool. Soft compounds like Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 can flat-spot inside 30 days at normal pressure. Storing the car on a four-post lift removes sidewall load entirely and is the better solution.
Budget $250–$450 for a thorough job: roughly $95 for an oil and filter change, $12–$28 for fuel stabiliser, $40–$120 for a quality battery maintainer, and $100–$200 for a decontamination wash and sealant. Against a $4,800 fuel-system rebuild or a $2,400 tire replacement, it is not a close call.
For any vehicle you care about, yes. Cabin temperatures reach 160–190°F in a non-conditioned Las Vegas building, which accelerates fuel oxidation, battery self-discharge and rubber degradation. REVCity holds 50–70°F and 40–50 percent relative humidity year-round, including through monsoon season.
Founder of REVCity Auto Storage and Nostalgia Hot Rods. Dustin has spent decades building, restoring, and protecting collector and exotic vehicles across the Las Vegas Valley. He built REVCity to be the climate-controlled facility he always wanted for his own cars. Read his story →
Climate-controlled space, BendPak four-post lifts and battery maintenance at every bay. Call and we will walk your car through the full protocol.
REVCity Auto Storage · 7185 Bermuda Rd, Las Vegas NV 89119 · 725-272-1803
