How hot is the surface of your car? I Test here

R

Redcar GUY

New member
I have a pyrometer that is used to check the temp of the surface of objects, today I decided to test how hot the paint was on the caviler. On the temp out side is 85 partly sunny, light wind and the humidity is 58%, It is 12:53 in the afternoon. I know that is will be getting hotter later in the afternoon but I have to go to work. So here is the test, this is a pic of the top of the car, it has been in the sun about 2 hours or so, once the sun gets high enuf to get past the garage it hits the caviler dead on. Just thought it was interesting, notice that the paint on the car is almost not there… make a difference? Give your thoughts…..
 
As an interesting side note, you would think that black would be the hottest paint color. But I remember Ron K posting that after testing many cars, he found green to be the hottest.
 
I recall Ron's post on that also. It had to do with the metallic particles in the dark green pigment retaining heat more than a non-metallic black. Makes sense.
 
I'd imagine the surface temp of my car would be around that, I'm only about an hour and a half, maybe two hours from you. Give or take a few degrees.
 
A few years back, a car dealership and a radio station did a test on interior temperatures of various colors of cars. I no longer remember the differences, but they were not very much. They felt the glass area of the car had a much greater effect than the paint color. Having felt a black car and a white car in the same sun conditions, it really surprised me. The black paint will almost burn you, while you have very little discomfort from touching the white paint. I guess the moral of the story is, "keep your car in the shade".



Charles
 
I have a infra red thermometer I bought at radio shack for paint testing, I tested three cars at work, all around noon time all had been driven, cut off, and parked the exact same amount of time in the same sunny spot in the parking lot, my red truck was 160, the white truck next to me was 122, and the black truck was 188. The ambient temp was about 85 degrees. On a 95 degree day the black would easily go over 200 degrees. The top surface of my dash was 170 with the windows rolled up.



A regular Carnauba is toast above about 135 or 140 degrees.



I am going to test different kinds of waxes and polishes to see if one kind or another is possible to keep paint cooler, probably not but its something to do.
 
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