Can I Leave My Scooter Outside In The Rain?

Image of White Scooter Outside in the Rain

Scooters are a blast to ride on a beautiful sunny day. You casually cruise down the street, wind whistling through your helmet, your partners arms wrapper around you. It’s one of those zero-stress kinda days.

Then all of a sudden… BAM! You find yourself staring at the horizon watching the darkest clouds you’ve ever seen moving directly toward you at unimaginable speeds. Knowing you’re not only responsible for your safety, but the safety of the passenger as well, you up your focus and prepare for the gutsy, white-knuckled ride ahead.

Wait, what!? I have no idea idea where I’m going with this.

Just pull over to safety, go inside and wait the storm out. Scooter are designed to be outside and exposed to the elements. So yes, you can leave your scooter outside in the rain.

That said, you should be smart about how you take care of your scooter, as proper protection will save you money in the long run. Let me share with you some good habits and tricks on how to protect your scooter from rain and other weather elements.

Best Way To Protect Your Scooter From The Rain

Let’s start off by going over some of the accessory based solutions. First I’ll give you some details about each of them, and then at the bottom of the article I’ll recommend a few of my favorite.

Weather-Resistant Scooter Cover

Protect your investment: A durable, weather-resistant scooter cover should be the first accessory you should buy, it will be the most important. Just because scooters were designed to run outside, doesn’t mean you should take advantage them. Scooters are expensive, treat them a such. Anything with a $3000+ price tags should be considered an investment.

Protect against rust: Rain is one thing if you happen to get caught in a light drizzle while on a ride. The serious damage comes when scooters sit wet for long periods of time. Rusted metal takes time to rear its ugly head. Plus, one of the more difficult things to see when it comes to rust, is it often happens from the inside-out. This can be very scary. Some of the most critical parts are made from hollow steel tubes, including important structural components. While this helps keep the over all weight down, it makes it impossible to see what’s going on the inside until it’s typically too late.

Water and electronics don’t mix very well: The nature of how you ride a scooter requires the controls, like the throttle, brake lever sit completely exposed. While these components are sealed to a degree and were built to get wet, trust me, stagnant water tends to find its way in. Covering it up when not use will help.

Without temptation and gain, there is no crime: Basically if a potential thief sees is a black boring cover instead of a brand new skinny scooter, their interest and motivation decreases making it less likely they’ll steal or damage your scooter. While this tactic provides no guarantees, it’s a nice perk.

When choosing a cover, try to find one with either vents and/or made from a breathable material. This will help let any trapped moisture escape and help prevent mold and mildew. Also, near the bottom, some covers have loops where you can run a cable lock though to help prevent someone from removing the cover.

Topical Solutions

Microfiber towel: Speed is the name of the game. The faster you can remove excess moisture the better. While normal cotton towels can do an OK job, a good microfiber cloth will have some important advantages.

They have a static electric charge and naturally attracts small dirt and dust partials.
With over 150,000 fibers per square inch, they can store up to 7 times their weight in water
They’re designed to work without additional cleaning sprays, which is not only healthier, but as storage on a scooter is limited, only needing to carry a small cloth is really nice.
Lint free. If you’ve ever cleaned your scooter with a cotton towel, you’ll know it leaves behind little pieces cotton behind. This does not happen with a microfiber towel.

Wax: When people think of wax, they seem to only associate its use with cars and trucks. But wax is a product you should absolutely be using on your scooter. Known as a “sacrificial layer”, wax brings a ton of advantages to the table. First, it gives that “hard candy” look, which really makes your scooter look new. Second, there are a few weather protecting properties. Wax, being waxy, does a great job allowing rain to bead off and prevent the time needed to sit there and cause damage. Also, some wax manufactures include additives to help protect against the sun and UV rays.

Don’t be afraid to use wax on the plastic sections of your scooter. Both painted metal and painted plastic have a clear coat added by the manufacturer. This clear coat is what your applying the wax to, not the bare material underneath.

Hydrophobic Coating: The term hydrophobic basically means “to repel water”. But wait… Isn’t that exactly was normal wax does? Yes and no. Wax absolutely does make water bead off it, but this nano technology takes it to a whole other level. It does such a good job at creating a barrier that even dust and dirt have a hard time clinging to it, let alone water.

This stuff can be on the pricey side, but lucky for us scooters are small, so a bottle should last you awhile. I did some research into a few different brands and found the average application of this stuff will last on average 3-6 months. The cool part, is it can be used on almost any surface, not only ones with paint.

If you’ve never seen a hydrophobic surface, give this cool demo a watch: