C5 Z06 - Awaken the sleeping beauty - risks?

[Oliver S.]

I have been looking for a C5 Z06 here in Europe. Now there is a '04 with 1.500 mls that was stored in a climatized bag for 10 years. Beside being hardly breaked in at the beginning the car wasn't driven at all. All fluids were changed recently - the tires are still the original ones. Despite being very appealing to me I'm a bit reluctant because of potential problems caused by the long storage. My intentions would be to drive such a car between 1.500 - 2.000 mls per year. What problems could arise when driving the car from now on?

Oliver

[Carl N.]

Re: C5 Z06 - Awaken the sleeping beauty - risks?

This car needs to be driven on regular basis once in your garage. The C5 will give years and many miles of service. I would change tires and battery. Both are 12 years old and need replacing. When you change battery all presets like radio and A/C settings need to be reset. You will also need to have TPS reset with tire change. Put on Michelins and get rid of Goodyears. The '04 is the best of the C5 series and very reliable with minimal maintenance.

[Edward J.]

Re: C5 Z06 - Awaken the sleeping beauty - risks?

Oliver, about the only problem Is the gasoline, before you start and if there is some room still in the tank, install some fresh gas. other than that you may want to pull fuse for fuel pump and crank engine to get oil pressure. As far as the computer relearn,such as Idle strategy's, monitors this will all happen driving the car for about 50 miles. The only way to know what potential problem (s) will a rise will happen during the driving, but generally these car are very reliable.

[Duke W.]

Re: C5 Z06 - Awaken the sleeping beauty - risks?

A lot depends on what preparation was done prior to storage. If all fluids were changed and all the gasoline was drained, you should only have to add fresh fuel and turn the key, assuming it has a good battery. Given the conditions it was stored in, even if it has old fuel, it might be okay, but drain all you can, add fresh fuel and hot wire the fuel pump for about 10-30 seconds to get fresh fuel into the rail.

For long term storage I recommend draining the coolant and drying the system. Lack of use, even with fresh antifreeze can lead to localized corrosion due to lack of coolant circulation, which can cause localized corrosion inhibitor depletion, especially in nooks and crannies, and aluminum is particularly unforgiving.

There a a number of "zero mile" Cosworth Vegas that were brought back to life over the years. Most probably had the original coolant and due to lack of circulation and localized corrosion inhibitor depletion, the tops of the open deck cylinder barrels corroded. This led to blowing out the head gasket, which required sleeving the blocks to repair. I saw one such block, and it looked like someone took a die grinder and beveled the tops of the cylinder barrels at about a 45 degree angle.

There's no way to tell what if any damage has occurred unless you disassemble the engine for careful inspection. Just keep your fingers crossed and hope for the best. Most of those CVs l referred to had been "stored" for at least 25 years.

Duke

[Russ S.]

Re: C5 Z06 - Awaken the sleeping beauty - risks?

I completely agree with Edward. Ten years isn't very long in this type of storage.

Oliver, about the only problem Is the gasoline, before you start and if there is some room still in the tank, install some fresh gas. other than that you may want to pull fuse for fuel pump and crank engine to get oil pressure. As far as the computer relearn,such as Idle strategy's, monitors this will all happen driving the car for about 50 miles. The only way to know what potential problem (s) will a rise will happen during the driving, but generally these car are very reliable.