Nowadays, people tend to keep their cars for a long period of time. Car’s on-road today have an average age of 12 years and still going well.
This is happening because today’s vehicles are built to last for longer times. They provide enhanced quality and dependability, and they offer prevailing performance, which motivates their car owners to keep them on the roads.
These days car owners also try to extend their vehicle lifespan by attentively providing regular maintenance to their car. But they forget the one aspect which is as important as other things in the car, and that is paint. Some specific common hazards can deteriorate your car’s paint job, which can have a negative effect on its appearance as well as on its resale value.
In this blog, we tried to cover all the steps you can take to protect your car’s paint. Below, we have listed a few tips which you can follow and give extra protection to your vehicle’s paint.
Limitations of Clear-coat Paint Finishes
Most cars built within a couple of decades are built with clear-coat paint finishes. A clear-coat paint finish is a layer of paint or resin with no color. It’s simply a colorless resin over colored resin. Clear-coat serves multiple purposes:
- Adds a protective layer to the color coat.
- Creates extra shine and give a vibrant look.
- Protect color coat from UV rays.
- Protect color coat from various forms of chemicals such as acid rain.
- Prevent fading and extend the life of the paint job.
But its also important to know that a clear-coat paint finish does not provide complete protection. For example, a clear-coat paint finish can diminish the sun damage and UV rays up-to some extent, it means you have to provide shelter to your car from this threat if you want to extend the life of your car’s paint job.
Fill scratches as soon as possible
Inspect your car once a week for small scratches, especially near the car doors, because people could have hit your parked car while opening their own parked car’s door beside your car. Any scratch, even the smallest one, can allow rusting to take hold. If you find a scratch, fill it with a clear coat of nail polish until you can bring it to Auto Hut for professional TLC.
Deal with rust as soon as possible
If you have seen a rust spot already happening, then the best thing is to deal with it as quickly as possible to prevent your car from further damage. The best way is to let professionals deal with it, but if you are short on money, you will have to take the route of DIY.
Regular Washing, clay bar treatment, and wax
In winter, you should wash your car every week to remove road salt before it damages your car. In summer, you can wash it after every 2 or 3 weeks, except if you are driving on really dirty roads.
To take even more advanced steps, you can give clay bar treatment to your car in order to protect your car paint from dust and small particles; we could not be able to see with naked eyes. You can give clay bar treatment as often as you afford it or at-least twice a year.
The clay bar treatment is very overlooked, but the essential step for cleaning your car and protecting car paint. It helps in removing the leftover particles after the wash. If you don’t use a clay bar, you are actually scratching your car while applying wax and polishing it.
Defensive Parking
You may have noticed that some people park their car far end of parking lot even though parking lots are available nearby and you may have a question that what is the advantage of doing this? Simply the advantage of defensive parking is that it helps in minimizing the scratches that could happen because of careless people who let their car doors fly open and leave scratches on neighboring cars. So, the best defense is to prevent your car from accidents before it happens by parking as far as possible from other cars.
Use Cover and Car Shelter
If you have really expensive car paint, then you should not leave your car in the sun so that it gets tortured due to sunlight and UV rays. You should buy a car cover to protect your car from the bleaching effect, dangerous weapon which sunlight and UV rays use against your car’s paint. You can buy car covers which cost around $50 to $100, according to the size of your car and cover make. If you cannot afford to buy new, buy used one from Kijiji to fulfill your need, but make sure that it fits your car.
- But there are some certain aspects which should not be overlooked while using car covers:
- Make sure your car is not wet before covering it as it produces bacteria and fungus.
- Never keep your car covered for so long otherwise, it will only damage your car instead of protecting it.
If you live in areas like Toronto and Brampton, where climatic conditions support snowfall for eight months in a row every year, then you should be careful while using car covers. A layer of snow is heavy, and if you try to remove it like that, It may scratch your car. If you don’t have a garage, then you can buy a car shelter, which may require a few hundred dollars.
When it comes to auto painting in Brampton, head to Auto Hut Collision, where we provide a lifetime warranty and 100% color matching guarantee on your vehicle’s finish for as long as you own it. Our full-service auto body repair and paint shop committed to bestow service to all makes and models of cars, trucks, and SUVs. From minor dings and dents to full vehicle restoration, you can count us for professional collision repair in Brampton. Give us a call at (416) 786-0000 or fill an online form to request an estimate today.
