Quote Originally Posted by dr. d View Post
a car cover can threaten the finish of the car.
It depends on the car cover. If the car cover has no soft cotton lining/backing, only the bare nylon/polyester material, it will scratch the car and stick to any newly painted car under the hot sun. It's only meant for garage use only where there is no wind to move the cover around and no sun.

There are car covers meant for the outdoors having anti-UV, waterproof and heat protection features. It is however more expensive. A car parked outside your house exposed to the sun's damaging UV rays, heat, tree sap and bird poo can do a lot of damage to your car's paint in a relatively short period of time. You'll see oxidizing, fading and hardened watermarks in a few year's time. With a car cover designed for outdoor use, it will protect your car's paint for a very long time.

Of course, there are people who are ignorant of properly putting a car cover on. They just put it on a dirty car, lay the car cover on a dirty road and hope it will protect the finish. It is effectively a large sand paper with grit #30. Lol!