Product Spotlight – MicroBead Car Covers

While at Carlisle import and kit show last month, we happened to bump into the folks from MicroBead Car covers, who were eager to show us their covers and go over what makes them different and better than other car covers on the market. Since we happened to have a decent sized car to test it on, we gave it a go.

MicroBead offers a variety of products, including a very comprehensive line of custom fitted covers, convertible top covers, and what we’re going to show here, the “nearly custom” Select Fit cover, which is kind of a generically sized car cover, which fits a large number of cars in the general range of the cover you choose. There are different sized covers for a large range of cars in the Select Fit line, and naturally MicroBead can make a cover for just about any car made in its Custom Line.

We sampled the Select Fit on a 2014 Audi S6, and by all rights, this cover fit so well that we were surprised this wasn’t truly made for this car specifically. The cover is very light weight, making it easy to deploy on the car, but feels substantial to the touch. This is not a skimpy thin cover that will let debris through, but it doesn’t weigh down on the car’s paint.

All seams are double stitched, and the elastic hem line helps keep it tight enough to prevent it from falling off while you secure the front and rear wind straps, which have well protected plastic clips. There is also a locking cable included, which goes under the center of the car.

The inside of the cover has a special coating to make it paint and clear coat friendly, and the outside of the cover is treated to repel nearly anything that can fall from the sky onto your car as it sits harmlessly parked.  The Select Fit cover went low enough on the S6 to cover most of the wheels, and it completely covered the entire car. The cover also has roomy pockets for the door mirrors, and it also has a special reinforced and padded zone for protection of the “shark fin” antennas fitted to many European cars.

Microbead covers also feature 2 vent panels, on what end up being the windshield header area, and rear window header area. These vents allow the car to breathe while beneath the cover, which helps keep mildew and other moisture related problems from starting, as well as helping reduce wind related liftoff.

As the name implies, water and other liquids simply bead up and roll off of the car, falling harmlessly on the ground. We didn’t wand to intentionally cause damage to the cover, so we didn’t go crazy trying to find things that might penetrate it, but we’re sure that most liquids found in nature will remain harmless to your car’s paint.

For owners who are forced to park their prized car outdoors, we believe that the MicroBead car cover would be an ideal way to keep the paint and interiors safe from harmful elements. The Select Fit cover is such a great value too, if you happen to have a car that it works on, it is the way to go. Check with MicroBead to see if your car will fit under one of those.