What happens when you stick a guitar case in a Mini, in full sun, for 8 hours and 40 minutes

[John Bushouse]

On another forum, several have us have been doing some experiments involving cars in hot sun - inside temp vs. outside temp, ttrunk temp vs. inside temp, etc. I decided to take a different approach.

At 10:00, I parked my car in a parking lot that should receive full sun all day. The car doesn't have a trunk, so the case is sitting in the back seat. Here's the car:

I cracked the windows and the sunroof. Weather.com said it was 84 degrees out. Here's what the thermometer in the case says:

The thermometer is an ancient one that was mounted on the house sometime around 20+ years ago. Here's what I did with the case:

Yeah, that's some scarves and some microfiber cloths. And a shirt. They happened to be in the car; and that's what I would use in a real-world application.
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Here's how things looked at lunch. Weather.com said it was 88.

The sandwich was roast beef with peppers on marble rye.
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I wasn't able to get back to the car until 6:40. Here's what I found when I opened the case:

I guess that would be somewhere around 113 degrees. That's after 8 hours and 40 minutes inside a case, inside a car that has a whole lot of glass to let light in - the roof itself is 60% tinted sunroof. Of course, I left the windows and sunroof cracked.

Outside temp when I took the photo was right around 92.
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So what does all this mean? I don't think it means that we can leave cars in the sun all day and expect nothing to happen to a guitar inside. But, I personally am not going to be too worried if I leave the guitar in the car while I run some errands.

[Ron Frazier]

I have looked at the guitars and tested the glue joints and they seem to be still ok.

There were no necks with strings on them as I haven't a guitar that I want to destroy. I am sure that the tension would be bad.

I know what heat will do to guitars as I have had several with all the braces rattling inside that had just fell off.

Don't try this with a good guitar.

Seems like I have a guitar that has a broken truss rod that I could tune and put in the car. I will have to look.

Ron

[Bob Webster]

Ron, you're not going to make us wait until tomorrow to find out what happened in your experiment, are you?

Bob

[Martin Edwards]

Rick Turner Made the bass played on Fleetwood Mac's The chain. Dummmmmmm dum dum dum dum de dumbley dmmmmmmm.....

anyway it was CF prototype held together with 5 minute epoxy.

on tour it was left in it's case in the sunshine.......

the glue melted, the bass died

[Ron Frazier]

I had forgot about the experment and it is 68 out side now so I will go look. Hold on.

I am back! They don't seam to be any different so I will wate untill this afternoon when it is hot and check again.
Ron

[Bob Webster]

Ron, people are dying out here, waiting to find out if you still have an intact parlor guitar or whether we're going to see the thing on Ebay as a "Luthier Project Parlor Guitar Kit". Is the guitar strung up through the test?

Bob