Am I Crazy?

No you are not crazy. With cloth seats and cold, dry weather static electricity is common.

Try to touch the metal frame of the car before you slide across the cloth seats. This will help prevent the static shock.

 

You're all "charged up" man!

 

If the static electricity really bothers you, there's a bolt-on that will reduce this phenom. I don't remember what they call them, but it's basically a grounding cable that drags along the road beneath your car. Can't say I recommend them myself, but they're out there.
I've pretty much gotten used to grounding myself against a door knob, (or other likely object) with my elbow or the back side of my hand to reduce the effect of the shock. Others who are really bothered by this carry a coin or other metal object in their hand to 'discharge' themselves with after they get out of their car.

It's normal, and nothing that you can blame on being a Prius owner.

 

One of the reasons why I hate winter is the static shock.

One thing that I've done to help reduce the amount of static build up is to apply lotion on the skin. Dry skin increases the chance of build up. Moist damn skin lowers the chance of build up.

 

It's just another feature from your Prius......charging your batteries.

Don't you just love this car. !!!

 

lol

 

Same issue here....We spray this stuff on our seats once a month during the low humidity months.

http://dragonifilmsupplies.com/images/STATIC GUARD.jpg

Craig

 

same thing here. i just get out and push my shoulder into the door that way it shocks me there, and doesn't bother me so bad.

 

Get some STATIC GUARD spray. You can find it in just about any store (Target, Walmart, etc). Spray it on the floor mats and fabric surfaces. You can even use it on your comb or hairbrush. Works great! I always keep some on hand in my house.

 

Use to happen to me all the time till I started getting leather seats. Not sure if this has anything to do with it, but I don't have the problem of getting shocked any more.

 

Easy one. Your not using any anti static product in your clothes dryer at home. And your clothes are highly charged. Bounce sheets are the best. If I don't use Bounce in my dryer when I go to work I can get a blue spark from my finger to the racks. With Bounce no shocks anywhere.
Might need to use 2 sheets for a while.

 

Nearly every car I have had since the mid '90s has given me a shock. I finally figured out that it has to do with my shoes. If I wear hard-sole shoes I get quite a shock and have become a bit "gun shy". If I wear rubber-sole shoes, no problem. I agree with some of the other comments regard static discharge, but it seems the best thing I have found to avoid the shock is to keep in full contact with the car while exiting. Oh, and wear rubber-sole shoes.

A cup of strong coffee will never wake you up like have a miniature lighting bolt go through you. Of course, it could put you to sleep permanently, in extremely rare circumstances, I suppose...

 

An '84 Ford was my worst static zapper. This Prius produces much milder zaps, about the same as it two most recent predecessors. But I must confess to not tracking it against shoes and laundry fabric softeners / antistatic aids.

 

As you start the "Exit" process...crack the door open; touch & hold any metal part of door (door/edge) continue to touch as you start your "Slide" & until your feet are on the ground!...Guess what?...No shock!...FWIW, works for me

 

Yep. That's a good plan.

Static electric charge builds up from the triboelectric effect, and results from two objects rubbing against one another. The amount of charge is a result of the characteristics of the materials and the amount of vigorous rubbing. One can build up a static charge of thousands of volts simply by quickly pulling plastic tape off a dispenser.

In the case of the build-up inside an motor vehicle, the charge may be the result of your but rubbing against the seat, or a characteristic of the vehicle itself.

You could try anti-static spray on your seats, or try covering the seats with other material. The easiest thing may be the above Exit Plan by Tande and noted above. This does assume that the charge can dissipate through your shoes.

 

Your description and summary were great except maybe for that final sentence. If one holds the car's frame on the way out then shoes are not involved.

Getting out of a car can create a charge separation between the body and the car, as you wrote, by rubbing dis-similar materials. This separated charge is what creates the potential (literally) for discharge as a spark. Holding the frame while getting out provides an immediate continuous discharge path between your body and the car so there can be no spark later.

If there is a conductive path from the car to the earth (for example through a dangling chain, or through sufficiently-conductive tires) then any charge separation will be created between you and the car plus the earth. In that case, if your shoes are conductive they become the discharge path to the earth and you probably won't feel the discharge.

All of this is worse in the winter because the absolute humidity is low; when the absolute humidity is high the water vapor in the air becomes an adequate continuous discharge path so no significant charge separation can form.

By The Way, this is why one should always stay at the fuel pump with a hand on the nozzle when refueling. This prevents the possibility of a spark that may happen when returning to a fuel nozzle, which of course can be dangerous:
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3x-8tj49ac]YouTube - Gas Pump Fire[/ame]

The cause here is that the driver got out of the car and returned to the pump; it is *not* significant that she adjusted her sweater on the way, because the charge separation between her body and the car had already been created by the act of sliding out of the car.

 

Seriously? You have to remember to touch metal first? Why go this route when you can use a spray that takes away the static altogether? Why make it more difficult for yourself?

As I suggested above, just get some 'Static Guard' spray (it's like $3 or $4 for a can that will last you a few years) and spray the carpet and seat surfaces. Apply the spray every month in the winter.

Also, if you get a rubber mat as your driver side floor mat, at least for the winter, you won't build up static electricity from your shoes rubbing against the carpet.

There...you now have 2 suggestions that don't involve having to remember to do anything and don't require you to touch certain parts of the car first.

 

Leather soled shoes and I'm OK, but if I'm wearing my boots with synthetic soles I almost always get a static shock. My cure is to shut the door by touching the glass window and locking the door with your remote.

 

This is my first car with leather seats and, yup, static shocks are MUCH less. I've also started shutting the door with my hand on the black coated upright as opposed to the painted part of the door. Even on the driest of days, it's only a minor "tick" discharge.

The cloth seats in our Nissan Cube are notorious for building up BIG static charges (loud and sometimes minor pain). On one forum, it's suggested to weave fine wires (fray the individual strands one end of small gauge electrical wire) into the cloth and ground the other end to the frame. Haven't tried that so I don't know if it works. FWIW