Bear Down Wildcats

I’m traveling in 2 weeks to Dubai to teach the spring semester for 4 months at my old university. I’m trying to figure out what to do to store my finicky British sports car. Unfortunately, the house I bought here in Tucson doesn’t have a garage so I temporarily just put up a Harbor Freight tent to keep the sun off. A month ago, pack rats ate through the wiring in my truck after I hadn’t driven it in a month. So I don’t feel very good about leaving the Lotus in the tent for 4 months.

I know I can store the car in a 10’x20’ drive up self storage unit. But ideally I’d like to keep the car on a battery tender to trickle charge the battery. Lotuses have an unusually high vampiric draw on the battery and the battery dies if you don’t drive it after a few weeks. I can disconnect the battery and bring it home and put it on the trickle charger in the house, but that also has issues associated with it. I called around and most places don’t have power outlets in the units. There are some units called hobby units, but they aren’t widely available and they tend to be much bigger (more expensive) than I need.

Does anybody know of any storage units that have outlets in the unit? Or any other thoughts about how to solve this problem? If not, I guess I’ll just have to take out the battery.

I have a lot of relatives in Tucson that would love to "store" it for you. Keep it gassed up, the tires moving and so on.

Merkin wrote:I have a lot of relatives in Tucson that would love to "store" it for you. Keep it gassed up, the tires moving and so on.

I did think of that kind of solution, but figured not too many people have empty garages . . . even if I knew anyone well enough to impose on them.

*I’m already stressed out enough by leaving my house and two cats in the hands of a UofA undergrad who has been catsitting for me the last few months when I traveled. I mean what could go wrong in 4 months of her living in my house? Right? Right . . . ?

Nice car. I’d rewatch some of those season 1 episodes from Breaking Bad and watch how Walter White solves car battery problems. You don’t need an electric outlet. All you need is some cables, a bar of soap, a can of Cactus Cooler, and a bottle of Poblano hot sauce (green).

That also sounds like the ingredients used in the extended unreleased director’s cut of the torture scene when Marcellus was sodomized in Pulp Fiction.

Sweet car! Are you keeping it registered and insured? You can suspend the registration(de-insured certificate) and drop your insurance to storage only coverage. But don't do that if it will be driven.

Have you checked with Stor Wise at 1333 S Pantano? I have a client with an RV, trailer and dune buggy stored there. Let me ask around, I have a bunch of car connections in town.

Im in the middle of a Bronco restoration but need access to the lift for storage and maintenance, otherwise I could have offered that. I stored my sisters Shelby's for 2 years while they lived in South Korea.

Insurance covered that rewire on the truck right? Under comprehensive

BJBJ - I think I saw you turning off Oracle and heading down River this afternoon.

Jefe wrote:Sweet car! Are you keeping it registered and insured? You can suspend the registration(de-insured certificate) and drop your insurance to storage only coverage. But don't do that if it will be driven.

Have you checked with Stor Wise at 1333 S Pantano? I have a client with an RV, trailer and dune buggy stored there. Let me ask around, I have a bunch of car connections in town.

Im in the middle of a Bronco restoration but need access to the lift for storage and maintenance, otherwise I could have offered that. I stored my sisters Shelby's for 2 years while they lived in South Korea.

Insurance covered that rewire on the truck right? Under comprehensive

Wow, thanks for the info. I’ll give them a call and see what they have. And thanks for the thoughts about storing it for me.

I think my deductible is $500 and the wiring turned out to be only $300. I was a bit freaked out when I read horror stories online about thousands of dollars in repairs. And I hadn’t even thought about using the insurance. And good point about storage insurance level. I’ll call usaa and have them make the adjustment.

UAEebs86 wrote:BJBJ - I think I saw you turning off Oracle and heading down River this afternoon.

Yeah, that’s my neighborhood! I bought a place in Oracle Foothills—it’s the first neighborhood north of River. I love it—directly adjacent to everything I need, but the neighborhood feels like you are in the middle of the desert. It’s incredible.

I have a couple options for you. PM sent

ByJoveByJingle wrote:

UAEebs86 wrote:BJBJ - I think I saw you turning off Oracle and heading down River this afternoon.

Yeah, that’s my neighborhood! I bought a place in Oracle Foothills—it’s the first neighborhood north of River. I love it—directly adjacent to everything I need, but the neighborhood feels like you are in the middle of the desert. It’s incredible.

I would like to get a house there someday

scumdevils86 wrote:

ByJoveByJingle wrote:

UAEebs86 wrote:BJBJ - I think I saw you turning off Oracle and heading down River this afternoon.

Yeah, that’s my neighborhood! I bought a place in Oracle Foothills—it’s the first neighborhood north of River. I love it—directly adjacent to everything I need, but the neighborhood feels like you are in the middle of the desert. It’s incredible.

I would like to get a house there someday

I really love the neighborhood. When you look in Google maps satellite mode you can see how sparse the houses are compared to the adjacent neighborhoods. This is probably why it feels so remote and desert-like, as there is a relatively large area between houses. My lot is a little shy of an acre, and is probably one of the smaller lots. The house itself is also quite modest, but hopefully I’ll be doing a second floor addition to take advantage of the incredible views to the city and to the mountains.







Cat tax:

Fantastic, that's about as green as Tucson gets.

Beautiful !

Longhorned wrote:Beautiful !

Thanks! There are times I think I might have enjoyed being in one of the more urban hipster neighborhoods, but mostly I’m really happy here.

Merkin wrote:Fantastic, that's about as green as Tucson gets.

It really is lush here. The neighborhood is a series of washes and watersheds so I think that contributes to the density of vegetation.

Merkin wrote:Fantastic, that's about as green as Tucson gets.

Ventana Canyon

That is beautiful. I was talking with my parents who live in San Diego and speculated about rainfall in Tucson versus SoCal. I looked it up and I think it rains more annually in Tucson than it does in San Diego.

The Sonora Desert is the wettest desert on the planet. I suspect 'they' set the definition specifically to include it.