Dash and Interior Treatment?
Mordecai Jones
the like. What do the experts say about dash treatment?
What should I be using instead?
Mordecai Jones
'99 230 SLK Sport
Richard J. Sexton (At work)
Mordecai Jones <mjo...@icharus.org> wrote:
>I've seen some distubing posts on here considering the use of Armorall and
>the like. What do the experts say about dash treatment?
>
>What should I be using instead?
Use whateevr's on sale; they all do the same thing which is block
UV which ages plastic. Even sun tan lotion will work. How long the
stuff will last depends onwhere you are. In Texas it's probably
gone in a day, other places it may last up to weeks.
There's only circumstantial evidnece armor all cracks dashes at
best, it's really an urban legend.
--
Richard Sexton | Mercedes Parts: http://parts.mbz.org
http://www.mbz.org Mailing lists: http://lists.mbz.org
W108, W126 Mercedes Classifieds: http://ads.mbz.org
Attombomb
except a very thick cover.
They engineer it that way so you buy a new car.
even Mercedes that's the facts jack.
Want proof ok. It would be so easy to add a layer of uv block to the
windshield like a pair of sun glasses for you eyes but no one ever has.
"Mordecai Jones" <mjo...@icharus.org> wrote in message
news:%_ho9.66720$FO4.14800@sccrnsc03...
Art
I have no expertise in ArmorAll, but I believe that its horror stories are a
mix of urban legend and oneupsmanship, from those guys who think anything
*you* use sucks because *they're* smarter. I believe more in the advice of
Click and Clack (the Car Talk guys) who said, "How likely is it that a
product would be around 25 years and be the top product in its category if
it did exactly the opposite of what it said?"
As for the lack of UV protection, that's why it's black! (That, and the
obvious reflections problem.) Anyone who climbs broadcast towers and
attaches cables, or bundles cables on motorcycles, knows that white nylon
cable ties will last a couple year in the sun, at best, because the UV will
break down the nylon and make it brittle. That's why the ties made for
outside use are black. The white ones are translucent, and the UV goes
right inside. The black ones stop it dead at the surface. Penetration is
so low that it takes many years to rot far enough inside to substantially
weaken the nylon.
Likewise black dashboards. A large amount of the UV is stopped by the
windshield. But when it hits the black surface of the vinyl dash, the light
stops dead.
My guess is that the heat buildup and just plain old aging are as much
responsible for cracked dashes.
I think the idea that the manufacturer makes them that way simply to sell
dashes is silly. Who's ever replaced a cracked dash? Hands? Just as I
thought, very few of you. Not much profit waiting there....
I do think it's a bit odd that the dash crack plague strikes mostly Euro
cars, especially German. Don't think I've ever had a dash crack on a
Japanese or American car.
I have actually seen the moment the big crack appeared (and heard it) in two
cars, both ten to fifteen years old at the time, a BMW and a Mercedes. In
both cases, the crack appeared upon coming out of my driveway (same
driveway, both cars, years apart) when the temperature was about ten degrees
below zero fahrenheit. The driveway, emptying out onto a steep hill, caused
the car's body to flex diagonally. During that moment, the frigid and rigid
vinyl couldn't take the strain and popped.
I'd be willing to bet that most dash cracks occur in very cold weather. The
vinyl has already shrunk from the cold, and is pulling ferociously at its
anchors, and it's as brittle as ice. The difference between 100 degrees F
and 20 below is probably enough to make the dash shrink a quarter inch,
making it too small for its installed location. It may be weakened from
heat and UV, but it's the cold that kills 'em.
It's also been my experience that that slanting-driveway stress is also the
moment that windshield divots turn to cracks, and windshield cracks spread.
So I don't think ArmorAll is likely to have much effect either way. Maybe,
if you kept the dash ArmorAlled CONSTANTLY for twenty years, you'd see much
less drying of the plasticizers, but you'd have to apply it every couple of
days, and that ain't likely. By then, you'd have inhaled enough of the
stuff to start a whole new round of urban legends.
"Attombomb" <ralp...@removeyahoo.com> wrote in message
news:JWio9.22254$Oa1....@nwrddc02.gnilink.net...
Benjamin Berusch
<mjo...@icharus.org> wrote:
>I've seen some distubing posts on here considering the use of Armorall and
>the like. What do the experts say about dash treatment?
>
>What should I be using instead?
A sunshade
--
Ben
>
>Mordecai Jones
>'99 230 SLK Sport
>
>
>
Ben
--
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Sony RM-X41 Remote Commander
~20' Kenwood CD changer bus cable and RCA
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Reasonable offer gets anything. Inquire within.
