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Wednesday, March 12, 2026
Since the insurance is making us pay over half what it would cost to just leave it with its usual basic insurance, just to “store it,” today we gave in, and registered it too. We let it lapse thinking we were mothballing it, but since we are paying for basic insurance anyway, we got the new tags today for only $136. Gee, why did we even think that was such a big obstacle?
Note: After two weeks of not starting the car it died even though we had the charger hooked up to it. This proves the needs to actually run the vehicle to keep that battery charged, at least until we have this current problem fixed.
Monday, January 2026
Mothballing Explained: Preserve Assets for Future Use or Sale
I have research and learned that the SVX, our SVX, is not an All-Wheel Drive. A shocking disappointment as every time we mentioned this fact no one has corrected us.
Note: The first clue was that the VIN in Autotrader pulled it up as Front-Wheel Drive. A Subaru dealer in Salem, Oregon could not tell one way or another over the phone with them, making the VIN search. We will ask a mechanic sometime for a visual check.
But this scenario is about temporarily retiring the SVX while we wait to afford repairs on two problems: won’t hold a charge and dies whiles driving.
It turns out our insurance doesn’t allow to completely take the insurance fee down to zero. They call it, “storage.” So, “storage” still costs about half the monthly fee, so we decided to just pay the usual monthly for a chance to still drive it occasionally and legally.
Storage means that if a tree falls on the car, it is covered, but we don’t have collision on it because our insurance says the SVX is not valuable enough. So, the storage designation, and a waste as we see it.
We bought a car cover and once it stopped raining and the car was dry, we covered it. We thought it would look snobbish, but it looks cool.
We heard to not put it on blocks but to just keep the tire pressure high. We will drive it out of its parking spot occasionally so that will help.
A trunk kit that we bout for our 1997 Subaru Impreza has a tire pump in it with gauge so we can accomplish that if we can’t get to Les Schwab Tires.
We bought a battery charger from Les Schwab. We learned that it won’t charge it if it is stone cold dead, but instead, keeps the battery happy and charged it is already charged. On occasion we have left it unplugged for up to five days and the car still starts even though we try to leave it plugged in.
After taking it to a mechanic for them to drive it to learn its problems it started dying overnight. So, we are happy how this charger seems to have been a healing commodity. (?)
Ideally, it is meant to be mothballed in a garage. For us, outside; thus, the car cover.