What causes dashboards to crack?
Tom, friend of IZCC member Carl Beck, engineer/scientist in the Aerospace industry says: “1. Ultra Violet light, depending on its wavelength, is in fact ionizing radiation. It can dissassociate and even ionize molecules. “2. If the damage to the dash parts is “cracks” it is probably from heat, (which couses outgassing or drying). If it is “powdering of the surface” it may be >from UV light. Even material with a very high absorption coefficient transmits a small amount of UV light. A very bright UV source (the sun) over a very long time can cause damage through a car window. “3. The UV from the sun is sufficiently intense and energetic to cause blindness in a fairly short time (staring directly into the sun for 10 minutes). The sunglasses are to protect the retina from UV light.” So we can conclude that the cause of the dashboard cracking is [drum roll please]… THE SUN! So for an uncracked dash to stay that way, it must be protected from the sun. The other method is to undo the damage
