Cars don’t last forever. Engine parts break. Bulbs burn out. The rubber that grips the road eventually wears thin. Once you have a car, your hand will never be out of your pocket, handing over sum after sum to keep the car in a state of readiness. One of the things that can be looked over as non-essential is a ceramic coating. The car won’t fail to start if you don’t have a ceramic coating, but other issues with appearance and integrity can start to creep in where owners do not pay due diligence to the upkeep of their car’s exterior – check out this ceramic coating guide.

Today, we’re going to look at two of the most significant factors that come up time and time again relating to your car’s paint work. The first is damage caused by overexposure to UV radiation (otherwise known as sun damage). The second is rust. Let’s get to it.

What is UV?

For human beings, UV radiation from the sun is a mixed bag of benefits and potential dangers. That’s because UV comes in three forms, called A, B, and C (their full titles are UVA, UVB, and UVC). The weaker ‘A’ type of radiation doesn’t penetrate the skin as deeply as the other two, which can cause skin diseases and below the surface issues if we’re exposed to the sun for too long. When it comes to your car, the exact same issues exist with UVA, UVB, and UVC – all three types of UV radiation from the sun can penetrate the paint work on your car, bombarding and loosening the chemical bonds between the particles of paint.

Eventually the result is that particles fall away. Unlike human skin, which can become wrinkled and cracked from overexposure to the sun, your car’s paint work will initially lighten in shade as the paint particles fall away. This means that without a ceramic coating, your car’s colour will likely lighten in shade if exposed to the sun over time (red becomes pink, black becomes more greyish, etc.), and the worst part is, because we tend to park our cars in the same place every day, the sun will affect the paint work more in different areas, leaving patchy discolouration.

What is rust (oxidation)?

Where paint work starts to fail due to exposure from UV, tiny pits will begin to appear where more particles have come away than in other areas. This means that the car’s metal panels will no longer have the required protection to prevent oxidation from the elements.

Oxidation is a chemical reaction that is commonly referred to under the blanket term, ‘rust’ (technically, rusting describes the aging issues that occur when specifically iron gets wet, but the term is generally used to describe the signs of aging in all metals due to the effects of the elements). In the most simple terms, metal and water create ‘rust’ issues for your car. That’s why many people choose a ceramic coat to protect their car.