I leave mine with the tires on the ground personally. You shouldn't be starting the car for a second. It should be left unstarted till you get ready to drive it. The oil left in during storage wether it be new or old isn't something I would want on the first startup after a long storage. I would leave the old crap in and give it a change when you are ready to drive again in the fall. Starting the car is not required during storage. If anything it's bad for the car. Letting a car idle alot (like a taxi or patrol car) is not good for the motor. It's not the way it was meant to operate. Can also result in carbon build up. Also when you dry start the car like that you are going to get moisture in the exhaust while it warms up and never get it warm enough to really evaporate and that can lead to rusting the exhaust.

 

Some people do it to take the load off the suspension I guess. My budy does it when he stores his s2000. Seems over kill to me.

 

I think the real reason for putting it on stands is because over time your tires will create flat spots.Is my guess.

 

My longest experience with storing a car during the winter was with my 96 Z-28. I had it in my garage for 13 winters. I didn't really do anything special. I did take it out for a drive once in a while during the winter when the roads were clear and the weather was decent (not too cold). I never had a problem with the car starting and had nothing else that seemed to go wrong with the car.

The only problem I had was with mice one winter. I had a deck on one side of the garage (from my house to the garage) and some of the wood on that side of the garage (under the deck) had rotted through. It was an easy access point for the mice. They built a pretty big condo on the engine. I cleaned it up, put some moth ***** within the engine bay, put down some poison bait, and started leaving the Camaro outside for the rest of that winter. I decided that the cold weather was better than a warm garage with mice. I had the garage repaired the next summer.

 

yeah that's what I thought.