Anti static grounding strip?

Some of the reviews are quite positive on this product from Amazon:

Amico Auto Car Black Anti Static Electricity Strap Earth Belt Ground Wire (YI-153):Amazon:Car Electronics

 

Why not just touch the frame of the car to ground yourself prior to sliding in and out of your seats ?

 

Yea, I know what you mean.
I grounded the front doors when I installed my front door speakers and had the panels off because of that.

I added a 18ga wire with an eyelet, scraped some paint on a 10mm bolt to the window motor, added No-Ox. It's a grease that helps electrical connections and keeps corrosion away. I ran the wire from the door to the interior ground point in the car. I had already added the JDM turn mirrors so I knew where to run the wires into the cabin via the door rubber grommets.

So far, this winter it's working great. No real shocks to speak of, maybe a tiny touch once.

I do remember those big shocks that could be heard. I was afraid of shorting something inside when they were that big. They also kinda hurt.

m2cents

 

I have to ground myself on the door latch bar as I egress to keep from being damn near electrocuted. Real sheepskin seat covers and rubber soled shoes don't help the matter. I just can not bring myself to drag around a grounding strap. I think that low humidity is real culprit.

 

Isn't that when you would get zapped?

 

You get zapped when you exit the car and stand on the ground. Then when you touch the car (door) you discharge the static charge. BZaap!!!

 

Additional note: it hurts when you get zapped but especially when you've had surgery on both shoulders. The "knee jerk" reaction is the part that is very uncomfortable.

 

The cause of the shock is a charge separation between you and the car. Grounding the car will do no good unless you are also grounded (indeed the car is usually already grounded through its tires, which contain conductive carbon for this purpose). You probably don't want to wear metal shoes or drag a grounding chain from one ankle, so the simplest solutions are to (1) touch the car's frame while you are sliding out, and (2) wear a ring, or hold some other metal object, and touch the car's frame with it before you touch the car with your skin (the shock will be distributed across the metal surface of the ring or whatever and you won't feel it).

 

The type of tires you have installed can also make a difference, but it's hard to know whether given tires will be good or bad. I think in general, the ones that last longer will allow the car to build up static more too - so you stand to lose something.

What the static is being generated from also makes a difference - if yours is only from sliding across the seats, then touching some metal like the door frame will keep your body from building up a static charge, as has been mentioned. The tires are more an issue if the static charge is being built up on the car body as it moves through the air.

If you're not touching metal while you slide, you can also touch with your fingernail; similar to the above idea of touching with a ring, it dissipates the static charge without hurting as much. There aren't any nerve endings in your fingernail, and the electrical resistance is higher, so the resulting current is smaller.

 

CalgaryPrius,
The car doors are all painted, if they were not we would have rusty hinges, IMO.

The metal thin door hinge that slides between the car has a rubber stopper when you open the door all the way, it hits rubber not the metal door. So by the look of all things, after I installed the door speakers and turn signal mirrors, I didn't see a good ground connection.

By adding the wire touching bare, scraped metal on the door with a washer I have been able to remove 99% of shocks. The times I have felt something, it was not terrible at all and the shock/tingle was not enough to claim the ground wire is not helping.

Big improvement, yes, complete fix no.

If I get zapped hard I will report back and adjust my % down accordingly.

 

UPDATE:
The weather has been cold and dry for a few weeks. So far this winter, no static shocks to the car or from the door as I get out of the car. This is good news and I am very pleased with the ground wire door modification.

FWIW, My jacket does show signs of static cling when I go indoors.

my2cents.

 

A couple previous cars wouldn't zap me when grabbing the door before I slid out of the seat. But then I'd get several zaps through that contact while my clothing separated from the seat.

This and several previous discussion led be me to believe this static is strictly a clothing-vs-seat-fabric-separation issue. It varies with weather, worsening in cold dry conditions.