The Hindu Business Line : Protecting car during monsoon

I PURCHASED a new Tata Indica DLS late last year. This is my first car and I drive about 35 km daily within the city. How do I take care of my vehicle during the monsoon season, especially in Mumbai? Second, during this season the windows and rear glass tend to fog over. What can I do to stop this condensation from happening? I haven't fitted any accessories except for the stereo.

Yogendra Khopkar

Protecting your car from the potential damage that rains can cause is important. While monsoon measures need to be taken by car owners in almost all the cities of the country, it is even more imperative for car owners who live in cities situated along the long Indian coastline. The ever-present humidity in the air and the added effect of salinity from the sea make the climate in coastal cities more damaging for cars than is the case with cities in the interiors.

With the exterior of the car having to face the ravaging effect of the monsoon, the focus of your protection measures should be the exterior of the car and the underbody, which is most likely to stay wet for a prolonged duration during this season. Moisture ingress through cracks in the paint work or at joints in the underbody can, over a period of time, lead to rusting and oxidisation. If left unattended, this damage can in turn lead to potentially dangerous structural damage. Rust also tends to travel under the car's paintwork after starting at a crack and can, therefore, remain hidden to the naked eye until the damage is so extensive that whole chunks of the paint start to peel off.

Similarly, the damage due to rust to the underbody will remain undetected, after all it is one area of the car's body that most of us have not even ventured to look at even after many years of ownership. Yet, damage to the underbody is one of the most important checks that used car buyers perform at the time of shopping for a car.

You can start your monsoon protection measures by checking and repairing the damaged paintwork (if any) on the car.

Cracks or scratches that are deep enough to have gone past the white base coat and exposed the metal body panel need immediate attention to stop rust formation. Along with this touch-up job you may, depending on your budget, want to look at getting a clear coat done for the paintwork.

Your dealer will be able to help you with this coat, which protects the paint from scratches and oxidisation. If the dealer does not offer this kind of service, you can look for an authorised 3M or DuPont refinishing centre in your city. If affordability is an issue, get a professional waxing and polishing job done. This by itself could go a long way in removing much of the oxidisation that has taken place on the paintwork.

For the underbody, many manufacturers today offer a factory concocted protection package that comes clubbed with a perforation warranty. The number of years for which the warranty is valid differs from manufacturer to manufacturer. If such an underbody protection package was not offered with the car, you can opt for an after market underbody protection coating that could either be a proprietary polymer finish or a coat of epoxy. Some of these are resistant to chipping from loose gravel and some others are not. So a regular check for cracks in the underbody coat is a must to avoid further damage.

Try to keep the car dry by wiping down rainwater at the end of the day and park the car in a covered lot. Avoid covering a wet car with a cover made of non-breathable material like plastic. Other general monsoon proofing measures that you can take is to get the dealer to check the car's brake calipers and pads, replace damaged mud flaps, check wheel alignment and balance and run a check on the windscreen wiper. Treat yourself and your car to a set of new windscreen wiper blades once every year. That will be cheaper than handling the risk of wiper failure or a replacement in the event of the windscreen getting scratched.

As far as the condensation on the glass that happens during the rainy season, there are a few steps that can be taken to reduce the incidence. From your helplessness with this issue, it looks like the car does not have a rear defogger or a rear wiper and washer. Condensation happens on the outside of the window glass if the car's air-conditioner is running and the outside air is very humid. Condensation happens on the inside of the windscreen if the car is being run without the air-conditioner being on and when the temperature outside the car is lower.

Condensation on the outside of the car can be tackled by using the wipers at the front and the rear or by using the defogger. For cars that do not have these gadgets to perform the job for them, you have to turn up the air-conditioner's thermostat and change the blower direction to increase airflow to the bottom half of the passenger cabin rather than to the top half. You can also use after market windscreen treatment sprays that coat the glass and resist the accumulation of water droplets on the screen.

For reducing the incidence of condensation on the inside of the car's windscreen, turn the air-conditioner's control knob to allow outside air in this will help balance the temperature inside the car with the outside. You will also have to turn the fan flow knob to change the direction of airflow from the line of vents directly below the windscreen. This will let outside air to flow along the inside of the windscreen further balancing the temperature and humidity difference.

(Queries may be sent to: q&a@thehindu.co.in or by post to Q&A, Business Line, 859/860, Kasturi Buildings, Anna Salai, Chennai - 600 002.)

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