Has anyone found a car cover that does not disintegrate in the sun in about 3 months?

I have bought a few over the years, and many of them advertise weather protection, etc - but in San Diego, what I need is them to not dissolve. Rain and Snow is not an issue.

 

My 90GT was in the driveway for about a year, covered with a Covercraft Weathershield HD, the cover was no worse for wear at the end.


http://www.covercraft.com/cartlink/i...-tab-customize

 

The problem I have with car covers is: what do you do with a wet car cover?

 

If it's an older Porsche factory cover, _don't_ put it in the dryer. Ask me how I know.....

 

You might want to check out California Car Cover in the San Fernando Valley. They have a lot to select from and custom made.
www.calcarcover.com

No affiliation...

 

My car came with a Tyvek branded cover....12 years ago.
jp 83 Euro S AT 56k

 

Dryer heat settings at "Regular" or "Extra Crispy"?


Had one of those multilayer CoverCraft covers, the one with the cream-colored all-weather outer layer over a few more down to a fleece layer against the car. Awesome cover, for a Lotus DD I had to park outside at work and school. After a year, I decided to wash it in a large commercial laundromat machine. It was dirty but otherwise fine. Just wanted to get any crud out of the fleece. The washing machine was more than the cover had planned for. The outer layer broke up and flaked off in the machine, the fleece pilled up, and the rest didn't last a month before it started coming apart.

Now I read the labels more carefully, and only take jobs that include indoor parking. The Wolf single-layer indoor cover on the 928 now has specific instructions not to machine wash or dry it. Just wash it on the car and let it dry there. It works OK that way, just don't try and dry it out in the sun on the car I guess. I do wash and rinse it on the car, but it gets dried over a couple temporary clotheslines in the driveway. Maybe once a year for this.

 

+1. And the weathershield covers don't mind being washed and dried in machines.

On the subject of OCD, I use the WS cover over an indoor cover... in my garage. The indoor cover stays very clean and the WS cover can get washed if it gets dirty.

 

Okay. So I'll do some research on the brands and post back. I feel like I actually need two covers. One for inside and one for outside.

 

Do realize your looking for an outdoor cover and from my experience, the indoor www.covercraft.com cover is far superior to both the Porsche and generic indoor covers that I have. Would presume there outdoor covers are also high quality.02 T

 

My point was more a logistic one.

You go out in the morning and it has rained or the cover is soaking wet with dew. What do you do with the wet cover? You can't fold it up and stick it in the car. Do you leave it in a wet pile to mildew on the garage floor? I used to drape mine over a couple of step ladders in the backyard to let it air dry, but that only works if it doesn't rain again. Covers didn't work for me and I live in a fairly dry climate.

 

I've been meaning to ask - what protection is most needed from a car cover? It seems like sun is the worst problem - cracked dashboards, faded paint, baked interiors. If you live downwind of a cement plant, protection from nasty dirt would be important, but perhaps not otherwise (everyone avoided the acid pickling shed where I worked.). Water damage, if a problem at all, might be made worse by a cover if it traps moisture and dries more slowly than the naked car would. (In many areas, the greatest exposure is to dew, not rain.)

I'm just speculating, but this suggests that a thin, white, porous, non-water-absorbing cover might be best. The same sort of material used for athletic performance clothing. If it doesn't last long, so be it - it should be inexpensive, sacrificial.

Then again, it would seem that proper car "clothing" should be different for Phoenix and Seattle.

 

For those who are most interested in protecting their interior, the place where they experience the car, I've had good luck with this one:
http://smartcarcover.com/

 

+1 for the Covercraft Outdoor cover.
I purchased mine many years ago after doing the research.
Reasonable price, nice tight form fit, and surprisingly durable.
I seem to remember they did have different levels of quality.
I think I may have purchased their top level (best version).
Mine has been folded up and unused for may years now...

 

I tend to agree. I never tried to use mine daily. I think that would be difficult.
I've only used mine when one of my cars was going to be parked outside for a while.
Whichever cars we are currently driving regularly, usually get parked in the garage.
So for me, a car cover has always been more of a storage device...

Mine has some metal grommets built in to the bottom of the cover on each side.
I made a special bungee that goes underneath and connects the cover side-to-side.
It does a great job of pulling down on the cover and further snugging the contoured fit.
So the car becomes nicely "cocooned" once it is installed and securely configured.