OT: Washing the car in the rain

very true I wash my cars once a year even if they don't need it ....

I remember being on a camp site in Eguisheim, France, a long time ago. The village was a delightful throwback to an earlier age.

I noticed that the locals appeared to pull up by a water fountain in a square and drop in a bucket to wash their cars.

Locals didn't even give me second glance, though tourists off a bus that arrived nearby seemed a bit more interested.

Chris

GB used his keyboard to write :

I do try to alao wash mine in wet weather, the rain softens the dirt/mud and make it easier to get off, then as you say - the rain helps to rinse it.

Ditto washing off algae and green gunge from gutters, barge boards and soffits.

I let the rain do the washing as well.

My car was last washed on the 12th September 2020 at Sleaford hand car wash.

Silver is a good colour as it does not show the dirt.

I always wash mine before the MOT.

I also had a problem with the lid of a jar of Chiu Chow Chili oil coming undone and leaking over the passenger footwell. Despite washing the inside the smell has never gone away. That was three years ago.

I was going to but it was raining:-)

Sorry GB but that is the truth.

Ditto mottled brown berber loop-pile carpets. Only need vacuuming once a year.

I think it revolves around where fountains are and how they are designed. A lot of them in this country tend to be in busy places, traffic wise, so you would not really want to stop there, but in many villages in other countries they are in rural settings and people just use the water. I'm sure it happens here if its in a small village with no jobsworth council officials about. Of course if everyone did it on the same day when it was not very rainy, you might find a lack of a fountain, unless there was a detector that fed back water when the level got low. Around here the locals had to shut the water feature down after a year or so, as not only were people in the adjacent car park washing their cars with it, but when it was windy, everyone to one side of it got soaked. The final straw came when some bright spark emptied a packet of washing powder into the thing and gummed it all up with suds blowing all over the place. Brian

washing a car is bad for it ...

Need a roof mounted device that detects a rain shower and automatically deploys soap, if the car is parked.

Sod, that - need a roof mounted device that shoots approaching pigeons.

When living in Birmingham in the early 60's there had been a very heavy snow fall. No traffic worth talking about. Out for a walk I noticed a man clearing the snow from in front of his garage. Thought he was mad to consider driving under those conditions. On the way back some time later I noticed he had finished clearing the snow, backed his car out, and was now washing it.