Parking In The Sun

[Eurofan]

We have shifted offices recently and my parking slot is in the sun. How many of you park in the sun day in and day out at work? What kind of damage have you witnessed on your car and what sort Of preventive action do urll take against sun damage

[Magnum]

We have shifted offices recently and my parking slot is in the sun. How many of you park in the sun day in and day out at work? What kind of damage have you witnessed on your car and what sort Of preventive action do urll take against sun damage

the color of your dashboard could change slightly...sometimes damages do the glasses(usually to the windscreen) also could occur

[MrCat]

We get 40+ degrees celsius hot summer days over here and my car is out under the elements 24x7. Just use a sun shade on the front windscreen and try to wax it once a month or so that's all. Hate the burning like smell of plastics and leather once I get inside after work. But there are no visible damage external or internal though. Most common sun damage over here is the paint clear coat peeling off, but i`ve seen that only on 12+ or so year old cars.

[varunatech]

Adding 3M Crystelline Clear paper for Windshiled and 3M Tints for other windows will help the interior. You can add a sun shade for extra protection.

May apply Son of a Gun or a good brand Vinyl treat once in a while for Dash.

If leather seats, you will have to apply moisturiser every week to stop peeling.

Paint has to be waxed with a good paste wax (spray type does not help) at least once a month.

Apply the wax to the all plastic lamp covers.

If you do all above..you are pretty safe.

Finally, if security is good.....you can slighty keep one shutter glass few mm lower to make the internal hot air to escape. You will need shutter lids here to prevent dust and rain from getting in.

Edited July 31, 2011 by varunatech

[Rebel]

Also I've seen many extend the wipes so hat its sanding clear off the windscreen. I believe the logic is that the rubbe heats up and is effected. Sound logic

[Scooter]

What MrCat says. Also, I've always made it a habit with cars in hot climates to either use a dash protector or a towel over the dashboard. That's the part of the car that really seems to suffer in extreme temperatures/sunlight with changes of colour and cracking of the vinyl/plastic being common.

[Watchman]

We get 40+ degrees celsius hot summer days over here and my car is out under the elements 24x7. Just use a sun shade on the front windscreen and try to wax it once a month or so that's all. Hate the burning like smell of plastics and leather once I get inside after work. But there are no visible damage external or internal though. Most common sun damage over here is the paint clear coat peeling off, but i`ve seen that only on 12+ or so year old cars.

But how old is your car. The average car in the US or europe is much newer than in Sri Lanka. Maybe my sample size isnt that good, but from what I've seen unless you take very good care of it, they dont exactly age very well over there. Example a 1995 toyota corolla in SL would be considered good and well maintained whereas in SL that'll be a bare minimum car that someone would buy out of necessity.

[MrCat]

But how old is your car. The average car in the US or europe is much newer than in Sri Lanka. Maybe my sample size isnt that good, but from what I've seen unless you take very good care of it, they dont exactly age very well over there. Example a 1995 toyota corolla in SL would be considered good and well maintained whereas in SL that'll be a bare minimum car that someone would buy out of necessity.

It`s 4 years old actually. Agree on the fact that the average lifetime of a car is much less over here. A car made in 1995 that got to spend its entire life parked under a roof at night can be considered a bloody lucky one.

From what I have observed though, plastics, glass and rubber withstand the heat pretty well in cars here (temperature and UV ratings are much higher compared to SL in summer). Rarely seen a Japanese car with a cracked dash (say a couple of decades old). Maybe the materials are properly selected to suit the conditions and to meet standards. It`s the paint that starts to wear off soon, for example my Jimny`s red paint had started to fade (roof and hood) after about 12 years and the Charade I had looked like it`s developed a bad skin condition after spending about 17 years under the sun . Both cars had no issues with plastics and rubber materials.

So I always thought that humidity and moisture is the car killer in SL, not really the sun.

[rangerover]

Wonder how well european cars fare in the SL climate being parked in the hot sun all day. My car is in a basement car park the whole day during office hours, so really don't have much experience. The leather would obviously need conditioning atleast once every two weeks. But wonder how the plastics / paint would fare.

[JayZ]

This is one of my fears as well since i also have to park under the hot sun whole day. I use a Mc Foil windscreen protector on the front so dashboard is pretty much covered. And for the leather interior i use a leather care conditioner once a week. so far so good But really dont like parking under sun, but its less worrying than parking under a tree and end up with all the bird droppings. :jumping-smiley-013:

[Scooter]

In Aus, and this is a bit of a surprise, the average car age is now sitting at 10 years. If we go back to the early 70s, average age was about 6 years. Since then the average vehicle age has risen. May be something to do with the size of the national car park increasing...don't know. What would be the average car age in SL??

[jami]

We have shifted offices recently and my parking slot is in the sun. How many of you park in the sun day in and day out at work? What kind of damage have you witnessed on your car and what sort Of preventive action do urll take against sun damage

this is called Plastic Degradation, due to sunlight the strength and the colour of your plastic surfaces vehicle n dashbord (PC Headlights) and other surfaces will damage, this will increase by time, and after you took the vehicle from sunlight when it inthe heat, then it start to cooling, this also damage the structure.

best option is to avoid it from direct sunlight as much as you can