The best products to protect your car from the sun
Cars
If you have a garage or a car port, I bet you use it the way most Americans do.
To hoard stuff while your car sits outside baking in the hot sun and the damaging UV rays.
Which NASA has documented have gotten worse over the last 30 years.
And even if your car is lucky enough to be in a garage, you gotta go to work and there's that big old parking lot sitting there an oven of destruction for vehicles.
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All of this prematurely ages your paint.
Tires, upholstery, and all that black trim that looks so good when your car was new.
So here are my five favorite ways to protect your car from the sun, assuming your garage is full of crap.
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At the nexus of effectiveness and affordability.
Is the car cover.
There's nothing quite like one of these.
Especially if you buy a good one.
Don't fall for one of those $30 Amazon specials that are universal fit.
You gotta spend maybe $300 or so and you'll get one that's gonna block dirt and grime, block infrared and UV, at least until the poor thing deteriorates.
Don't let it do this.
They're typically made of what they call a noah fabric from Kimberly Clark it's kind of this wonder fabric that keeps water out but also lets the vehicle air out from underneath it so it doesn't rust so if these things are so great what's the drawback yes they're a pain in the **** putting them on is a complete drag and most folks who start with a car cover i've noticed.
Cannot stop using a car cover.
If you gotta get it on the car.
Now in the wind or a breezy location this is all kinds of fun.
You're gonna fly away if you're not careful.
That's why a good cover has these grommets for a belly band.
Wrestling it onto your vehicle Getting it tucked up around the corners and doing all this in a way that your not actually putting more dirt and grime on the car, which is kind of opposite of the idea, requires some effort.
So if your not committed, don't bother with one of these, but I do like them.
Now, if you don't want to deal with a car cover at all, here's your solution.
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Check out High Tech window tint.
Now the new tint these days use nanotechnology.
They use very thin layers, a bunch of them that change polarization of light as it comes in.
And can therefore block a huge amount of infrared and ultraviolet and the best part is, they don't need to be dark to do that.
So you don't have a car that screams to police, I'm smoking pot while driving or smuggling minors across the border.
It has a nice open airy greenhouse but you're still blocking the damaging ray.
Check our piece where we recently went to the three m labs in Minnesota to see how these high tech tints do it all without being dark.
ok so far ive given you one solution that requires you be in a wrestling match twice a day and another one that could cost a thousand dollars or more Not going well here for some of you.
But how about this?
For $30 you can get a lot done with a good window shade.
This is an old beater.
I've had this thing forever.
And I use it a lot as you can tell.
This is a rigid shade.
And as you saw, it's, Its got that silver facing on it,to reject light tat way and a nice kind of a felt flocking in here,so it doesnt scratch anything on the car.
This is key because while it doesnt do anything for the outside of your car,and doesnt protect most of your interior,it does protect your dashboard.
On most cars today,this is harder to replace than engine.
And almost as expensive,so take care of your dash and this whole cowl area because it's where you spend all your time and a crack faded shrinking upholstery up here is real nasty.
And please don't put one of those carpet things on your dash.
That's like putting carpet on your dining room table.
Just do it right.
And get a custom one that's made for your exact car's windshield shape, to block out all those edges.
Don't get a generic.
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Now the cheapest thing you can do to prevent UV damage to your car extensively is to spray something on it One of this sprays that are high tech coding's that restore black plastic parts but also claim to block UV damage at the same time.
I'll be honest I'm skeptical, most of this are pretty good in restoring black plastic.
See the video we did recently that went through all the steps to get this done easily and really well.
But I just find it hard to believe that this
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Spray is going to block the sun's damage.
My money's on other things I've shown you already.
Finally, there are ceramic coatings, these embed nano particles into the surface of your factory clear coat.
They don't get down to the color because that's under the clear coat.
Do several things as claimed.
First of all, they give you a finished it's slightly resistant to light abrasions are not going to prevent a rocket ship for crying out loud.
They also tend to be dirt shedding.
They promise being so slick and glossy, that most dirt will slide right off meaning fewer washes, and they mostly claimed to have some degree of UV protection as well.
These surfaces tend to be rather pricey because you've got to go to a flyer an installer who's licensed by the manufacturer of the stuff.
We're talking hundreds to a couple thousand dollars among people I've talked to to get their car ceramic nano coated.
I haven't tried it if you really want to go high tech and you're willing to spend some bucks.
This might be worth looking at.
But I'll tell you, nothing blocks everything quiet as well as a car cover nice.
