My car keeps electrocuting me!

[Steve78]

Ok, this will sound bizarre!  Quite often I’ll get out my car after a trip and I get a quite painful static shock when I put my hand on the door to fling it shut.  Anyone else had this?  And how can I stop it from happening?

[182_blue]

do you have material seats ?

[topher]

It's the static in your body, usually generated from the friction in your clothes and shoes. Stop wearing polyester

I get it all the time too, car doors, taps, door handles, printers.. regardless of which clothes I wear. Suppose I could see if it still happens in the nude.. not sure that would go down too well in the office.

[Teutonic_Tamer]

It is static.  Stop brushing your hair so much!   

In all seriousnous, this is very common, and as 182_blue indicates, can be caused or aggravated by some man-made materials in "cloth" seats.

[Steve78]

do you have material seats ?

Yeah, but it's only been happening in the last month and I've had the GTI for a good 6 months now...

[Steve78]

It's the static in your body, usually generated from the friction in your clothes and shoes. Stop wearing polyester

I get it all the time too, car doors, taps, door handles, printers.. regardless of which clothes I wear. Suppose I could see if it still happens in the nude.. not sure that would go down too well in the office.

So in short, drive nude!  Cheers! 

[mad man gti]

get it a lot when i have me football tops on

[Russ.C]

All you need to do is hold onto the metal ring where the door mechanism locks onto as you get out the car, if you do that you never get a shock when you shut the door.  Not sure why, my missis showed me ages ago, but it works! Give it a go! 

[topher]

You're earthing the charge when you do that, doesn't always work though.

[Greenouse]

I seem to remember in the late 70's early 80's a lot of cars used to run with earth straps which were basically a rubber strip hanging down from the back of the car. Might be worth seeing if there still available?