Car won't melt

[drbvac]

Funny how after spending several hours detailing my M and it sitting in the garage all nice and shiny that its really hard to take it out if its raining or the roads a little dirty. Does anyone else tend to only drive their cars in the very best of weather - those of you that live where there is no dirt on the streets and lot of sunshine need not apply

Its probably because one hour on the road would be 2 hours cleaning .

Maybe one should just drive the damn thing every chance I get

[SgtGigglebox]

Originally Posted by drbvac

Funny how after spending several hours detailing my M and it sitting in the garage all nice and shiny that its really hard to take it out if its raining or the roads a little dirty. Does anyone else tend to only drive their cars in the very best of weather - those of you that live where there is no dirt on the streets and lot of sunshine need not apply

Its probably because one hour on the road would be 2 hours cleaning .

Maybe one should just drive the damn thing every chance I get

I'd say that around 80% of the time, if its raining, it doesn't leave the garage (unless its already dirty). Unfortunately, its also my daily driver... I've become a bit of a weird hermit

[StickMon]

I have lot's of sunshine!
And here's what it did to my last car.

[Vanne]

Man that MR2 bonnet got nailed... I see a lot of this depending in what area you live in, generally worse the closer you get to the beach. Then again, some cars don't do it at all.. Must be something in the paint additive.. My wife's old car did this badly all over.. Oxidisation.. Gotta love it.. Not.. Luckily none of my cars have ever had his problem. : )

[ZStig]

that probably comes from not waxing the paint

[XMetal]

Originally Posted by ZStig

that probably comes from not waxing the paint

Not necessarily true. My brother's less than 10-year old car (completely original paint) did this in Sacramento,CA of all places - far away from the salty beach. The car is garage kept and gets wax 2x a year.

I agreed that it must be the new water-based paints/processes.

[BruceJ]

Originally Posted by XMetal

Not necessarily true. My brother's less than 10-year old car (completely original paint) did this in Sacramento,CA of all places - far away from the salty beach. The car is garage kept and gets wax 2x a year.

I agreed that it must be the new water-based paints/processes.

+1 and the problem's not new. GM had the same problem back in 88 models. pretty sure they used a water based paint and curiously, IIRC, it was a german mfr. There was silent recall - I got a brand new paint job for an 88 firebird a year after I bought it. One of my fav cars, until I bought the Z.

[DRedman45]

dodge's paint is notoriously terrible as well

[strokeoluck]

Originally Posted by drbvac

Does anyone else tend to only drive their cars in the very best of weather - those of you that live where there is no dirt on the streets and lot of sunshine need not apply

Yup, that's me. My Z is just a fun, nice-weather car. the only time I've driven mine in the rain is when I had to get it to the shop before leaving town. Killed me to drive it in the rain, even though I know it's not going to melt.

[StickMon]

I waxed the heck out of it until it went.
22 years of sitting in the sun, along with much driving at speed in the Mojave and getting sandblasted.
Car was originally "orange pearl", which I think involves a red primer base, coat of white paint, and then translucent paint over the top. It went down layer by layer.
Had the head gasket not gone, it would probably be down to bare metal by now.

Oh, and it did have 225,000 miles on it when that picture was taken.

[Nate4641]

Red paint is also very hard to maintain most of the time. My VR4 had a lot of issues, especially on plastic parts like the spoiler. It took a semi-agressive buffing compound to get a uniform color out of it, but probably stripped some clear coat off too. Red paints will fade faster than a lot of other colors.

[gferil]

It's my daily driver so it faces any weather that northern California can throw at it (which is basically sunshine with occasional rain and lots of pollen.)

[IN10SS]

Fair weather driver here unless it's already been caught in the rain. I'd go so far as to say only top down weather but I'm definately willing to brave extremes of heat and cold. My Cutlass is a convertible as well, so I figure I'm short a car, but the wife won't buy it.

[3point0]

I tend to only drive mine in fair weather too. It hibernates from late fall to early spring and I only drive it if the outlook is mostly. I fact I think I've only had the top up when driving a dozen times or so. Mind you that makes for a bunch of cold mornings and nights but that's what gloves and heated seats are for, especially when down to 3 celsius (37F)