My parents car and every other car on the block was encased in snow recently. Considering you can pop the hood and work on the engine, how do cars stay waterproof?
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Cars don’t need to be water proof. The engine compartment actually can get pretty wet before bad things happens. The cabin of the car is pretty water proof, because nobody wants to get wet while driving. But like the engine and under the car and stuff gets really wet while driving around in rain and snow. And it’s designed to be ok that way.
The trick is they don’t need to be.
Cars as a whole, don’t need to be perfectly water proof. Now you definitely don’t want to just pour water on a running engine, but that’s why hoods exist.
But a couple drops of water dripping across the engine block isn’t gonna hurt it much.
The parts and components that DO need to be water proofed just has enough coating/gaskets that any water that hits them drops off of them without causing trouble.
So generally, it’s cuz they don’t need to be water proof, just some things need to be water resistant enough that a couple drops don’t ruin them.
Now a completely flooded car like ones after hurricanes, those are really really bad. Because that’s more than just some rain, that’s getting submerged for a significant amount of time, allowing the water and any dirt/debris it’s carrying to get into everything.
Seals and water drainage.
Around every movable panel, there’s a place for water to go, other than into the car or engine compartment. Around the hood, there’s channels to drain water that goes down the windshield through the car to let out below the rest of the car, and seals along the cracks that prevent it from coming in the other surfaces. Doors and trunks have similar seals that water can run along. All those seals aren’t super strong, so wouldn’t stand up to submersion, but they’ll keep water going along drainage channels instead of flowing into the car. And most seals are designed so that water can’t pool; it’ll flow. Only the moonroofs need a seal that can stand up to being submerged, as they don’t have anywhere for water to drain to.
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