My newest car is a 1970, my oldest is a 1963.
Yes, the garage helps, a lot.
Last year my daughter and her boyfriend moved from Virginia back to Pennsylvania. I let them use my half of our garage for storage, thinking it was no big deal for me to park outside. That lasted four months, then I rented a storage unit and moved all their stuff. Ahhhh, back in the garage!!
I was in Florida during Easter, and I almost immediately noted that huge amount of sun-damaged paint jobs everywhere. Similar to what I’d seen in Mexico, where the larger stores always offer car-port-like parking awnings to protect from the sun.
I park in the garage all winter (roughly mid-Nov to mid-April). The garage is partly heated and never goes below freezing, which makes a real difference when the temperature is -30 C. In the summer, it makes little difference and I don’t bother. I use the space for the snow tires and gardening supplies. (Where do I store the summer tires all winter, you ask? In the big green “garden waste bin” that is collected only between mid-April and Mid-Nov.)
As others have said, it depends where you live. In my personal experience, it also depends how well you maintain your car. When I used to park mine outdoors and drive more often, I’d pay more attention to waxing and paint protection, as opposed to now. That meant more time and money (washing/detailing) involved with keeping my car in a condition I wanted it.
Along the same lines, here in MD there is a lot of pollen in the spring/summer, and I expect it to be just as bad this year. I cut quite a bit of that down thanks to having the car inside, which as an allergy sufferer, is only a good thing.
That said, it probably won’t make a dramatic difference to most people (enough to be concerned, at least), so do what works for you. In my experience, a car that lives outside just needs a bit more attention, is all.
Similarly, it matters if a General Aviation aircraft is kept outdoors or in a hangar. This is especially true for sailplanes, for which you really want the exterior surfaces to be gleaming smooth and slippery. Look at any car (or some of the pictures in this thread) with sun-damaged paint, and note how rough the surface is. Gliders kept outdoors and without canvas covers will get like that too.
Where I fly, we wash, wax, and buff the gliders twice a year, and the difference before-and-after is substantial – after, it’s noticeably harder to sit on a wing, or set a parachute on the wing, without it (or your butt) sliding off. I don’t know why we don’t do it even more often, except that it’s a major hassle. Over time, the coating gets gradually crappier beyond what you can fix with a waxing and buffing. A rough surface – even a micro-rough surface – creates friction and drag, and on a sailplane, that ain’t helpful. Getting a glider refinished is big hungus expensive, possibly on the same order of magnitude as the glider’s depreciated worth.
At a certain operation about three hours drive north of here, they keep their sailplanes inside a huge hangar. They are gleaming spotless and slippery. At a certain operation about an hour drive south of here, the gliders are kept outside, but some of the private ones are kept covered with canvas wing covers or full-body covers. Those are in good shape too. The ones kept outside without covers – well, the student pilots fly those, mostly.
Gliders come with trailers, and most of those are enclosed. Most privately owned gliders, at every place I’ve seen, are kept inside their trailers when they aren’t out flying. Photo showing some glider trailers.
Just curious - what do you drive?