My wife’s 2001 Stratus has been parked in our driveway daily for 4 years now. Depending on the season, the sprinklers next to it run for 10-20 minutes 0-3 times a week in the early morning. Some always ends up on the one side of her car… more wind = more spray.
She says the black parts of the door trim on that side of the car are now faded and she blames the sprinklers. I don’t know if that’s likely, or if the path of the sun maybe plays a bigger role in the fading, since it seems to spend most of the year in that half of the sky.
Now she’s getting a new car and is worried that the sprinklers will do the same to her new car. Is she crazy, or do I need to reschedule my watering for later in the day when her car is at work?
Chances are that it is not faded, but that it need to have the residue from that water, cleaned off. It may need some aggressive cleaning.
Maybe she will decide she can save some money and keep her old car a few more years once it is properly cleaned.
A little wipe with an amoral like product will bring back the shine…UV damage over time to surface of the plastic trim.
I’d blame the sun more than the sprinklers.
The car sits outside in the rain, doesn’t it? Does she think the rain damages the car?
Most driveways lead to a garage…THIS is where you park your car if you are worried about its finish…Spraying a car with tap water everyday which contains minerals and chlorine is guaranteed to damage the paint and trim…
Most driveways lead to a garage…
Actually LESS then 20% of homes in the US have garages.
But I agree…keeping the car in the garage is the only way you fully protect the finish.
It might depend on how much iron and other minerals are in the water. Bring it to a professional detailer and see if they can bring back the paint job.
If you keep it outside like this, wax it more often to protect it from the sun and the sprinkler damage.
Adjust your sprinklers so you’re not watering your driveway.
…and even if they do have a garage, it never ceases to amaze me that so few people actually use the garage for parking their car!
Whenever I have moved to a new house with a garage, my goal has been to clear the garage of boxes and other effluvia of moving within 3 weeks of occupying the house. Usually, I wound up being able to park my car in the garage within 2 weeks.
And yet, by comparison, I would estimate that, 14 years after construction–at most–10% of the other folks in my development park their cars in the garage. My house is ~2,500 sq ft–as are most of the other houses–with some having ~3,500 sq ft of space. All have full basements and full attics. Yet, when you pass by the open garage doors of most of my neigbors, you see garages that are absolutely full of…who knows what…that prevents use of the two car garage for…a car or two. Since many folks have three or more cars, their driveways sometimes look like mini used car lots!
Obviously how these folks organize their homes and how they treat their cars is up to them, but I just find it mind-boggling that they can never seem to get their s**t together sufficiently to clean out their garages. Most probably still some of have the original moving boxes in their garages, along with other junk that they just can’t seem to throw out.
An interesting note to this situation is that my 2002 car looks considerably newer than most of the neighbors’ 3 and 4 year old cars. I guess that it is just a question of priorities, as well as organization.
NOT TRUE that less than 20% of homes have garages. Did you just make this up?
This is from the US Census: “Garages or carports are common for households living in single-detached units?just over three in four of these homes (76 percent) have a covered shelter for vehicles. Townhouses or row houses, on the other hand, include a garage or carport less than half the time (46 percent). In both mobile homes and units in multiunit buildings, the proportion is 26 percent.”
Well, that statistic is Mike’s not mine, and I have no idea of the actual figures.
All that I can attest to it that–in my experience–the vast majority of folks who do have garages cannot get their S**T together sufficiently to clean out the garage in order to park their car in it.
This even leads to a very interesting situation in the winter when it is necessary to clear snow accumulation from the driveway. I easily pass up and down the driveway with the snowblower, while most of my neighbors have to try to manuever the snowblower around various haphazardly parked cars in their driveways, and wind up having to hand-shovel the areas around each car.
You would really think that repeated incidents like this over a 14 year period would inspire at least some of them to clean out their garages. Go figure!
I don’t think the water will cause fading, but it will probably cause mineral spots to build up. These can be hard to remove.
I vote for your sun theory, in which case it would make sense to park the car facing the other direction half of the time. I’d also try to keep it waxed as much as possible.
That’s a fairly common problem here in OK and it’s caused by the sun, which has been hovering around here at BBQ levels lately. A balmy 104 today and 108 the other day.