httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvfxxiUCEzM
The paint on your car leads a hard life. It’s constantly being blasted with road grime, baked in the sun, drenched by rain and defaced by thoughtless birds – not to mention the scratches and scrapes it picks up along the way.
Cleaning the car at an automatic carwash is an easy way to get all that rubbish off, but it also poses a different threat to your paint job.
Over at Nissan USA, the team has developed a novel way of testing its new paint finishes: a miniature carwash, complete with high-speed brushes and abrasive ‘Arizona dirt.’
Although the video makes use of a 1:16 scale 370Z to illustrate the size of the carwash, real tests are carried out with rectangular plates. The system’s brushes spin at 180rpm, while water jets rain down on the samples, which are covered in abrasive “Arizona dirt”.
You can check out the process in the video above. It looks like a carwash, sure, but smaller and cuter.
Podcast
Listen to the team chatting about paint protection with a car detailer. Is it worth it?
