Intrepid - Drove with hood unlatched, arrghh

I did something stupid today, drove around for about 30 miles total with
the hood on my second gen. Intrepid unlatched. Fortunately the latch is
strong I had planned to check the fluids before I left, but then
later dashed off in a rush and forgot about it, and the unlatched hood
is hardly noticeable unless you you're looking at it, so I goofed.

Did I do any damage by committing this folly? I try so hard to be good
to this car, following all of the maintenance schedules religiously,
washing, checking tires, oil, etc and then I do this. Fortunately the
roads were dry today although there is still plenty of dried salt on
the roads here in NH. I'm worried about getting dirt and junk into the
engine compartment where it will never come out again Is it that
bad?

 

Not to worry. The secondary latch prevented it from flying up and doing
damage, and there was no damage from it not being completely latched.

Bill Putney
(to reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with "x")

 

No harm done. Close the hood and forget it. As for dirt and stuff, the
whole underside of the engine bay is open anyway, not much extra dirt is
going to come in through that 1/4 inch gap.

 

Along the same lines, my engine has a lot of white granular stuff
(road salt?) and dust/dirt in all of the nooks and crannies. Should I
do anything to clean this? I was thinking about doing that after the
winter but am concerned that engine cleaning might be more harmful
than good.

 

You have a choice here. Either wait 'till spring drive it in the rain, and
sooner or later that rainwater will wash the salt away and replace it with
sand...or use a hose. I pick the hose and I've never had a problem doing
so. Actually, I get out the brush and the pressure hose at the you-clean-it
carwash, and carefully give it a little under-hood scrubbing. As long as
you don't rip anything loose with the brush or hit any electrical
connections with the high-pressure stream at real close range, it's fine.
Works nice!

--Geoff

 

Hosing the engine down with a garden hose will get rid of salt and grit.
Make sure all the caps and dipsticks are fully seated, and don't be
tempted to use a power-washer or high-pressure car wash wand. Those can
blow gaskets right out from between sealing surfaces. You can safely use
a hose-end nozzle to blast it, but not the 1200 PSI car wash wands.

 

Ok, sounds good I will do that come spring, or July, which over comes first. Is there
any chance that spraying with water could make things worse if the salt isn't completely
removed? My concern is that spraying water makes the salt more corrosive when wet and
could possibly drive the salt into more places.

Thanks.

 

^ ^
whichever

 

Flush it very thorougly, then drive it around to dry everything out and
you shouldn't have a problem.