As a follow on to @TwinTurbo’ reply, UV light, especially with a wavelength shorter than 250 nm, is almost nonexistent compare to visible and infrared light. The light emission spectrum for the Sun is shown below. The 220 nm wavelength mentioned above is about where the solar spectrum appears to touch zero. As expected, visible light has the greatest intensity and IR light is a bit less. There is no need to block the nearly nonexistent UV sunlight. Use a sunshade for your windows if you want to block UV from damaging your dashboard and fogging the inside of the windshield.
I mentioned this because there is enough UV light to break bonds in dashboard plastics and create gases that migrate to the windshield, but not enough to generate any significant heat compared to the balance of the sunlight.
It never occurred to me that sunlight could damage the dashboard or fog the windshield. Nothing about that is said in the owners manual, nor does the owners manual say to use sunshades. I always thought that sunshades were just to keep cars & trucks cooler. But it makes sense.
Anyway, why do so many cars now have dark interior colors?
Incdentally, other people have tested black vs white car temperatures in the sun, and some found there were significant differences.
They for the most part conclude that both the interior and exterior colors matter a lot, though results vary - maybe by car type? But also that the parts of a car that are shaded (by external or internal obstructions) tend to be much cooler. The final video in my list concluded that white cars are also cooled faster inside by A/C - perhaps because the exterior of the dark car is hot, which might affect the A/C air intake? (But maybe that would depend on the location of the air intake.)
All of which is completely intuitive.
So I conclude that it is indeed better, for the most part, to buy a white car with white interior colors. And based on the earlier posts, one should maybe also pick cars with old fashioned vertical or nearly vertical windows.
Of course, one cannot easily see the differences in infrared absorption.
I have noticed that car salesman often start the car and run the A/C before letting test drivers into the vehicle. Which of course means you might not notice differences in interior temperatures as much.
I haven’t found anything reasonably authoritative that analyzes the temperature differences between reflective and tinted glass windows on vehicles.
Good Grief , you need a new hobby . The sales person will also run the heater in winter just so the customer will be comfortable and pay more attention to the test drive .
And No I am not going to look at your list of Youtube stuff so they can get clicks .
In 1977, stationed in northern Germany, I bought an old Mercedes to protect the family better than small Opels and VWs. The old Mercedes had one problem that I thought I could fix: it was black. Black cars, I knew instinctively and then from research [edit: Which Car Colors Increase the Chances of a Crash? is current but I’d seen similar research then], were harder for other drivers to see.
I fixed that over a winter’s holiday weekend by renting an empty, unheated, one-car garage. After removing as much chrome as I could and taping the rest, I washed the car well then gave it three coats of white paint.
With a 3-inch roller.
Ugly, but it worked. The black car was now white, more visible to other drivers, safer for my family.
Ha, you’re right. But back then, the concept of turning on headlights in the daytime was like quantum mechanics. Did anybody do it? Not that I remember.
Ever try to see a white car in fog or snow storm? Black on asphalt maybe, but black on concrete highways? I gotta disagree that white is safer. And nothing worse than a dirty white interior.
After having had both beige and gray fabric upholstery that stained badly, I now want only a black leather or vinyl interior. But, Teslas are the exception to the rule when it comes to interior color. Virtually every Tesla that I have seen had white (vinyl??) upholstery.
Of course almost any test is imperfect. E.g., testers use infrared thermometers, instead of the more accurate contact and ambient air temperature thermometers. I looked at the instructions for an IR thermometer, and it said it needed to be calibrated for each surface, and can’t accurately be compared for objects with different color absorption/emission properties. (BTW I’m not sure how much of a difference that can make.) And they sometimes aimed the thermometers at things that don’t directly matter to me - like the dashboard, or the back of a seat. I care more about the air, and the surfaces I am putting stuff on. And in some of the cases, they were different types of car.
But the result were mostly clear - color matters a lot to internal temperature. So the Mythbuster result one of the respondents here cited, that said color doesn’t matter much, is probably atypical. E.g., maybe both the tested white and black vehicles had dark interior surfaces.
What I should do if I care enough, is stretch a piece of white cloth across the top of my car using bungee cords (much cheaper than an expensive “wrap”, and easier to remove for testing purposes). And try white seat covers. And try sticking a somewhat transparent reflective fabric, to the inside of a window. (On the outside would be better, because the tint would absorb less sunlight - but might not stay on, and couldn’t be left on in the winter because I sometimes need to scrape off ice on the outside. Someone in a vanlife community suggested a thin aluminized “emergency blanket”, claimed it would be fairly transparent, and stay stuck from static electricity.) And try window vent/deflectors. (Maybe not the brand - VentVisor?? - which I twice had come unstuck on another vehicle.) And see what works… All of those options are cheaper than getting my car expertly repainted. Maybe the combination would be enough for my purposes. Though I can’t do well controlled tests, because I don’t have two identical cars to try on the same days. And the results would only apply to my car, not to other people’s cars.
I don’t buy the comment about sunroof making the roof weaker, given that your kayak rack is supported above the windows, not in the middle of the roof.
I have carried heavy loads on the roof of an old Grand Caravan with the sunroof that slides in completely, or tilts up in back. Yes, this was in the days of gutters over the windows. I never ever had a problem with weight on the roof, using Yakima round bars …and gutter towers (which you don’t have). And the only sunroof leaks I ever got were due to plugged drains due to tree debris collecting around the edges of the opening because I live among tall trees.
As a lifelong wilderness canoeist and touring kayaker, I’ve carried a lot of boats with that old Caravan. It was not unusual to have three fairly heavy whitewater canoes on the rack for shuttles, easily125 pounds and almost certainly more.
A more significant test was when I needed to haul some heavy lumber on the roof rack. I was careful to load the lumber closer to the towers for better weight distribution. Even then, the weight did make the bars sag a bit in the middle.
No problem with the sunroof.
So IMHO, you can disregard that advice about sunroof measurably weakening your roof.
I think the best advice given above was about cracking the windows to let the hot air escape out the top (hot air rises), and just tough it out for a 2 minutes while your a/c solves the problem.
Then you can justify spending that $5k on something more beneficial.
Lets see . this person who making this whole idea of a hot car ridiculous. White seat covers ? A white sheet or something bungeed to the top of the car . By the time he gets that cover off and folded up he is going to be soaked and still have to get in a hot car that may be 5 degrees cooler at best.
The car would need to be water sanded, then coated with a primer compatible with the old and new paint, then given a new seal coat to prevent degradation by the UV in sunlight. Most of the heat comes from the infrared in sunlight, so the effectiveness depends on the infrared reflectivity, which is not obvious to the eye.
If you have a job in my part of the world then you will be driving in heavy Fog a lot in the mornings… And don’t people up north where it has snow on the ground, like 4 months a year, still have to go to work and school??
I’ve never had a situation when driving in fog or snow where a white car was noticeably less visible than any other car. In low visibility all cars are harder to see.
