Ferrari Mailing List: Re: Ferraris & Rain

[BRIGANDBAR (BRIGANDBAR]

I would have to admit some degree of surprise that any modern car would be  
particularly vulnerable to having been driven in the rain. Be it daily driving, 
 racing or simply travelling one must expect to encounter rain at some stage 
of  the life of the car, and probably more often than that for most drivers.
 
Think about it, and my guess is that Clyde can verify this, weather  
forecasting, which improving over recent years,  is still pretty much more  an 
art 
than a science and these forecasters are probably statistically wrong as  much 
as 
25% of the time. If you add in the TV "meteorologists" (which generally  in 
smaller markets means the new guy on the block who hasn't earned a place  
behind any other desk and who just pulls up something off the weather channel 
or  
some other service and parrots its predictions to their erstwhile viewers) my  
guess would be that the error rate would probably be greater than or equal to  
33%. All this having been said only in support of the hypothesis that anyone 
who  drives, rather than worships in a stationary mode, or owns a trailer 
queen, will  eventually, and with some degree of regularity, expose theire 
Ferrari 
to rain.  And, then again, if the car is parked anywhere, for any length of 
time, it will  probably be rained on as well.
 
There are a lot of extraneous factors that will effect the rate of  
corrosion, including the type of road surface upon which the car is driven, 
road  
maintenance quality, etc. Obviously driving on a roadway that has been  
preconditioned for snow or ice coverage with a brine solution when it has 
rained  rather 
than snowed (there you go, listening to the TV weather guy) will create a  
greater probability of corrosion than driving through a desert rain shower on a 
 
rural highway. The condition of the paint on the car, e.g. unrepaired paint  
chips, body damage that has not been properly repaired, parking lot dings that  
break the paintm, etc. will also contribute to corrosion.
 
Finally, as with every car that anyone owns, some degree of corrosion is to  
be expected, and if an obsession with the possibility of corrosion causes one 
to  refrain from driving the car except in ideal conditions some degree of 
utility  of the automobile, utility being defined as something of value as 
perceived by  the owner or the automotive community in general will be lost.
 
All of my cars have been driven in the rain, and most probably will be  
driven in the rain again. Go on a road trip or run with other car owners and if 
 
you go any distance at all, or stay out overnight or longer you risk exposure 
to 
 the rain. I make a concerted effort to avoid ice and snow, not only because 
of  the deicing agents that highway department use on roadways but also 
because many  drivers, particularly in the South where snow is rarely a factor 
and 
ice is not  far behind it, don't have a clue how to drive on it and stand a 
much increased  chance of sliding or skidding into my car causing body damage 
that exposes the  car's now unprotected due to the damage,surfaces to be 
subject 
to corrosion and  of course the quality of the repair and the methodology used 
may result in an  permanently increased succeptibility to corrosion over the 
long term. In any  event, rain, just like sh*t happens. Painted and protected 
surfaces should  readily withstand such exposure to the elements and all 
external surfaces and  components of an automobile should be protected during 
the 
manufacturing  process. Most of the time my cars just "drip dry" from simple 
rain exposure  though I do wash them if there is an issue with road surface 
contamination.  And, I'm not convinced that direct sunlight cannot do as much 
damage to the  "soft" surface components of an automobile as getting wet does 
to 
the "hard"  surfaces of that automobile. 
 
I guess to a certain extent I'm concerned about both because virtually  
everything I own, except for the fire truck and the farm truck/wrecker are  
housed 
in a garage when not being used but there are a lot of other reasons,  
including contributions by the birds that fly overhead or park on the overhead  
power 
lines, for keeping them in the garage.
 
Dr. Steve

Dr.  Stephen B. Spies, CES, CFI
Director, Forensic Sciences  Laboratory
Explosives Engineering Technologies

1964 Rolls Royce Silver  Cloud III.....1975 Pontiac Grandville 
1980 MB 450  SL............................1982 Rolls Royce Corniche DHC
1988 Rolls Royce  Silver Spur..........1994 F-350 PowerStroke Diesel 
1995 Ferrari 348  Spyder.................1996 Ford Bronco 
2000 Lincoln Town  Car....................2004 Ford Excursion
+ a
1985 MB 280GE Galedenwagen  for Explorations 
+ a
1976 HAHN- WARNER & SWASEY- DUPLEX DIVISION HOWE  APPARTUS. THE MODEL #R400 
FIRE TRUCK w/a 100' Tower System 
+  a
1985 GMC  Brigadier Farm Truck/20T Wrecker
&
Audrey's 2 MB's [1980 450SL &  1987 420SEL] to care for...

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