Porsche Heal Thyself

[dgcook]

Perhaps my experience with car covers can be helpful to someone:

With tight quarters in my garage it's a pain (and a bit risky) to routinely garage my 911. Instead I had been covering it nightly with a good quality car cover. This worked well and is pretty easy. However, in June I went out of town for a week and left it covered--thinking that was best. When I returned I was shocked to find my flawless paint finish was now marred in places all over the roof. The speckles of discoloration--quite extensive in places--were impervious to buffing. The body shop people said the clear coat was damaged and the only solution was to repaint the roof. The quote for the job was $2500--just for the roof.

It had rained a bit the day before I left (it's Seattle after all) and there was moisture on the car when I covered it. Since it was summer while I was gone, it would seem the cumulative effect of being covered for several days in the hot sun drove the moisture into/under weak spots in the finish. For some this might seem obvious. For me, however, it was a big surprise since I had been covering it for quite a while in all kinds of weather, but usually just overnight, with no problems.

There was no way I intended to leave it that way. But still I procrastinated--during which I tended to avert my gaze from the roof since it irritated me so much. Above all else I stopped using the car cover through the rest of the summer.

It happened so gradually I didn't notice for a while, but by the time September rolled around the "ruined" clearcoat lesions were 98% gone. At this point the remaining speckles are so minor I have a hard time finding them even knowing where to look. My theory is that being exposed to the sun and dry weather slowly drove the moisture back out of the finish and resolved the blemishes.

Even though I'm still not entirely sure how this worked out, it is very clear that under some circumstances a Porsche can heal itself.

This raises some interesting questions about the best way to protect a car from the elements (which apparently can be both friend and foe) when garaging is not a reasonable option. I would further add that I've read more stories on this forum by people who have had their Porsches damaged by rubbish in their garages than by getting damaged in driveways.

I'd be curious to hear from others on this topic.

Dave Cook

[xmac]

Amen brother. I hear you, but you know, Murphy's Law is what prevails:

if you park in the garage, something or someone will scratch it

if you park outside, a bird will poo on it

if you park at the furthest parking spot away from all other cars, someone will park next to you

if you park in a wide parking space, the person next to you will park over the line and ding your door