Automotive material testing is the qualification of the plastics, polymers, coatings, textiles, and components that go into vehicles, verified against OEM specifications. It spans mechanical, weathering, flammability, thermal, and surface methods, and the specification defines which apply. This guide is the map: what the categories are, how a specification drives them, and where the deeper…
Salt spray and corrosion testing measure how long a coated or plated automotive part resists rust and degradation in a corrosive environment. The most common method is neutral salt spray (ASTM B117), and CASS (ASTM B368) is a more aggressive variant for decorative coatings. What Corrosion Testing Measures Automotive parts face road salt, moisture, and…
Accelerated weathering testing uses a controlled chamber to reproduce years of outdoor exposure in a matter of weeks to months. For automotive materials, the most common approach is xenon arc, which reproduces the full spectrum of sunlight along with heat and moisture. What Accelerated Weathering Testing Is Materials degrade in service. Sunlight breaks down polymers,…
FMVSS 302 is the U.S. federal standard that governs how fast interior automotive materials are allowed to burn. A material passes when its horizontal burn rate does not exceed 102 mm per minute, or when it stops burning before it reaches the timing zone. What FMVSS 302 Actually Measures FMVSS 302 (Federal Motor Vehicle Safety…
Ghesquiere Plastic Testing, Inc. (GPTesting) | 20450 Harper Avenue, Harper Woods, MI 48225 | A2LA Accredited | Certificate No. 0079.01 | ISO/IEC 17025:2017 | info@gptesting.com | 313-885-3535 | gptesting.com A coating that passes weathering, humidity, and salt spray testing can still fail after launch. The failure mode is delamination or chipping, and it shows up…
A seat fabric and a painted instrument panel both wear. But a Taber abrasion wheel grinding across a fabric specimen is not simulating what happens when a driver slides in and out of a car seat every day. And a Martindale rub tester tracking a Lissajous pattern across a coated panel is not capturing the…
Most engineers understand that a single hot soak or cold exposure can reveal whether a material survives a temperature extreme. Fewer understand why a part can pass both of those tests and still fail in the field. The answer is the transition. Temperature cycling testing measures what happens when a material is forced to move…
A Tier 1 supplier reformulated their primer coating midway through a production run. No OEM notification. No requalification test. The change was minor, they said. Six weeks later, the field corrosion reports started. Within three months, they were sitting in a corrective action meeting with the OEM. This is a case study in what salt…
A seat fabric qualifies at initial submission. Color holds at specification. Eighteen months later, warranty claims start coming in for fading on door panel trim from the same material family. The fabric passed the test. The trim didn’t get tested the right way. The difference was the method. ISO 105-B06 Procedure 5 is the xenon…
A material can meet every specification at the time of qualification and still fail six months after launch. The part warps after heat aging. The nylon component swells with moisture and no longer fits the assembly. The gasket loses thickness under compression and the seal leaks. Dimensional stability testing measures how a material changes shape…