Re: Camry door frame weatherstrips

I actually don't use Armor All on anything, but can you explain why I shouldn't be?

And what DO you use in the car, if anything?

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That's an interesting idea, using Pledge dust remover. Pledge and Endust are pricey, though, aren't they. I usually buy the Walmart version called Kleen Guard--one dollar a bottle. I'll have to try that on the dashboard and center panel.

Thanks, I won't use anything on the weatherstrip since you say the new kinds used today last a long time. I'll probably keep the Camry for 10 or 20 years. Is it advisable to not use anything on the weatherstrips for that long?

Silcone grease is available at your FLAPS as Sil-Glyde, and there are also silicone lubricant sprays available. Highly recommended, and will also keep your weatherstrips from freezing in the winter. Also the Sil-Glyde has zillions of uses, e.g. weatherproofing splices and electrical connections, lubrication in high moisture areas, and (most recently for me) as a lube for the crank arm to bottom bracket connections on a bicycle, to name three. (I used it for the last because the factory lube that I cleaned off appeared to be identical.)

NB: don't be sloppy with the silicone, as if you ever need to do any body repair, you'll have to aggressively clean it off or your paint job will make you cry.

nate

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I'm going to stop parking underneath trees. I guess a tree's shade nicely protects the car's paint from the sun, but I'm learning the trees do their own hatchet job on your car! Everything from harmful tree sap to paint-marring bird droppings. I guess it's better just to let the sun beat down on your car than park under a tree?

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If the silicone is that hard to clean off the car, I can definitely see now how it protects the weatherstrips so well.

No, I live in the Midwest: Columbia, Missouri. I've never lived in Southern California, but even here at 43 degrees latitude or so, the sun can be fierce during the summer. Columbia, Missouri (near St. Louis) is half-way between the northern U.S. border and the southern border--right in the middle of the country. I guess Massachusetts, your state, is further north, latitude wise. I think if I employ a sun shield on the windscreen, that'll protect the interior really well, but I am still wondering about the exterior paint job with clear coat. Wouldn't the clear coat protect the paint pretty well even in the blazing heat? My car's outside thermometer measured 100 degrees yesterday.

The clearcoat is there to make the paint job shine. Modern painting procedures are drab as hell unless you spray clearcoat. And, those clearcoat shots are not usually very thick.

The sun will make the clearcoat deteriorate with time. It starts sheeting off like skin after a bad sunburn.

Ain't that the truth. And VW didn't clearcoat red cars back in the day for some reason... (had two of 'em, they'd oxidize if you looked at them funny.)

nate

White reflects more light than any of the others so WHY should white be among the first to become dull?

Thanks for the link. That is one unpleasant, greasy-looking Corvette. That steering wheel and shifter looks dangerous! I wonder if they greased up the brake pedal pad too? My brother used to Armor-all the seats of his Plymouth Valiant - more fun than Coney Island. :-)

I like the idea of treating the weatherstripping but greasy interior plastics lack appeal for me. The good news is that cars these days don't seem to suffer from cracked dashboards like the ones I had in the seventies and eighties. Every VW and Fiat I've ever owned had this problem. That was some ugly stuff.

I think that in those days the plasticizers were not as well developed for the polymeric parts as they are today. The dialkylphthalates would literally cook out of the plastics, and you would find the windshield smoky with that stuff.. Heaven only knows what it did to our health.

Some of the cars made in the Eastern Bloc had steering wheels that would often shatter in your hands at winter temperatures. (Some of these strikingly resembles Fiats, by the way ;>)

The company I worked for had a business unit that made boats out of polyethylene. We went through some of the same teething problems. The dyes faded, the plastic degraded, etc. But those items became very much improved as better technology was developed.

So I think the quality of some plastic items is generally better today than in the past. So much plastic is used that some of the parts inevitably fail, upsetting curmudgeons like me. (and those parts are not cheap to buy, just cheap to make).

It caused males to develop female secondary sex characteristics, because many of the standard pthalate compounds used as vinyl plasticizers tended to act like estrogens in the body. Very weird.

They should have just stuck with nice reliable wood steering wheels like the British did.

--scott

My guess is that the stuff reacted badly to UV as most plastics will. OTOH, I used to have a piano that had plastic (styrene?) connectors that someone told me, would continue to cure and harden and become brittle and spontaneously shatter. I had a baggie of the pieces and replace them as they broke - all 88 keys.

Probably Fiat 128 clones - they're just like the real thing except not as high quality. :-)

You're right I think but there's probably not a lot of plastics that could stand up to long exposure to the sun. That would be great - plastic unaffected by UV.