The local Jaguar club had a short, 50-mile tour scheduled for last weekend.
Our 1971 V12 E-type is ready, sitting in the garage with the battery disconnect in use. Oddly enough, we have three cars (the Jag, ‘75 911S and ‘91 Alfa Spider) where battery cut-offs are required, as they all have electric analog clocks that will drain the battery after a week or so.
The forecast was for a 75% chance of rain.
Normally, I’m a believer in driving your cars in all circumstances; after all, it’s a car – shouldn’t it be used?
But I am changing my tune. When I look at the V12 in the Jag, it seems like an endless bundle of tubes and hoses, with plenty of places for water to collect. And as I don’t drive the car regularly, it could sit after the drive, still wet, for a couple of weeks in my unheated condo garage. Isn’t that the way corrosion begins?
Oddly enough, I don’t worry when I run my cars through a car wash (maybe once or twice a year), as these washes seem to end with a high volume of air blasted at the underside of the car.
How do you decide when to take your car out and when to leave it in the garage? Would rain stop you?
And how do you feel about automated car washes? An easy way to get a dirty car clean or a way to damage your paint?
I look forward to your answers in the comments below.
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I own a 1964 Morgan Plus 4 and although I have a hood and side curtains for the car, I recently replaced the windscreen (temporarily) with Brooklands racing screens making my hood useless.
So, would I take this car out with even a small chance of rain?
NO WAY.
Keith . When Relative Humidity (RH) hits 45% , steel corrosion begins and above 60% it becomes a very serious issue ….living in our often wet high humidity Oregon weather is an issue . I solve the problem by keeping a Dehumidifier in my garage to protect my cars and set the humidity thermostadt at 40 degrees or below. With an open air Condo garage it is impossible to prevent Corrosion.
Move your cars to a private garage so you can do this , or suffer the consequences…
There is no real alternative ! Just enjoy your cars in the time you have left !
It looks to me like you’ve answered your own question: Drive it and then take it through the car wash before tucking it in.
Chances are, a box fan in the garage would do about as well, or well enough.
My AWD X Type Mondeo wagon does a good job in the rain.
With Borrani polished wire wheels, I never take the car out in rain or on wet pavement. Too much work to recover. However, if I get caught in the rain on a road trip, I just drive on and don’t worry about it.
I don’t drive my “collector” cars in the rain….they are all sunny-day vehicles. The inability to push them a bit and the (untested) wiper mechanisms would take away the enjoyment (not to mention the other issues you’ve discussed).
Additionally, some do not have “all-weather” tires.
As a detailer, I can tell you that running your car through a tunnel car wash is causing far more damage that driving it in the rain… especially if they have the “all cloth” brushes. The dirt and debris from the first car of the day, second car of the day, etc. gets embedded in the brushes and scratch and swirls your cars paintwork. Touchless washes use high alkaline chemicals and high presses to remove dirt, but leaves a film behind. You can use a rinseless wash in your garage and then use a car dryer or any battery powered blower to blow the water out of the cracks and crevices and then follow up with a microfiber drying towel.
My dear Father born 1916, hoarded all the luxury items he amassed on his rise up the ladder. He is now 15 years dead and we own a Hudson Hornet Twin-H with less than 35k miles an Ambassador with five digit miles and several exotic 1930’s watches that actually are more valuable than the cars. He always held on to them because he originally was a kind of pawnbroker for Pete Estes who loved to gamble. His stories of working warranty in the late 1930’s seemed outrageous until I spoke with a co-worker. When war seemed imminent, everything at GM was quickly transformed to war production. My Dad who had extensive experience with various chemicals, got sent to Dugway Proving Grounds where he came up with a weather device for cold flying and they sent him to one of the islands on the Alaskan archipelago. That became the black hole of his memory as he never told us of what he did there. I post these stories wherever I am able so I can perpetuate his memory. The reason we won the war was everybody contributed in some way. Almost every day I think of some questions I want him to answer. My Grandfather, too. He flew biplanes in 1915 after only three weeks of training. The common denominator was neither ever spoke of their experience.When I see you enjoying your cars with your son I silently applaud. Something always goes sideways. It appears my last chapter will be rural Canada. Where minus 36 is the same in Fahrenheit or Celcius.
I don’t drive my collector / sports cars in the rain because I’d rather keep them clean and dry. If my sports car was caught in the rain I wouldn’t fret so much, but my Frenchie sedan would rust at the thought of it. I avoid using an automatic car wash on any of my cars for the reasons stated earlier: the risks for damaging the paint. I carefully hand wash my cars when necessary and in the case of the old ones I rarely need to do that because they are kept clean and are garaged when not in use. Most of my old car friends don’t drive in the rain either (and certainly not in the snow – we are in New England), so I am not missing out on any group activities by keeping things dry.
Simply stated, the DeLorean doesn’t go out in the rain. It’s got 73k miles on the clock and looks immaculate. I intend to keep it that way.
If I’ve got a show or other event to go to on a dubious weather day (which is not uncommon here in the northwest), there are a couple of “daily driver” back-ups in the stable – my 1978 Mercedes 300CD warhorse or my sprightly 2017 Fiat 124 Spider Abarth – that are also crowd-pleasers. But the DeLorean stays home.
My “classic” car is a convertible sports car. It was specifically designed to be enjoyed top down. That’s why I bought it and how I use it. The only time the top goes up is if I have a long freeway drive to a destination or if I get caught out in the rain unexpectedly. I would never take it out in the rain intentionally. No automated car wash for it either. I use a foam cannon to wash the car and micro fiber towels with a blower to dry it. I maintain it between washes with a quick detailer spray.
My daily’s are a sports sedan and a CUV. The sedan gets the same wash regimen as the sports car. The poor old dog hauling CUV gets the automated car wash treatment with an occasional detailing.
I don’t like driving in the rain, so I’d probably just stay home. 😀
I generally don’t drive my collector cars in the rain as it takes a lot of time to clean them up and being an octogenerian, I have slowed down quite a bit.
However, a couple of weeks ago, I got caught in a rain storm with my ’69 Dodge Charger. I was only a mile from home and I immediately headed for the garage where I started drying the car and blowing out the water trapped behind the moldings surrounding the back window and other areas. One of the benefits was that the soft water from the rain made the car magically cleanup and all the dust that collected in the little rectangles in the grill were all clean. It did take me over two hours to fully dry the car and I was pleased with the results.
Keith,
From what I have read over the years, most collectors of classic cars never drive their cars in the rain. Even in some of your ads for classic cars in your phenomenal magazine, they state “never driven in the rain”. As for a car wash, if I happened to own a classic car, I would never take it to a car wash – hand washing is the rule – that’s why you have a son!!!! Your cars are classic collectibles – not Toyota Corollas – and should always be treated as such.
“Our 1971 V12 E-type is ready, sitting in the garage with the battery disconnect in use. Oddly enough, we have three cars (the Jag, ‘75 911S and ‘91 Alfa Spider) where battery cut-offs are required, as they all have electric analog clocks that will drain the battery after a week or so.” As for these cars with electronic analog clocks, most American cars had them years ago, and their batteries never went dead after a week because of them. What did new owners of your classics do? These battery disconnects are modern added conveniences. Did their brand new cars go dead after a week because of the clock? These clocks use an incredibly minute amount of current. Interestingly, as I said, my parents’ GM cars with the clocks never went dead. However, without fail, after a while, every single clock on their cars no longer worked!
Glenn in Brooklyn, NY.
While I try to avoid rain, when it happens, after a wet drive a leaf blower will quickly get rid of any water caught in voids and recesses. I often use one after washing my cars as I think towels/chamois can easily create swirl marks in the paint.
Cheers
Steve in Calgary
I wouldn’t dream of it. No driving in the rain, and certainly no automatic car washes. One of my cars is particularly allergic to water and I even prefer my detailing guy to avoid is as much as possible. Who thought metal was a good material to build cars from? 🙂 I have a large, heated and air-conditioned garage with dehumidifiers on each side as well, set to 45%. In the winter it’s usually a bit drier. Too dry is bad for leather, two wet is bad for metal. The Revs Institute sets its climate controls at 50% and 72 degrees (but it’s in Florida). The exact numbers are debatable but collector cars should be kept in climate-controlled settings, period. Some of this is climate-dependent. If you live in Oregon and ever want to drive, pick classics that are rain-friendlier.
The rain doesn’t necessarily bother me so much as the implications it carries further downstream. First, I’m not entirely sure I 100% trust the waterproof nature of our ’65 Mustang’s cowl vents – a notorious site for corrosion and perforation, even on otherwise solid cars. Second, I’m stuck with about 3/4 to a mile of dirt roads between my driveway and the nearest stretch of tarmac. Get a moderate rain, and it quickly turns to absolute slop, and I really don’t need that building up on any of my cars, least of all the Mustang.