Static Electricity Shocks!

[dogdirt]

Hi everybody. I'm the proud owner of an '05 RAV4 D-4D XT3 3-door, bought in April '07.

Everything about it is great, apart from one thing;

Whenever the weather was warm and dry (not very often in North Wales, I must admit!) my partner and I got terrible static shocks when stepping out of the car and closing the doors.

We tried wearing various types of shoes, with rubber and leather soles, to no avail, and I fitted an earthing strip to the chassis near to the silencer mount, and we still got belted !

We suffered until the cold weather came on, and then nothing. Fine.

This year, particularly in this week's heat, it started all over again.

Has anybody out there had a similar experience? Any ideas?

[shutty]

Its you, not the car with what you wear

Hold the car door whilst getting out and then step out of car, Only let go of car when you have touched the footpath

[Plutus]

Yes - I get it now the weather is warm. Only other time i've had this experience was with a rental car in Florida.

Strange, but it never happens with our other 2 vehicles.

Will be plenty of suggestions no doubt - wonder if it happens in Scotland !

[dave.m]

Will be plenty of suggestions no doubt - wonder if it happens in Scotland !

[dogdirt]

Its you, not the car with what you wear

Hold the car door whilst getting out and then step out of car, Only let go of car when you have touched the footpath

Thanks Shutty, I'll try that when it stops raining !!

[geomowat]

Yes - I get it now the weather is warm. Strange, but it never happens with our other 2 vehicles.

Will be plenty of suggestions no doubt - wonder if it happens in Scotland !

As I have been doon sooth, yes, quite a belt as I discharge the RAV when getting out. I cannot say about the RAV in Scotland as it has never yet been got going well enough to risk the 800-mile trip home. As far as other cars go, I do not think it has stopped raining long enough in Scotland to remember.

The vital combination is: high pressure (low humidity), the seat material and your seat material (by way of your trousers or skirt). Remember those old demonstrations in school of rubbing a plastic rod against a cat skin (or in more modern times, a man-made fibre)? Well, if your trousers are a man-made fibre and you wriggle in your seat, you are merely repeating that old experiment to charge you up.

You and the interior of your RAV will end up with a considerably positive charge to the floor (no, the earth strap might make money for the manufacturer, but it is a triumph or marketing over science!), you touch the floor and you discharge to become the same as the ground (and why the words like 'ground' and 'earth' as used for zero potential).

Other than man-made soles adding to this with a nylon carpet, your footwear has little effect — well, if you wore enormous rubber wellies, that would work until you touched something external, but that would hurt even more!

The stain-resistant furry covering used by SAAB for their seats in the 1980s was particularly good to get one charged up! Not what vegerarians want to hear, but none of my old cars with leather seats ever allowed this to happen.

George