by David W. Bynon
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It’s easy to overlook the big picture in car care because, so often, we’re simply trying to deal with specific problems. Take water spots and swirl marks as an example. Sooner or later, we all get spots and swirls. Due to the environment, they seem inevitable. The environmental factors around our cars can cause severe appearance and maintenance problems. The purpose of this article is to make you aware of what the environment is doing to your car.
Exposure to sunlight is a critical problem for all cars that spend three or more hours a day uncovered. The sun’s radiation of ultraviolet light attacks your car’s interior and exterior finish. If your car is unprotected, sunlight rapidly accelerates the aging process. Fabrics quickly fade, leather dries and cracks, and paint oxidizes and dulls.
The earth has a natural layer of sun block called ozone. Our atmosphere is composed of several layers. We live in the "Troposphere" where most of the weather occurs; such as rain, snow and clouds. Above the troposphere is the "Stratosphere". Supersonic jets like the Concorde fly in the lower stratosphere. This is also where we find the thin layer of ozone. Ozone forms when ultraviolet radiation from the sun strikes the stratosphere, which splits oxygen molecules (O2) to form atomic oxygen (O). The atomic oxygen combines with new oxygen molecules to form ozone. Up in the stratosphere, ozone absorbs most of the harmful ultra-violet (UV) radiation which causes skin cancer, damages vegetation and ruins our cars.
It's quite ironic that at ground-level, ozone is a health hazard. It is a major component of photochemical smog. Ground-level ozone is formed by a chemical reaction between volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and oxides of nitrogen (NOx) in the presence of sunlight. Ground-level ozone, better known as smog, is a serious health hazard to us, but did you also know smog it’s damaging to the rubber trim, seals and hoses on your car? Ground-level ozone eats away at rubber, causing it to dry out and crack.
Heat is another danger to your car. When the temperature rises above 75 degrees, the interior and exterior of your car bake in the sun. High temperatures accelerate surface oxidation by drying out the paint. As you can imagine, this issue is worse on dark colors than light colors. Dark colors absorb more heat, whereas light colors tend to reflect it.
As if the sunshine we enjoy so much was not bad enough, coastal salt air is just as bad. The concentration of salt in coastal air is very corrosive to paint, chrome, aluminum, fabrics and leather. People who live at or near the beach should wash their car twice as often as someone who lives 20 or more miles from the ocean. Without frequent washing (weekly, at a minimum), coastal salt air will rapidly etch and dull a new car finish.
Speaking of frequent car washes, I have a friend who prides himself on washing his car each and every time it rains. While he is being smug, thinking the rain water bathes and washes the layers of dirt off of his car, it actually blends the dirt with a nice mixture of atmospheric chemicals. What my friend’s car really gets is an acid mud bath.
Acid rain comes from the emissions of fossil fuel burning power plants, internal combustion engines and chemical plants, just to name a few. Rain and other precipitation sweep the chemical emissions out of the upper atmosphere and deposit them back on the ground as sulfuric or nitric acid. When acid rain falls onto your car, it can etch spots into the paint.
Not wanting to leave anyone out, cold weather is a problem, too. Regular exposure to freezing temperature or rapid temperature fluctuations may cause your paint to become brittle and crack. Because steel, vinyl and paint all expand and contract at different rates, it’s very easy for paint to delaminate. Car manufactures use flex agents in paint to combat this problem, allowing the paint to remain flexible.
Thus far, I have only mentioned some of the individual hazards to your car’s finish. What do you think happens when you combine the forces? As an example, acid rain alone is not so bad. However, combine acid rain with intense sunshine and you have an incredible force against you called photochemical etching. The combination and factors seem nearly endless. Let’s face it, the world is out to mess up your beautiful car if you don’t protect it and maintain it.
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