Hooray for road salt!
Reply #24 –
I always wonder what's worse, the heat or actual direct sunlight exposure and if simply covering it actually works. I've gotten dash-rugs for all of my good ones, and I use a shiny reflective sun shield in the summer too. I have a couple old tshirts I keep in the red car for the leather portions of the seats. Crazy much? Yeah.
My co-worker who moved here from Las Vegas several years ago, still has his first daily driver, '90 Accord 2 door. Beautiful blue interior and the winter salt is just starting to take its toll on it. He's always had a rug on the dash and maintains it spent most of its life out there without a problem.
Plastic is made from petroleum so there are probably components that out-gas and vaporize away leaving degraded remnants.
An "ex-co-worker" who quit last year, has been a chemical engineer for 30+ years and worked for Texas Instruments, Boeing to name a few. His claim is that poor plasticizers are the biggest reason dashes crack. Which are the components that actually make these materials flexible and bendable. Logically makes sense I guess :hick: