heavysixer22

I have all sorts of 997 fun planned this sunny weekend, and want to get the car shined up for it—only problem is that it’s supposed to rain tomorrow.

so it got me to thinking...what about washing the car in the rain (spraying, foaming, washing, rinsing) and then pulling into the garage for a nice blow dry and microfiber finish?

Anybody have success with that? Anything to look out for?

andino

Other than some weird looks and being extra wet depending on how bad its raining, it should be similar to a normal wash. Nothing out of the ordinary either to watch out for except your foam bath may not be able to dwell as long depending on how hard its raining.

Sporty

just get up early on Saturday and do it...

Bruce In Philly

2009 C2S 174K miles

Rain contains a ton of dirt. Give it a try and report back.

Peace
Bruce in Philly

heavysixer22

Leaving the house at 7am and don’t want to be running the power washer at 5:30 in the morning. If the neighbors don’t kill me, my wife definitely will!!

heavysixer22

Didn’t even consider that, Bruce. I’ll definitely share the outcome!

bschurr

100% and in NY lots of “other” contamination - I always rinse with filtered water to eliminate spotting.

okbarnett

Where does it rain dirt? Not where Im from.

Dk27

Dirt, dust, pollen, etc are all picked up as the water droplets fall. Can you wash the car in the garage? How about ONR or Ammo Frothe in the Garage?

wc11

Problem solved.

myltz400

Done it plenty of times, wash it and pull it inside. No big deal. Can't help with the onlooker advice, my garage is behind the house with privacy.

heavysixer22

I thought about that, but it's a one car garage filled with all sorts of domestic detritus that comes with living in the same house for 20 years and raising kids, so introducing any kind of liquids beyond what flies off the car when blowing it dry isn't really an option.

heavysixer22

Science time!

This thread led me to do some research, and it turns out that rain indeed has dirt in it.

Simply stated, rain is formed when water vapor encounters dust particles in the atmosphere (blown up sand, dirt, pollen, volcanic ash, etc.) and coalesces into tiny droplets around the particle. So inside of each droplet is a "seed" of fine dirt.

When enough of these tiny droplets get together, you have a cloud. As the cloud gets more dense, these tiny droplets start to combine into bigger ones, until they get so heavy the atmospheric pressure can't hold them. Boom—rain.

So inside each droplet of rain are several little dust "seeds" that can be considered being a "dirty" contaminant when washing a car.

In most cases it has no real effect in making things dirty because it's such a minuscule amount of dirt.

But, fun fact, sometimes the UK has "red rain" after there's a dust storm in the Sahara, as that's where a lot of the "dust" that seeds the UK's rain comes from.

And that's what Rennlist has taught me today—I love this site!

myltz400

So does the rain have more condensation nuclei or the chamois/towel/blower you will use to dry the car?

heavysixer22

I’d guess that there’s more stuff (heavier, larger) blowing around near the ground than the fine stuff that makes it up into the atmosphere. So a blower on a dry day probably slings more dirt than rain contains.

So my guess is rain won’t really add that much more, but it might capture the lower level airborne contaminates and make them stick to the car.

Overall, I think it doesn’t really impact things either way—modern paint will hold up.