A clean engine is a happy engine!

Airstreamer67 wrote:
Especially today's engines: putting water on them risks about a million little sensors, any one of which can stop you deader than roadkill in the middle of nowhere.

I am not sure I will subscribe to that notion. Any connector under the hood needs to be weather tolerant. Not all cars spend their lives in the sun-belt. A lot of them spend time in the rust-belt and are still plenty reliable. And I would think this would be a bigger problem with older cars with older style connectors rather than with newer cars and modern connectors.

Consider upcoming Christmas travel from Seattle. Cars left out in the Pacific NW rain in the airport economy parking lot for a couple weeks. All that dampness permeating the engine compartment. They still fire up and drive away with no problems. I don't see hosing down my engine compartment on a dry day with a warm (not hot) engine compartment to be all that much different. Especially if I drive it for a bit afterward to dry it out good.

The million little sensors are all designed to be weather tight. I don't know if I would hit them straight on with a pressure washer, or hold them in bucket of water. However, if they cannot keep out some Simple Green and a garden hose, then they will be giving me problems other times too. And if I do have a problem after washing the engine, then I am at home, can trace down the problem and seal the connector properly so it doesn't cause me a problem when I am away from home.

Just my $.02
-Eric