Top 10 Reasons Your Car Needs a Cover
Any car parked outside in Australia is under constant attack from some of the most violent and destructive forces nature can rustle up. It would be great if we all had garages at home, but that’s simply not the case. Parking in the open is the reality for many and that’s where a car cover can save your car and your money.
Here are the ten top reasons to use a car cover:
1. UV exposure creates havoc
Australia has the highest levels of UV radiation in the world. Fact. Enough to make us the skin cancer capital of the planet. A similar threat exists for any car parked outdoors.
UV radiation has been proven to fade automotive paint, including clear-coat paint-jobs, destroying the finish in the process. You’ve probably seen cars with faded, discoloured, flaking or peeling paint. UV radiation is nearly always the culprit.
The same is true of interior plastics and other surfaces including carpets and cloth trim where UV radiation can fade and degrade even high-end materials. Even dashboard needles can fade under UV attack. The overall effect on a car’s interior can be catastrophic.
A car cover made from a UV-resistant fabric works like sunscreen on your skin. The right cover protects both the car’s interior and exterior.
2. Bird droppings are acidic
Our feathered friends are not so friendly towards a car’s painted surface. Their droppings are actually acidic and that acid attacks the paint surface, particularly clear-coat finishes.
The damage comes from the acid etching into the clear-coat. It’s a chemical process and even a waxed surface can’t fend off the acid completely.
Bird droppings are chemically aggressive, too, and consist largely of uric acid with a pH of between three and 4.5, putting them in a similar pH range to orange juice. The longer they sit on the paintwork, the more damage they do as they `melt’ or etch into the surface.
Since you can’t train wild animals not to target your car, a car cover acts as a physical barrier between the bird’s waste and the car’s paint.
3. Sap attack
Another hazard from the sky is tree sap. Sap destroys paint in two ways, making it a serious threat to your car.
Firstly, tree sap is – like bird droppings – acidic, and can etch into the paint which breaks down the integrity of the surface, particularly in clear-coat finishes. The longer sap is allowed to sit on a car, the more acidic it becomes. Combined with ambient heat, the sap eventually cures into an even more destructive compound.
Secondly, the sticky resin compounds in tree sap can be extremely difficult to remove, opening up the possibility of damaging the now-softened painted surface in the removal process.
There are specialist solvents to remove tree sap, but a better approach is to protect the car with a physical barrier in the form of a car cover, eliminating the sap attack.
4. The daily grind
The air we breathe is not as clean or pure as we’d like to think. In fact, airborne dust, pollen, grit, industrial fallout and even metallic particles (if you park near a railway line) are all carried in the air and will settle on any surface, including your car.
It’s not as simple as removing these fine particles, either, as that very process can cause them to gouge and scrape the paint surface on a micro-level, but one that becomes obvious once it has occurred frequently enough or for long enough. Even the force of the ambient wind can be enough to turn dust or grit into grinding paste, and rain doesn’t soften them or remove them completely.
A car cover prevents these contaminants landing on the car in the first place.
5. Hail Mary
Having your car’s metal exterior panels and its fragile glass areas bombarded with hard, solid balls of frozen water is a sure way to damage those panels and the paint on them, or smash the windows.
Not all hail stones are big enough to cause damage, but when they are, the cost to fix the carnage can be more than the car is worth. Which is when an insurance company will write the vehicle off. Even if it’s deemed repairable, reversing hail damage often requires the entire car to be panel-beaten and repainted.
Padded and reinforced car covers can’t stop hail-storms happening, but they can put a padded, shock-absorbing barrier between your car and the attacking icy rocks.
6. Salt air
Coastal areas of Australia often have high levels of salt (from the ocean) suspended in the ambient air. This can cause rust to form literally overnight if exposed metal is left uncovered, and that includes cars.
Salt can eventually eat through panels from the inside – even painted ones – and exposed trim and chromework is also open to salt attack.
An appropriate car cover can help keep airborne salt and salt-spray at bay by physically preventing it from settling on to the car’s surface. But even in inland areas, salt in the ground (brought to the surface by changes in the water table) can attack cars. Again, the right cover can slow this process.
7. Rain and humidity
Long periods of wet and/or cold weather can contribute to high levels of ambient humidity both inside and outside a car. This can often contribute to mould and mildew forming.
Typical areas affected by mildew and mould are the rubber seals on a car’s doors and windows, any surface inside the car and even on joins and creases in bodywork and panels. Surfaces often touched by human hands (the steering wheel and other controls) can also harbour bacteria which can grow spectacularly into mouldy outbreaks in a damp environment.
An appropriate car cover for these conditions is one that sheds rainwater and condensation easily but still allows for drying air to circulate around the vehicle.
8. Sunshine on my window
It’s not just the UV radiation in sunlight that destroys car interiors. Heat build-up is also a major cause of plastic, fabric, leather, vinyl and carpet damage. A car left parked in direct sun can, thanks to the greenhouse effect, very quickly heat up to 70 degrees Celsius, or even more. Day after day, year after year, that’s enough to kill a car’s interior.
Even in high ambient heat, a car cover cuts out the greenhouse effect, keeping the lid on interior temperatures. Like drawing a blind on a window, or standing in the shade in summer, a car cover just makes sense.
9. Falling interest
Parking around and directly under trees is sometimes unavoidable. But the leaf litter, twigs and branches (not to mention trees are where birds like to hang out) that fall from them can easily scratch paint or even dent car panels. A storm or windy day amplifies those chances.
A car cover, while it doesn’t replace a garage with a solid roof, does offer at least some protection from this sort of attack. And some will always be better than none.
10. Investment cover
There are two ways to look at the way a car cover protects your finances. The first is the way it can physically protect a car from all the possibilities we’ve just talked about. We buy cars with our eyes, and a clean, sharp one will always be worth more (and easier to sell) than a rough one.
But the second is what a car cover can save you in terms of repairs over the time you own the car. Modern cars and materials (not to mention labour rates) mean it can be very expensive and difficult to repair the sort of damage a car cover can prevent.
Which car cover for you?
The answer to this depends on where you live and what conditions your car is subjected to. For any car parked outside damage is a constant possibility, but the right cover can mitigate that risk.
Outdoor car protection in areas where thunderstorms and hail are frequent, will be different to what’s needed for cars often parked in hot, sunny climates. Car cover benefits vary according to what the cover is designed to do, so check out our range of car covers for what’s likely to work for you.
