How long would you keep a ski in a hot car?

[ScarletArrow]

It's sort of a common understanding to not leave your ski sitting out in a hot sun - not sure the effects have ever been verified, but no one seems to dispute it. But what about leaving it in a hot car for a day, several days or a week? Let's define "hot" as 80* F (or 26.6 for Horton) for the outside temperature. Do you commute with your ski or is it always waiting for you at the lake?

[Chef23]

I generally ski at home so leaving the ski in a hot vehicle isn't an issue. I would think 80* wouldn't be a problem though.

[Than_Bogan]

I'm almost positive I destroyed my beloved 9100 by leaving it my rental car at the 2001 Nationals in Bakersfield. Never again.

 

But it's not a day-to-day issue for me, as it's rarely that hot and I rarely transport my ski.

[oldjeep]

My house is 80 degrees inside, they had better be able to handle more than that. Mine gets left in the covered bed of the truck occasionally. Just a Senate, nothing fancy.

[jedgell]

I'm able to ski on my lunch break a couple times a week, so I usually keep my ski in the car all week. I never know what day I'll be skiing, so I just take it every day. I crack the windows, and the hottest it gets around here is mid 90's. I hope it doesn't affect it, though maybe that's why I'm not running 35 consistently...

[Chef23]

My ski does sit in a shed in my backyard that is obviously not air conditioned. The shed is heavily shaded and I haven't felt tremendously hot in the shed but I am sure it gets to be over 80* in there at times during the summer. My ski does get to spend the winters indoors.

[eleeski]

Evenly applied heat is not that damaging to a ski. 80f is colder than the low at my desert summer. The high usually gets to 50c sometime during the summer (closer to boiling than freezing - that's around 122f) and my room temperature resin does fine. Cars can get hotter so some caution is advised. How much does the 90f water shock cool the ski?

 

Direct sun is extremely damaging. Temperatures of a dark surface can quickly soar to damaging levels. Also the skin in the sun is substantially hotter than the shadowed skin. The thermal expansion differences can overload a ski. White skis make sense. Keep your ski in the shade or at least in a bag. Note that a car can magnify the direct sun effects. It is critical to keep your ski shaded in the car.

 

110 degrees in the shade and no shade. Drink 3 gallons of water per person per day.

 

Eric

[skialex]

I carry my ski in my car, I live in Greece it's very hot in the summer but I do not usually leave it in the car for very long. Some times when I going skiing in the afternoon after work I leave it for about 6 hours in the car but it is always covered in a ski cover and away from any direct exposure to the sun. Even when walking down to the dock I carry my ski in a ski cover and take it out only minutes before skiing.

Direct exposure is what kills the ski not heat in general.

[gregy]

Yea 80F is a nice cool day in Austin. I've only left skis in my car a few times during the Summer. Try not to if possible. They just cost damn much to take a chance.

[baja]

In Baja it won't be 80 until 4am next december. Keep the ski in the shade and the ambient air temp will not hurt the ski unless you are actually experiencing spontaneous combustion at the moment. "Sometimes people just explode" from Repo Man... a classic! The autoclaves they use to cook the carbon skis are substantially warmer than 80:)

[Waternut]

Fiberglass, carbon, and graphite are not really affected by heat and any "good" epoxy resin should be able to withstand temperatures in excess of 200 degrees F....especially if they aren't subjected to any stresses at that temperature. If my cars interior hits over 200 degrees, I think there will be a lot more damage than just a ski.

 

My car sits in a wide open parking lot all day. I've forgotten to put a sunshade up and crack the windows on many occasions. If the day reaches 95-100 degrees outside in GA with my windshield pointed to the sun, the Ultragauge computer on my dash yells at me when I start the car. I've never seen it say more than 150 degrees in a locked car in direct sunlight for multiple hours.

 

As @eleeski and @skialex have already said, sun exposure is another matter all together. However, most ski's have a graphics layer which will help protect it. It's not real thick so it's not like a ski bag blocking all light but it will help. Either way, it takes a lot of sun exposure to significantly degrade high quality materials. After about 600-800 hours of sun exposure composite laminates start to fall off the cliff from microcracking and overall material loss but under 400-500 hours, there virtually no issues at all from the testing I've seen. I don't know about you but I think my ski will get replaced before it gets over 500 hours of direct sunlight on it.

 

Plastics especially in boots can be a whole separate matter though along with heat moldable liners. Your heat moldable liner may start to lose it's super comfy shape which will certainly make you ski differently. If you lay your ski on it's side, the heat can warp a hardshell boot. It's not going to melt and make a puddle in your car but it can change shapes slightly.

[A_B]

Back when I was driving about an hour to my job, and in ski shape, I always had my ski gear along with my golf clubs. Never knew when or where, but was always ready. I just cracked the windows on real hot days.

I thought bringing my ski into my office would have been a little over the top.

 

I always wondered why there are so many skis laying out in the sun at tournaments. Maybe not such a big deal.

[Horton]

I asked @eddie_roberts_jr‌ about this once. He basically said it is a bad idea. The temps here in Bako are pretty high so maybe it ok if you live up north. I would NEVER leave a ski in a hot car for hours.

[BCM]

My skis have been exposed to some intense heat (i.e. Bako, FL, Imperial Valley, etc...) never any issues (always in a case, I mean ALWAYS). I tend to keep my skis a long time, I have had my current ski about 5 years, 5 years on my previous ski, no heat issues.

 

But, I did once leave a pair of flip-flops stacked on top of each other behind the drivers seat of a ski boat on a house boat trip (tops together, soles out). Ambient temp hit about 110*f that week, the flip flop on top shrunk about 1/4 inch in width/length, the entire way around, except the sole, the sole became hard. My ski was behind the sandals, no problems with my ski. But the sun wrecked those sandals...

[skosney]

Just don't do it ... enough said

[plubius]

test-----

[plubius]

testing-350ffoski

[cbiski555]

My D3 just baked in the sun for a couple days this last week because I accidentally took off and left it on the dock. I cooled it off in the car before skiing on it again.

[ForrestGump]

I guess we shouldn't let the carbon skinned planes like a 787 sit on the tarmac ever again. Come on guys.

[tjm]

A ski shipped from Washington to Florida in mid summer is in the back of a truck for 3-5 days. I imagine it gets pretty hot back there during that time.

Even so I don’t leave my ski in the car, mainly because I don’t want it taken by unsavory riff raff

[BraceMaker]

I had a goode fail in my boat on a sunny day. Ive never had one fail in my truck.

[Dirt]

I have been told by more than one ski industry professional not to do it. They said if it gets hot enough it can change the rocker. I believe direct sunlight is most damaging.

 

When temperatures outside climb range from 80 degrees to 100 degrees, the internal temperature of your car can reach a scorching 130 to 172. This was on the internet so it must be true.

[keithh2oskier]

I never really have a reason to let my ski sit in the car any more. The most it will do is sit in the bed of the truck while driving to the ski site.

 

At the site, I store it on the ski rack in the shade. In the afternoons when the sun hits our rack I cover it in a towel or try to find a shady spot. New ski site has the racks in basically the open sun so I think I'll use my wife's ski on top, mine below, and cover both with a towel and/or use a ski bag.

[Zman]

Always keep my ski in the bed of my pickup truck when I'm using it to drive to the lake n back. It has an insulated tonneau cover, doesn't get any hotter than my garage. But, when using my gas sipping car, need to rethink leaving it in there.

[dbaconaz]

Living in AZ without side temps up to 120... Never Never leave the ski in the car!!

[UWSkier]

Eddie Roberts told me once not to leave my ski in a hot car. Good enough for me. Bad enough it sits in my shaded garage at up to 110F at times.

[lpskier]

I said “other,” as in much longer than you can leave your child or your dog, but still probably a bad idea.

[Golfguy]

How long would you leave your hot vehicle with a ski in it. They are both made of similar molecular materials. Place human hot cold values on inanimate objects is topic for a blog only. Hot ski looser atoms cold ski tighter atoms. My water temperature is hotter than most car interiors today 99.2 F

[Dirt]

Airplanes have stringers and supports to hold shape, not foam cores. They also have protective uv coatings and/or paint.

Car interiors get way hotter than any lake I know of.

What temp do they press the skis when manufacturing them? For how long? Can the rocker change if you heat it and press on it? Ive seen a guy change tail rocker that way.

The industry professionals that told me not to leave the ski in a hot car were pretty adamant about it.

I don’t know for sure, but I am not leaving my six season, one of a kind irreplaceable ski in a hot car.

[Horton]

There was a time in my life when I would drive an extra 20 minutes back home after work in the wrong direction to pick up my ski and then go to the lake to avoid leaving it in the car all day.

 

Just like @dirt I have a conversations with industry professionals who tell me to never leave my ski in a hot car. Furthermore I never leave my ski in direct sun and never loan skis to @Dirt .

[ForrestGump]

So, @Dirt what you're telling me is it is also a mistake to leave my $12,000 carbon road bike in my truck in Texas too.

 

[Horton]

@ForrestGump your road bike is not a PVC core construction. My guess is it completely different in terms of what a hot car would do to it.

[Dirt]

@ForrestGump I honestly don’t know for sure. I dont want to take a chance on ruining my ski and I would not leave a carbon bike in a hot car unless I had no better option. Schroeder had a carbon rim heat up and melt hanging over the tailgate of his truck.

Hows that fat bulldog doing?

[Horton]

@Dirt I wonder how long I would leave you in a hot car. How ever long that is I would leave @schroed longer.

[thager]

I always took my ski into the building when I was working. Kept it under my desk so it didn't sit in in the back of my black truck under a black tonneau cover. Nobody cared!

[gsm_peter]

I seldom keep equipment in my car. Mostly to avoid thefth.

 

My 2 cents:

-Rubber material such as bindings are most sensitive to heat and sunlight.

-Next is the core material.

-Next is the epoxi.

-Finally the carbon/glass fiber.

 

A ski is manufactured, pressed with heat for quite some time. Epoxi benefit from many hours heat to reach maximum strenght.

So a blanc ski could maybe be kept warm in a car without much impact?

 

Bindings/rubber/plastic are for me a more limiting factor.

What about heat molded liners in a super hot car?