How to protect your car from the sun

Protecting your car from the sun is very important during the summer months. Here are 5 tips to avoid breakdowns and premature wear of your vehicle.

Protecting your car from the sun during the summer months has become a must for all drivers. The high temperatures reached in the Iberian Peninsula between June and September force us to take measures to avoid premature wear and reduce the risk of breakdowns in our vehicle. Below we give you 5 tips to protect your car from the sun.

1. Keep an eye on the engine temperature

The optimal engine temperature is usually around 90 degrees Celsius. If the gauge considerably exceeds that temperature, we run the risk of burning out the engine. It is therefore advisable to monitor the temperature, and if it is too high, you can turn the car heating up to maximum to release heat from the engine and save yourself a very unpleasant breakdown.

2. Protect your car from the sun when parking

One of the first precautions you should take is looking for parking spots in the shade, especially during the central hours of the day when the sun is strongest. In this regard, it is important to plan for the movement of the sun: if you leave the car parked in the shade, but five minutes later it is no longer in the shade, you have achieved little.

If you have no other option than to leave the car in the sun, there are two measures you can take to protect your car:

• Place a sun shade on the front windshield: this will prevent premature wear of the interior materials and make the air conditioning work more instantly and efficiently when you start the car.
• Use protectors for the steering wheel and gearbox: this will spare you the unpleasant “third-degree burns” you suffer when touching these components after leaving the car in the sun for five hours.

3. Check your tyre pressure

Tyres reach higher temperatures in summer. If we drive with underinflated tyres, the tread will heat up even more, since the contact surface with the ground is larger, causing premature wear on your tyres. The service life of a tyre can be shortened by 15 % under these conditions. For this reason, we recommend that before taking the car out in summer you check the tyre pressure. This will also reduce the risk of a puncture, a breakdown that occurs more frequently in the summer months due to the high asphalt temperatures.

4. Clean the car and protect it from the sun’s rays

Washing the car regularly in summer contributes to good bodywork care. If you also want to protect the car’s paintwork from the sun’s rays, you can apply a special wax that absorbs ultraviolet rays. Inside the car, a special treatment to protect leather and vinyl areas from the sun can also be used.

5. Look after the brakes

The braking system of a car works at high temperatures due to the friction between the pads and the discs. If we add the heat of the summer months and the consequent difficulty in cooling them, we may encounter one of the greatest enemies of brakes, overheating. This phenomenon can cause loss of brake effectiveness (longer stopping distances), a reduction in the service life of the brake fluid and can even lead to warping of the discs. To mitigate the effects of overheating, we can use lower gears on long descents to reduce brake use, and of course, avoid aggressive driving at all costs.

BONUS: Sunscreen is for skin, not for the car

Sunscreen is necessary to protect our skin from the sun, but it has a very negative impact on a car’s surfaces. The cream can leave white stains on the bodywork or on the dashboard plastics that can be very difficult to remove.