Wet weather does not break cars so much as it exposes the parts you have been ignoring. Four systems matter more than the rest once the roads are wet.
Wipers and washers
Rubber hardens with sun and age; if the blade chatters or leaves a band of water in your line of sight, replace it. It is a ten-minute job and the cheapest safety part on the car. Top the washer bottle with proper fluid, not water — road film needs detergent to shift.
Tyres
Tread depth is what clears water out from under the contact patch. Below about 3mm the distance it takes to stop on a wet road grows sharply, long before you reach the legal limit.
Legal and safe are not the same number. The legal minimum is where a tyre becomes an offence, not where it becomes a problem.
Check pressure too: an under-inflated tyre aquaplanes sooner.
Brakes
Water plus brake dust is mildly abrasive, so pads wear faster in a wet month than a dry one. Have them measured if you notice any of this:
- the pedal feels longer than it did
- a scrape on the first stop of the day that does not go away
- the car pulls to one side under braking
Underneath
Road salt is not the only problem — grit thrown into wheel arches holds moisture against the seams. Rinse the underbody occasionally and make sure the drain holes at the bottom of the doors and sills are clear.
And run the air conditioning even when it is cold. It is what dries the air on the inside of the glass, and the compressor seals last longer when they are used. If any of this is beyond a weekend, our service centre does the lot in an afternoon.
