Keeping an Atom outside under a Cover

[carspath]

Hi Everyone ,

I have been interested in the Atom for almost 2 decades now and I am finally in a position to satisfy my long-postponed desires.
The problem is that I dont have any additional garaging space and I live in coastal Southern England where there are high winds and quite a lot of rain ( but where it hardly ever snow )

Are there any Atom owners who keep their cars outside and non-garaged ?( in a location that suffers from rain and wind )
Or do you know of any owners who do ?

My plan is to get a good quality bespoke outdoor car cover , and then use a cargo net with a strong bungee cord around the bottom to secure the net and cover in position. Companies like Classic Additions sell both outdoor 4 season car covers and cargo nets .

Is this a feasible plan ?
Or am I just setting myself up for a whole lot of problems ?



My garage is already chock full of cars and due to the location of my house I am unable to get Planning Permisssion for another garage building .I live out in the middle of nowhere and there are no garages to rent nearby, and I dont fancy putting the Atom in storage because I would want to use it regularly if I were lucky enough to get one . So its a car cover and cargo net OR no Atom at all .

I would be grateful for your opinions , and more so for anyone who can tell me if they have successfully ( or unsuccessfully ) kept an Atom outdoors in a site subject to rain and wind .

Also , please can you tell me if there are any other preventative or protective steps I could/should take to keep an Atom intact under the conditions that I have described above ( Eg , Will it help to spray the suspension rods etc with an oily solution like WD40 ? ) , and any recommendations for an external car cover

Thank you all

Carspath

[autobackup]

Have you considered purchasing a CarCoon?

This would not require any planning permission.

This would protect the Atom (I would suggest that you would probably still need a cover for the Atom) but I would use the cargo net securely strapped down to the ground but only loosely covering the whole shebang to stop it being damaged by the increasingly high winds affecting the UK!

https://www.carcoon.com/product/outdoor-carcoon-size-4/

Another alternative (if you have the vertical space in your existing garage(s) is to install a wide vehicle lift and store the Atom above with another car below!

https://www.autostacker.com/

[John Scherrer]

Obvious possibility - park the Atom in the garage and put one of the other cars outside?

[carspath]

Hi autobackup ,

Thanks for both those suggestions.
I have previously considered both , and sadly neither are possible .

Are there any other Atom forums where i can ask if any owners have /are keeping their Atoms under an outside cover ?

Thanks again

Hi John ,

The other cars would tolerate the elements even less than the Atom would .
I was hoping that the Atom's minimal bodywork , and the fact that it was designed to be '' hosed down '' ( Is this actually true ? )would mean that it would live under an outdoor cover more happily than a more normal car would .

[carspath]

Just found this very old post - is Atomfun still on this forum ?



Re: Atom-supplied Exterior Car cover
Post by John Lloyd » Fri Nov 23, 2007 9:34 am

I've never had any problems with mine and I must use it over half a dozen times a year and Atomfun uses his every night as his car is kept outside. Suggest you've got a duff one and ask then to change it.

[Mrlizard]

a m8 of mine has been using one of these for his TVR, works well

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/256253459312 ... 34QAvD_BwE

[John Scherrer]

Atomfun no longer has an account on this forum, so I'm guessing it has been removed by the admins due to no activity for a long time.

[speedmachine]

I wouldnt keep the atom in a moist environment. The rod ends and all kinds of other parts love to rust or get to look oxidated. I need to keep on top of it even on a new car which doesnt see any rain in a heated garage…cant think how it would look after some time outside with all the moist creeping up

[abcoro]

Well. Keeping it outside in rain, wind, moist is not ideal. The Atom will survive it, no problem...but a bit sad to leave it outside indeed...and you'll need to give it some more attention to keep it shiny and all joints lubricated appropriately. My Atom 4 also sits a lot outside where I live but under a shed (which is completely open at 2 sides and with an outdoor cover... If you're planning to buy an outdoor cover, I have one from Ariel and it's the best quality cover I have ever used, if you're planning to leave it in the natural elements...buy a decent cover and don't try to save a few pennies on cheap stuff. For indoor covers it's not that important as it only needs to catch dust...with an outdoor cover it's slightly different. Worth noting though when using a cover...it will rub the Atom when there's wind...and this will surely leave marks on the paint/surfaces after a while...

[carspath]

Thank you for all your replies …. I am listening very carefully to everything that this collective has said thus far .

Abcoro’s post is interesting as I have 2 , almost 3 , very solid walls already in place …… so it would be a matter of getting a roof and a front door of some sort , and improvising .

I am acutely aware of the disadvantages of keeping a car ungaraged , but I wonder if the Atom is just about the most suitable car available to suffer such abuse .

Is it true that the car was designed to be hosed down with drainage holes pre-drilled into the seats and floor ?

How watertight are the fuse box and ECU compartments ?

Ditto the spark plug covers ? …… I would have thought that Honda would have done its typically thorough job here .

My apologies for all these questions and thank you for taking the time to reply .

I am throughly enjoying reading through the many and highly varied threads on this forum ….. you seem to have a great community here .

[MDifficult]

Just my 2p but I think there's a big difference between the Atom being designed to get wet, versus being designed to thrive in a damp or endlessly-outdoor environment.

The car is great in a shower, even a torrential one - all the water runs out of all the holes and all the things that need to stay dry (like ECU or battery) stay dry. That said though.. I think that's all on the basis of being able to put it away somewhere warm and dry to dry out afterwards. Nothing about the Atom screams resistance to the environment on an ongoing basis. The materials and finishes just aren't suitable over the long term. Even with a cover, there's damp and corrosion, or the stresses that the wind and rain filling up the cover will put on the plastics and the fittings.

Will an Atom 'survive' outside - yes. Will it age fast and rapidly look pretty tatty and second-hand because of it? Also yes.

[travelbug63]

Hi, I thought I posted a reply yesterday but isn't showing, so I'm try again.

I had an Atom and kept in a Carcoon over winter and it was fine, in fact I'm amazed at how good it came out. We were living on Dartmoor in Devon, so very wet and very windy.

When it came out in March there wasn't even any surface rust on the discs.

[Fastlane]

One thing you may want to check out is whether any insurance companies will even cover it if it isn't in a locked garage. All the quotes I have ever received have had this as a stipulation, even to the point that if it is left outside at my home address overnight, it isn't covered...

[Peter255]

I you echo the insurance comments, and add that i dehumidify my garage to keep it dry. I don't think Atoms are better than other cars at handling water or a damp environment. If you really want keep one outside buy an older well used car and expect it to suffer a little. It would be madness IMO to have a new one and leave it outside even under a cover.

[Mrlizard]

Thank you for all your replies …. I am listening very carefully to everything that this collective has said thus far .

Abcoro’s post is interesting as I have 2 , almost 3 , very solid walls already in place …… so it would be a matter of getting a roof and a front door of some sort , and improvising .

I am acutely aware of the disadvantages of keeping a car ungaraged , but I wonder if the Atom is just about the most suitable car available to suffer such abuse .

Is it true that the car was designed to be hosed down with drainage holes pre-drilled into the seats and floor ?

How watertight are the fuse box and ECU compartments ?

Ditto the spark plug covers ? …… I would have thought that Honda would have done its typically thorough job here .

My apologies for all these questions and thank you for taking the time to reply .

I am throughly enjoying reading through the many and highly varied threads on this forum ….. you seem to have a great community here .

There are drainage holes, when cleaning it though I still put a bag over the dash etc, the other problem is that it doesnt want to stay wet even thought it is designed to cope driving in wet weather, you need to be thorough when drying it and then you need to lubricate all the bits that need it afterwards. Personally I would definitely keep it undercover and somewhere mostly, dry.