Compared to yesterday´s post, it´s all about sun, sand, and CAR skin…

CAR paintwork and sand might tolerate each other for a while, but the sun will not allow it for long. Don´t wash your car down regularly, and within a couple of years, baked on sand will literally burn through the paintwork. Believe it or not the worst it gets is just a fine layer, not a sand dune.

Nevertheless, first of all It blisters, then cracks, and patches without paint appear, usually on the roof, or bonnet, or both…

Car washes must do a roaring trade, most cars are shiny pristine, prevention is better than cure. But there´s a minority that don´t shine and have what look like “streaks.” We see them now and again because they stand out a mile. There´s no need to stop and stare, but we still find ourselves assessing what stage the problem must be at.

So how does sand find itself sat on a car? I mean it´s not like it floats about in the air we breath.

1) Drive by the beach {obvious}

2) Drive down a road MADE OF SAND! Out in the sticks there are some, and we took a wrong turn the other day while visiting friends. Their real road was the other side…

3) A rare light shower of sandy rain. There were a few drops fell from the sky about three weeks ago.

4) The rare light sandy rain is sometimes accompanied with a rare light breeze. So it ends up stuck fast in the heat.

End result: What looks like a very fine layer,, left untouched will eventually do the damage.

Yesterday was our car´s turn for a clean up, except because it´s a convertible,, a car wash is out of the question. It could potentially do a very different kind of damage to the roof…!

Before,, yes this is just sand, NOT damage. Some of it moves and sticks together in blobs when you´re driving…

After…

 

Recipe for NO disaster:

1) Wait till the sun´s gone down!

2) Spray yourself down with a hosepipe spray ALL the sand off the car with a hosepipe.

3) Wax wash.

4) Another spray down.

5) Buff everywhere.

6) Go and stand in the bathroom shower without the car…

The job was Dave´s…

However, my contribution was to clean the interior with leather spray,, a lot of which landed on me. So I needed a shower too.

The good news is that it won´t need a wax wash for a while, and neither will Dave… But they´ll both require a regular hose down and buff, hmm…