Do you have a recommendation for a car cover?
The situaion is this:
My wife's 560SL sits in the sun (Las Vegas) a few hours each day while she's at work. I'm thinking of buying a cover to protect the paint and interior, but don't want to do more harm than good if a cover is going to damage the finish.
It looks like Covercraft has the best products. Any feedback about using a cover (and which one)will be appreciated.

Bob Cavazos

I would rather wax more often than use a car cover on anything but a show car. One main reason being that if there is ANY dust on the surface when you put the cover on/off you grind it on the surface of the paint. This causes swirl marks which are worse in my book than a bit of extra elbow grease to keep something protective on the finish such as a wax. On a car that sits outside you will have to wax the horizontal surfaces more often. My experimentation with a friend's E420 that sits outside most of the time is that Meguiar's Gold Class is the most UV resistant. Meguiar's #26 is a close second with 3M or WaxShop wax coming in after that. Since show cars are always flawlessly clean a cover does not really hurt. Plus, with a show car you only take the cover on/off once a week at most. The daily on/off cycle on a daily driver would likely cause more harm than good.

Hope this helps...Lee

Lee,

Thanks for the response--you have confirmed what I was afraid might happen. So, that brings up another question:

What do you recommend to protect the interior of the car? Sun shields in the winshield is a no-brainer, but what about the sun beating down on the leather? I do use the two Lexel products to clean and protect the leather--is this enough?

Also, is there anything that could/should be done to the soft top to protect it? It's about a year old, and is the MB material (tan cross hatch inside liner).

Thanks again for the info.

Bob Cavazos

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Bob,
Vinylex on the dash and tops of doos (horizontal interior surfaces) will do a world of good. It is specially formulated with UV protection in mind. You may want to apply it a bit heavier than normal (which will leave a more shiny/wet look) but you will get good protection. As for the leather, just stay on top of it with the Lexol. I have/use some stuff called Lederbalsam for conditioning the leather in auto and equine applications. It will revive roadkill and even Lexol conditioner does not protect as well. If your interested I will look up the contact info for you. I don't know of anything to help the soft top aside from just keeping it clean and free of contaminents. (bird droppings, sap, etc) Sun visors/shades will help out as well. Tinting isn't for everyone. I had a vehicle (non MB) that the previous owner had tinted the front-side windows. At night making a 90 degree or sharper turn could be an exercise in faith. However, the tinting did keep the interior cooler in the Atlanta summers.

Hope this helps...Lee