Afraid to park in the sun for fear of fading paint!

[fastracer]

I have been parking in a garage at work.
But since I got this new job, the parking is an outside lot.
I have to park from 8-6pm. I like drving my celica but if the paint is gonna fade I'll bring my beat-up truck. How much fading will occurs when you compare a car that's been out in the sun all day for 1 year to one that was in the shade all the time?

[Archon_Ninja]

my car is an outdoors car. My car looks as blue as a new spec blue celica... i don't think you really have anything to worry about unless u start seeing clearcoat melting.

[TaeMachine]

my car is always outside too and theres nothing wrong with it. just do that waxing/polishing stuff to it. and wrap it in a cover.

[HilfigerCelica]

If you wash and wax your car like you're suppose to then you have nothing to worry about. Sure it might fade in 10 yrs ,but by then you won't even care anymore.

[00 scrub]

wash and wax it well, and get a car cover. Those should help keep it looking new and clean.

[fastracer]

I've been hearing about people who get bodykits having to have the shops match the car due to account for the fading, so they leave a hood scoop with the shop instead of just using the factory color code.

Or

You order a WW kit painted to put on a car 2 years old and the painted kit is tiny bit richer than the car. Even if your car paint faded a little, you can't tell unless you get a brand newly paint part to compare with. That's when they know that it faded.





Originally posted by TaeMachine
my car is always outside too and theres nothing wrong with it. just do that waxing/polishing stuff to it. and wrap it in a cover.

[XYRCNCP]

trust me, your car will not fade THAT quickly for parking it outside....I dont have a garage and I park on the side of my house.....(too low to make it up my driveway).....mine still looks Carbon blue and no signs of fading......

[CloNeGTS]

It's all wives tales. Some shops just can't match paint for ****. Some of the colors look different at different angles which is why sometimes it doesn't look like a kit matches. If you look at the wing of a silver Celi, the color is almost purple when you look at the edges.

My car is outside 24/7 as well and everytime I add a painted part, it looks just perfect. And the factory touch up paint still matches as well.

The most important thing you can do is KEEP a good coat of wax on it. At least once every 2 months. I do mine about once a month.

[CSteckel]

I had an 87 Conquest that had the body panels painted. They had a dupont guy come up with a special handheld scanner to check the paint and adjust the tone to match for the fade. THIS CAR WAS 11 YEARS OLD AT THE TIME. Even then, he said it wasn't faded badly. A little bit of wax goes a LONG way. Plus, factory clear coats now are about 10x better than they were in the late 80's, early 90's. No need for a car cover, just a little tlc.
BTW, Red paint fades the most/worst/fastest. Just FYI

Chris

[fastracer]

thanks much for your support.
Dane, you guy wax your cars often. I thought it was ok to wax once a year or at most 2 times a year.
Everytime I wax my car, it just takes me too long to do it. I spend like 3 hours on putting polish, then wax.


Another question:

SInce we have clear coat on our cars, won't the clear coat have to deteriorate before paint under it start to fade?