Hey guys,

I've always read that you should never spray a hot engine with water due to to the risk of cracking the block. This warning is even in the owners manual.

So, today I'm at the self serve car wash and while spraying out the wheel wells, I notice that the engine is exposed in the wheel wells. My previous vehicles were always covered in some way so this surprised me.

How are you supposed to wash out the wheel wells without getting the engine wet?

 

Don't know, but you are correct. Mine steams like no vehicle I've ever owned from the engine bay as I drive thru the carwash. Never had an issue though....yet.

 

I thought it was more 2 save on distributer..but with the issue of cracking most self serve car washes are hot water where ur average hose at home gets ice cold..

 

You would have to have a super hot engine spraying on super cold water.

 

a simple spray of water isn't going to really cool the block down fast enough to cause it to warp enough to crack... you'd have to pretty much run the truck into a lake and submerge the engine block really quick to make the outter surface cool down rapidly and cause any sort of warping...

but I STILL would try not to spray the heck out of it, 'cause there's a lot of sensors plugged into these damn motors, and eletronics do not like watar

 

Why is it that the engine "area" is open to the wheel wells on the F150? I just bought a 2010 and first thought that the truck was missing something. It seems with water, mud, road salt, etc there's a lot of junk that the engine is exposed to. I was thinking of finding something that I could put in place to separate the engine and wheel wells better

 

The gap guards that most of the body lifted F150's run seem to cover the entire exposed area... but for what it's worth, my process for cleaning the engine involves standing on the bumper and blasting the valve covers while the engine is running. Been doing that 6+ years now with no problems but maybe that's one area where my luck has been really good lol

 

That's what I was wondering about. On previous vehicles I've owned, you could not see the engine bay from the wheel well area.

 

I think it was designed open like that mainly for airflow and engine cooling

if I'm not mistaken, I remember seeing something a little while back (not on this forum) were someone fabbed up some covers and installed them, but was then plauged my abnormally high engine running temps

 

I don't think it should be a problem, every car i have every owned, when i take it to a pressure wash, i always open up the hood and cover the inside with degreaser, then wash the entire car, and at the end, use the high pressure washer to clean off all the grease and gunk in the engine, i just spray everywhere, being a little careful not to get the nozzle right up on the fuse blocks or computers, but not really that careful...never had a problem. Haven't done it to the truck yet, but i sure hope it doesn't cause issues, if i can do it on a 2000 cavalier and a 2004 pontiac, i should have no problem with a truck IMO...