I just got a new 2013 Honda CR-V, I’ve had it about 3 months. It creates a tremendous amount of static charge for the occupants. Enough that its uncomfortable. Every time I get out of my car I can expect a shock. Same thing for the passenger.
I occasionally ride in other vehicles and I have a second auto which I drive frequently as well without this problem. What’s causing this and is there anyway to prevent static build up?
drive naked.
the clothes and the seat make static as you slide out. touch some metal in the car as yo get off the seat.
That’s what I do. The easiest thing to do is find some metallic area of the car that you can hold as you slide across the seat. I had one car that had a screw in the door handle and I would keep my finger on it. Otherwise, keeping a hand on the body of the car will work. You’ll probably still feel the electricity discharging, but no zapping.
The other thing I’ll do is let my calf slide along the bottom edge of the car as I get out. It’s a bit less awkward then touching part of the car, but if the car is dirty, your pant leg will get dirty too. OTOH, it’s really easy to get into the habit of doing that.
Change your tires! Newer tires built for better gas mileage are known to produce static electricity. However if you would get different tires, there’s now real way of telling if these would also create a lot of static.
You can buy static strips which bolt to a metal part of the car and droop when the car is stopped to discharge the static to the ground. You can even make one out of a length of copper wire such as an engine ground wire. Attached it to something metal on the bottom of the car and make sure it’s long enough to touch the ground when stopped.
Have you tried putting anti-static spray on the seats?
Not yet but I’m headed out now to buy some.
Thanks, Galwegian for the link.
I’ve heard the suggestion (but never remember to try it) to hold the car key against the metal after you get out, but before touching the metal with your hand. That way, the spark goes to the key rather than your finger, while the current is spread out over the wider surface area of your hand gripping the key.
But yes, I usually try to hold onto the metal as I get out. I have one coat in particular that generates masses of static as I slide across the seat.;
It’s not that the current is spread out over a wider area, it’s that the current never jumps from your skin to the car. It’s the arcing that causes all the pain.
I moved to the desert several months ago and have been getting shocked left and right, as have my cats. Literally, I can see sparks (some quite large) when we are shocked sometimes. Recently, I had a conversation with someone who told me that I was low on electrolytes and that increasing them in my diet will help. Not sure if this is true, but it’s worth looking into.
Be very careful if this is happening in your car. I saw video footage of a woman’s car bursting into flames from static electricity while she was fueling up at a gas station. Can’t swear that the video was real, but just be aware.
Oddly, there are a few other Honda models that people around the web have had similar complaints about.
That actually made me laugh.
I can’t comment on whatever specific video you’ve seen, but on average static discharge does cause about half a dozen pump fires per year in the U.S. There are a few of these incidents on youtube and other video sites. When you consider how many millions of people stop and fill their cars up every day, the risk of static causing a fire is admittedly pretty low. But it does happen and quite a few of these incidents have been caught by gas station security cameras.
Despite all of the warning emails going around the internet, cell phones have never caused a single pump fire.
Static discharge in a car happens for one of two reasons. The first is sliding across the seat. According to statistics, women are much more likely to start a pump fire due to static discharge than men, and the difference seems to be mostly that women are more likely to go back into the car when it is cold where men just stand out by the pump and freeze. Even if you aren’t starting a pump fire, you can still get an unpleasant shock. Wearing different clothes can make a big difference. Polyester and wool are really good at building up a charge. johnpost’s suggestion of driving naked will certainly help with this, but will probably cause you some other issues. Personally I’d recommend switching to something like cotton, which isn’t so good at building up a charge and avoids all of those pesky nudity issues.
The second reason is that the car itself can build up a static charge. Some of this is from the car moving through the air and some of it is due to the rubber belts on the engine acting a bit like a Van de Graaff generator. Cars have generated static electricity for ages, but the problem has become significantly worse in the past decade or two. The reason for this is that the rubber that they used to use for tires used to be more conductive and would quickly dissipate any charge to ground. The newer rubber formulations they use are better for tires, but not so good for dissipating static.
In both of these cases, humidity in the air plays a role as well. You are much more likely to have problems in areas with low humidity and in the winter when humidity is naturally lower anyway. Coincidentally, you are also more likely to wear wool clothes in the winter, compounding the problem.
I don’t know how effective it is, but they say rubbing a dryer sheet across your seat will help keep seat induced static shocks down to a minimum. As for car induced shocks, you can attach a piece of ground braid or metal chain to the frame of your car and let the other end drag along the ground to dissipate any charge that builds up. Auto stores will often sell anti-static strips that install pretty much the same way and accomplish the exact same thing. Just make sure that wherever you hang them that they can’t bounce up and wrap around the drive shaft or any other moving parts of the vehicle.
I’ve also heard it said that men are more likely then women to hold onto the car as they get out (or lean on it as they walk back to the pump).
no it’s not. the static is on fabrics, fur and the surface of your skin.
if you were low on electrolytes you could have things like trouble speaking, confusion, seizures.
don’t rub your cats on rubber.
Whenever I’ve gotten a shock from a car, it’s been when I’ve touched the door after getting out. You ground yourself, and then the static charge of the car zaps you when you touch it. If instead you hold onto the door (top of the window frame) as you step out, the static charge is dissipated through your shoe and you won’t feel a thing. Easy as pie.
Why don’t car companies start putting curb feelers on cars again? Those could ground the static charge when you stop (if you stop next to a curb, of course).
And why did they STOP putting curb feelers on cars?
Thanks for all of the responses so far.
To expound on the OP a bit, because of the nature of my work I’m in and out this vehicle frequently but also my service truck. The point being, both my CO and I wear the same clothes in both but only get shocked by the Honda. So unless there is some special issue with the upholstery I’m pretty sure it’s not the clothing.
Yesterday I got out of the car, shut the door by the glass and was ok until I touched the hatchback door. Got a good shock.
Glass is an insulator. You need to be touching a metallic part of the car when your foot first touches the ground.
Er, yes, I didn’t explain myself very well but I meant the same thing, sort of. The arcing is effectively all the current jumping across from a very small part of your skin, so you want to avoid that.
What would be the impact of doing this with a chip enabled key or a key that is integrated with the remote to unlock the vehicle? Would the static electricity flowing thru it have a detrimental effect?
it the pairing of two materials that cause the static. different upholstery or touching metal in one vehicle and not the other can do it.