How to Protect Your Car's Interior from Summer Heat Damage

Soaking in the sun might sound fun, especially if you live in cold regions and you don’t frequently feel the heat of it. However, with the tremendous heat and UV rays, fun can be replaced with fear as the sun can wreak havoc on the interior of our vehicles.

Unfortunately, prolonged exposure to sunlight can substantially damage your car's appearance and functionality, causing everything from fading colours to broken dashboards. In this article, we'll look at how to protect the interior of your car from the effects of the sun, ensuring your ride remains comfortable and well-preserved for years to come!

How does the sun affect my car’s interiors?

The sun's heat and UV rays can lead to fading, cracking, and deterioration of interior components. Too much exposure from the sun can transform your once-vibrant dashboard to a pale imitation of its former self, and your leather seats could also be prone to wear and tear, which makes seating uncomfortable and less stylish.

Tips on How to Protect Your Car’s Interiors from the Sun

1. Choose the Right Parking Spot

Seeking shaded spots whenever possible is a simple yet effective way to shield your vehicle. If you don't have a garage, it's ideal to choose a shady parking area.

During peak sun hours, try parking your car behind a tree, in the shadow of a building, or in an indoor parking lot. You may have to pay a parking fee or wait a few minutes longer for a free spot. But, in the end, knowing that it can protect your car makes the few cents worth it.

Always remember how long you’ll be parked for, and how the sun will move across the sky as time passes! Not all locations will stay shaded throughout the day.

2. Tint Your Windshields

There's no doubt that your car's front interiors get the most sunshine. Aside from making driving more difficult when the seats are hot, this might also cause the dashboard to fade and lose its pristine appearance. Here, you can protect your dash by tinting your windshield.

Window tinting is the process of putting a tint film on the inside of a vehicle's windows. Tinted windows can block a significant amount of UV rays and solar heat, which are major contributors to interior fading, cracking, and deterioration.

The quality of the tint does play a role in its effectiveness. High-quality automotive window tints are designed to provide better UV protection and heat rejection. Lower-quality tints may not offer the same level of protection and might degrade or discolour over time, reducing their effectiveness.

Furthermore, they provide increased privacy and comfort. However, before applying tint to your vehicle, make sure that you know the window tint laws in your state or province.

Quick Question: What about windshield reflectors?

Windshield reflectors might be useful, but not if you have a dash cam or any device installed in your windshield.

Sure, these accessories work by reflecting sunlight and heat away from the car’s interior, but they can also concentrate sunlight and heat. If your dash cam is directly exposed to the reflected concentrated sun and heat, it can become significantly hotter than the surrounding air temperature.

The heat that's trapped between the windshield and the reflector can accumulate and affect the temperature around the dash cam. This might cause the temperature around the dash cam to rise dramatically, potentially leading to overheating.

Therefore, placing a dash cam or electronic device between your windshield glass and the sunshade exposes it to heat considerably above the hardware specifications, not to mention the possibility of melting or warping the camera's shell.

If you’re planning to get a dash cam for your vehicle, please make sure to get a brand and model that’s built with a supercapacitor instead of lithium-ion batteries, which are likely to overheat and explode during intense summer heat.

3. Install Seat and Steering Wheel Covers

Summer heat can severely harm your car's upholstery. Leather, for example, is known to stiffen and dry out after prolonged UV exposure, and there's always the possibility that existing food stains will be permanently baked into the cloth.

Car interior covers have a lot to offer. They look amazing, feel wonderful, and are easy to maintain and replace. Most importantly, they shield your current upholstery from dust, rain, food spills, and UV radiation. A combination of seat covers and a steering wheel cover can prevent leather seats from absorbing excessive heat and protect the steering wheel from becoming too hot to touch.

4. Have Regular Interior Maintenance

Over time, dust and dirt accumulate on your car's interior surfaces. Combine this with sun exposure, and you have a recipe for damage. Regularly cleaning and conditioning your car's interior not only maintains its appearance but also helps to prevent sun-induced wear.

When cleaning, make sure to use car care products that are guaranteed safe. We also recommend using high-quality microfibre cloths when cleaning glass surfaces to avoid scratches and maintain deep cleaning.

5. Use Car Covers

You don't have to go through hoops to keep the sun off your car. Using a car cover offers an extra layer of protection against sun, wind, and dust, helping to maintain the interior's condition.

A car cover does several tasks at once – it not only keeps the heat off your car, but also protects it from leaves, trash, bird droppings, and dust at bay. A covered car is simply easier to clean, no questions asked.

Give Your Car Some TLC

Heat can be bad on cars, just like it is for us people. Warm weather, scorching roads, dry air, and long drives to the beach may all deteriorate your baby, but the good news is that following some or all of these recommendations will help your car age more gracefully. Want the best products to keep your car clean? Check out our Car Care Essentials here.