4 hours Ago By [email protected] (Lynnae Williams)
As the mercury rises heading into summer, so do the temperatures in our cars. Temperatures can get so high that even touching the steering wheel after your vehicle has been sitting out in the sun can be painful, making it hard to drive. The same goes for leather and vinyl seats, which can get hot enough to burn bare skin.
These aren't the only parts of your car's interior that feels the fallout from hot weather; your dashboard does too. According to a study by Arizona State University and the University of California at San Diego School of Medicine, dashboards heated up to an average of 157°F after cars were parked in the sun for an hour during a simulated shopping trip. Vehicles parked in the shade fared slightly better, with dashboards reaching an average temperature of 118°F after an hour.
With that kind of heat turning your car into an oven, it's no surprise that those of us who live in hot climates look for cheap ways to keep our cars cool in the summer , including covering up our dashboards. While there's little scientific evidence that points to dashboard covers significantly reducing the heat in a car, many drivers swear by them. These covers can help keep your dashboard from cracking or fading by blocking the sun's harsh rays.
For many, that alone makes them worth the investment. When it comes down to it, drivers are split on whether dashboard covers are effective at reducing heat in a car. However, most give them a thumbs up for protecting their dashboards from exposure to sunlight.
The topic of whether dashboard covers actually lower the temperature inside a car on hot days has come up often on car forums, with the consensus being that they might help, but they're not enough. On the ChevyBolt.org discussion board , one user says they have a dashboard cover along with shades which effectively reduces the sun load inside their car, while another user argues that a dashboard won't have any impact on a car's temperature if it's not reflecting light back out of the vehicle.
During a discussion about how to reduce air temperatures inside a car on hot days, on Mycarforum.com , one driver says the secret is covering the dashboard with something to minimize the heat buildup. Across online forums, the general thinking is that using a dashboard cover makes sense, but if you live somewhere with extreme heat, it's not going to be enough to keep your car cool.
For a lot of drivers, using a dashboard cover doesn't make a lot of sense when they feel like there are better alternatives. Over on the Phoenix subreddit , a Redditor strongly disagreed with the notion that dashboard covers could reduce a car's interior temperature, saying, "Dash covers do nothing to keep the heat out. They help with protecting your dash from UV rays.
" On Bimmerforums.com , drivers agreed that covers protect dashboards from direct sun damage and help keep them from cracking. However, to lower the interior of the car, most thought that sun shades were the best option.
Drivers on the Ozaudi.com forum had conflicting opinions about how useful dashboard covers are, with one user saying, even if they don't lower a car's interior temperature, they "reduce the dash temperature by heaps." Another user said, "They are ugly and do nothing for general heat and UV issues inside a parked car.
" Others said that dashboard covers tend to gather dust and don't do a good job of reflecting heat. Across various forums, drivers agree that dashboard covers are useful, but many think reflective car sun shades or tinting your car's windows were a better way of keeping a car cool in hot weather..
