Covering the car, ok for paint ?

TheDamned

"I am Canadian and Damned for it!"
Jul 22, 2003
457
0
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Montréal, Québec, Canada
Hey,

I recently moved to a new house... unfortunaly it's a 100 years old and + houses district here and we cant build a garage until the city approves our garage (it has to be old style) and it takes up to 3 months. Soooo, my car was always in the garage since I own it and now it has to sleep outside for the whole summer. No biggie there but there's TONS of cats around here and HUGE trees and believe it or not the leaves are falling year long.. not sure why but whatever. My car been parked since 2 days now and it's full of pin **** and leaves.

My question is, will it hurt the paint or whatever if I always cover my car when it's parked ? I'll use the car cover that I use when I store her during winter. Will save me from removing all the leaves and save me aswell from maybe futur cat scratches.

Thanks.
 
it should be fine as long as you have a good cover I wouldn't worry about it. It wont hurt your paint as long as its a good cover that is breathable and lets out moisture.
 
i was actually going to make a thread on this but ya beat me to it. i have mixed feelings on car covers. as stated above, a $20 car cover from autozone or walmart is going to cause problems. it WILL scratch, i speak from experience. i dont have a garage either. i am fortunate enough to have a carport tho. open ends and open sides, the car still gets nasty real quick but it does keep the sap and sun off of it. i bought a custom fit Wolf Evolution car cover ($165). its for indoor and outdoor. it is softer on the inside compared to a walmart cover. the rep at wolf said it will not scratch. well, he's wrong. i'm very picky but the cover will leave small scratches in the paint. i think alot of what contributes to this is wind ( moving the cover back and forth across the paint ). it is custom fit but any cover you buy will stretch and have some slack in it. also you gotta think all that crap that was landing on your car is now embedded in your car cover. back and forth motions is almost like mild sandpaper. wolf says the covers can be cleaned with a mild cleaner, like fantastic. they actually say to clean the cover while on the car. i am NOT spraying fantastic all over my car and stripping the wax.

currently i just have my car under a carport with no cover. it gets absolutely nasty but i only drive it on the weekends so before i want to take a drive, i just wash it. it gets way dirtier without the cover but the swirls and scratches seem to be less.

i would think whites, silvers, etc. , colors that dont show as many flaws like reds, blacks, dark greens, etc, would not show the scratches near as bad.

my thoughts are anything that is constantly in contact with the paint on your car is susceptible to scratching it.

but with the cover, the elements are kept off of it along with the cats.

sort of a catch 22 :shrug:
 
No problems here at all with my parts store cover. Paid 75 bucks I think, car does not get wet and it fits very well! Wouldn't even consider an expensive one.