Power Wheels provide your kids with hours of entertainment all summer, but when fall rolls around, the fun begins to come to an end. For the next several months, those vehicles will sit idle and you'll do nothing more than trip over them and possibly use them to store the kids snow-gear between snowball fights. Here, you'll find a few tips for storing your Power Wheels and similar ride-on toys so that they'll be in good working condition when spring pops.
Remove the Battery
Remove the battery from all of the ride-on vehicles. The worst thing that you can do to the battery is to leave it in the garage or shed all winter long. If you do, when spring rolls around, the battery will either fail to charge or will fail to hold a charge for very long.
Charge the battery fully and place it inside your home where it will not be exposed to freezing temperatures. Every month or so, get the battery out and recharge it for 12 hours. Don't leave the battery on to charge for any longer than 12 hours or you will destroy it.
Clean the Vehicle
You need to get all of the dirt and debris washed off of the vehicle. If you allow dirt to stay on the surfaces, it will become discolored as it sits for months. Mr. Clean Magic Erasers will help to remove the stubborn scuff marks if you are working to complete a full detail job.
Don't forget to flip the vehicles over to clean the underside. Just remember to be careful with the wiring. It needs to be cleaned and if anything appears to have come loose, use some electrical tape to tape them back in place.
Spray a little WD-40 on all of the metal components on the vehicle. The WD-40 will keep it lubricated and help to prevent rust from forming.
Store the Vehicle
If you don't have the space around your home to store the vehicles and other summer toys, it's time to start looking into leasing a small storage unit. Then, you can haul the summer stuff to storage and clear out the garage to make room for the winter stuff. When spring rolls around, you can load up the winter stuff and swap it into the storage unit when you reclaim the warm-weather stuff.
You don't have to get rid of the things that take up space during the off-season. Look into a storage unit, such as at Mars Mega Storage, and free-up some much-needed space around the house this year.
Having lived in a 1,200-square-foot home with my husband and two children for many years, I've learned a lot about storage and maximizing space along the way. Once a year, we do a "purge" of each room in our home to get rid of unnecessary clutter. We then hold an annual garage sale, where we're able to make money selling this "stuff" for our yearly vacation. For extra space, we also have a small storage unit that we use to store seasonal things, such as Christmas decorations and bikes. If you've been looking for tips on maximizing storage in even the smallest of spaces, I hope the information on my blog will be useful to you!