A lot of people assume that you paint a car, let it dry, and you are done. But if you have watched Megafactories, you would probably know that it is not as easy as it sounds. In fact, this is one area that no one even talks about. Nissan, however, shared a little information on the same and it even involves a fake sun. How crazy is that?

Let’s Paint The Town Red

Paint durability is something that an automaker cannot take for granted. A car spends a major part of its life in harsh conditions, be it under the scathing sun, heavy rain, extreme winds, and salty winters, and the paint needs to withstand all of this at least as long as the car survives. To make sure this criterion is met, the car has to actually be tested under such situations, but you cannot leave the car out in the open forever to let nature take its time to battle with the paintjob.

These test cells expose various types of material samples to a wide range of conditions that a vehicle may face throughout its lifecycle. The XWO emits ‘sunrays’ 24/7 and can hold nearly 100 samples at a time. This enables Nissan to study the effects of UV rays in roughly half the time it would take doing it the old-fashioned way.

What Is The Xenon Weather-Ometer

The paint chips are placed on a large ball-shaped holder that rotates slowly inside, simulating the earth’s orbit. However, the XWO does not recreate wind or water environments.

What They Had To Say

Doug Prytula, a technician for body and chassis testing with Nissan North America, said, "In addition to rigorous real-world tests, this tool allows us to create harsh environments.” "It is one more step we take to ensure Nissan's quality standards are second-to-none."

Have you seen any other automaker with a unique technique like this one? If you have, let us know more about it in the comments section below.

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