How Much Damage from Parking in the Sun?

I detail cars as a hobby. Headlights degrade due to UV damage. If you keep them protected they will never degrade. All of our vehicles get spray waxed with a reputable brand almost every weekend which is severe overkill. Any decent wax has chemical UV inhibiters.

Here is a patent from Optimum Polymer Technologies describing spray wax with ultraviolet absorbers - US6685765B1 - Water based protectant containing UV absorbers - Google Patents

Here is an article describing various chemicals used for UV absorption.
Ultraviolet absorbent


There are many, the three mentioned in the article happen to be Chinese. UV absorbers are used everywhere including the clearcoat in the paint on your car.

 

What's at odds with that though: IIRC Owner's Manual has a caution, to never apply anything, wax or whatever, to the headlights. Maybe they're concerned about polish might have abrasive? Not sure.

Moot point for us, garage stored, but still I'm interested.

 

To avoid high heat/possible degradation issues:

Avoid charging outside in the heat of the day (especially level II 240v).
Avoid driving on EV immediately afterwards.
Avoid letting a fully charged battery sit in the sun.

Use a liquid cooled pack with an active BMS.
Use HV instead of EV mode when the pack is hot.
Use additional battery monitoring software/hardware to closely monitor pack temps/behavior.

Sadly, me too.

Hmm, you got me to thinking about 303 protectant. Have you used it? I learned about it on a car forum a few years ago and it's awesome in my book. So much so, I now buy it by the gallon to use on all our vehicles. Since 303 is all about UV protection, I will now add headlights to the full treatment instead of just wiping off the occasional overspray they would unintentionally receive during a detail.

 

Do you have any suggestions for super low effort detailing? Going to an automatic carwash is about as much time as I want to spend, but if there's an easy way to add a little protection and help the car stay cleaner for longer I'd do it. I just don't have time to do a thorough hand wash and wax.

 

FWIW, page 406 of North American 3rd Gen Owner's Manual:



Again, I'm not sure of the logic behind this caution. Might be Toyota's concerned about cleaner waxes??

I tried this for a google search, not finding much:

Why do car manufacturers caution to not wax headlights

 

Cleaner waxes are not very useful. Spray waxes for the non-detailer are pretty good these days. Meguiars makes one for consumers and should be available at Wal-Mart and other places.

Here is where my opinion gets into the mix.

Chemical Guys is competent but not very durable. If you're going to go the "name brand" route I would recommend Griots Garage first and Meguiars second. Most people want something that is easy to remove. Both of these are easy to remove.

If you search "spray wax" on Amazon you will be overwhelmed. Narrow your choices to "Meguiars" "Griots Garage" and "Optimum" and you will be less overwhelmed.

Meguiars has so many but stick to the Xpress Spray Wax. Griots has two and either of them (Best of Show and Spray-on wax) and both are competent. Optimum Car Wax is the best in my opinion and is the one I use. I buy it by the gallon. All of these will protect your headlights from UV, too.

Back to headlights, if you don't have time to wash your paint, at least hit your headlights as often as every week with any of these spray waxes and you will never have yellowing problem. My last Prius spent its entire life in the NorCal sun for almost seven years and the headlights looked as clear as factory and they only thing I did to them was weekly spray wax. I had more problems with the water leakage around the seals (a different issue) during heavy rain. It doesn't take much to protect your headlights (in terms of protection thickness which is only a few molecules deep) but those chemical absorbers do an amazing job.

 

Sorry, I did not answer the original question. You are right, they don't want to using any wax that has abrasives in it which will remove the factory UV coating. The spray waxes I cited don't have any abrasives in them.

 

Low effort is what I get. I mentioned the spray wax route in a prior post. If you wash and spray wax regularly this will be as low effort as it gets. The trick is to keep it up before the paint starts causing water to sheet. Once that happens you will increase your effort. As long as water is beading you still have protection which makes the washing and spray wax easier to apply and remove.

 

Hmmm. I'm going to have to pull out my IR gun and do a comparison. I would think that the lighter colors would reflect more sunlight and be LESS susceptible to heat, not more.

 

Just a lot of reports of blizzard pearl peeling. Like crazy. Not so much the reflectivity as the make-up of the paint I think. Sun (and a lack of polishing?) probably makes the issue worse.

 

Much Ado About Nothing..or nearly nothing IMO.
I agree with this statement:

When I owned my Gen 3 Prius, I did not have a garage, and had to park it most of the summer exposed.

I bought a good quality, custom fit sunshade for the front window, and I usually cracked the window a bit.

Of course it didn't make the vehicle any cooler than the outside, but it did keep the vehicle within a pretty close range of being whatever the temperature was outside. As opposed to no windows being sunshades, and the entirely closed up vehicle heating up like a solar oven.

So I would venture to say, Sunshade, crack the windows, and heat degradation to your HV battery is going to be minimal.

As far as insects, spiders, paranormal entities...

Hey, life come with some risk. Mosquito can bite you on the way to the car, or fly in when you open the door.
Spiders are brilliant. They can hideout in your door jam, or put on disguises and pose as family members. So you just live with the risk.

I would say I followed the above protocal, and still do, and I don't really notice the insect population within my vehicle being abnormal.

 

I've already done this on multiple cars. White and silver run the coolest regardless of the angle of the sun in the sky. Black gets the hottest, dark blue/red/green/charcoal are not far behind. I've seen 40F-60F higher temps on the same day in the same area on black paint vs white paint. You can put your hand on the surface and do a touch test, too.

Heat is much different from UV in terms of damaging clearcoat. Modern clearcoats can handle a lot of heat, they just don't handle continuous UV without being protected.

 

Most likely a lack of protection and overall care. It also depends on the sun exposure. Peeling is the clearcoat failing, either losing its bond to the paint or wearing too thin from over-polishing or lack of UV protection. The pigmented paint (sans clearcoat) can be seen in door jams, under the hood and trunk and inside the gas and charging doors. It is dull and will disintegrate quickly if exposed to UV for too long.

 

Toyota has already admitted the Blizzard Pearl colour was problematic, on certain cars. Sadly so far, they haven't include Prius model. This is wholesale peeling, a paint fail.

 

Is this happening with Prius? Japanese made cars (all Toyota hybrids, I believe) don't have the "low VOC politically correct" paint restrictions that we have in most of the US now. If it is happening with J- VINs then it is of concern but if it is with North American made Toyota when so be it.

See: The Low VOC Lowdown: The DIYer's Guide to Low VOC Automotive Paint - OnAllCylinders

 

Although it is a bit pricey one of the most effective ways is to get all windows tinted (including windshield) with a high quality anti-IR heat-rejecting tint like 3M Crystaline or IR Ceramic. I just took delivery 3 weeks ago and the first thing I did driving the car home from the dealer was stop at the tint shop and make an appt. I paid about $700 for the whole car but it keeps it noticeably cooler under direct sunlight here in NorCal. The windshield is probably the most important and I tinted it with 70% so it is hardly noticeable.

With tints you usually get what you pay for. I know I overpaid compared to other areas but I'm in the most expensive cost-of-living metropolitan area of the country due to Google, Facebook, Apple, Twitter being here. Rents and home prices are crazy and labor rates follow.

 

Unfortunately, I don't have data and I haven't seen any in publications which have data. I can tell you for one thing, the paint color you choose is also a significant contributor because most cars have woeful insulation. All of our vehicles are white which has good heat rejection properties. If your car is already covered by a screen or roof then obviously the IR rejection is going to be insignificant. I was referring to when I have to park in direct sunlight only. It is also relevant when driving in sunlight where it (IR tint) anecdotally keeps the cabin temperature cooler and therefore requires less A/C meaning less drain on the traction battery. My car sits in direct sunlight all year so the IR tint contribution, while being unknown quantitatively, is significant. Sorry about not having data to back up my opinion.

 

I own a 2006 Highlander Hybrid and in Puerto Rico and the traction battery lasted 10 years about 135k miles. I think that average life time for them. But is hot and humid all time and I never noticed any change on battery performance until it died. I placed a dessicant near the battery per recommendation from a mechanic because of the high humidity and never placed anything covering the battery fans. Battery replacement costed $2700, moved to California and Highlander keeps going strong.