Shades or no shades?

Our coach is equipped with interior MCD shades, day and night. They are all motorized and controlled by this old-style remote control.

With the sun and heat, we have had little choice but to keep both night and day shades closed from about 9am until roughly 5pm. Even then, our air conditioners have been working overtime to keep the interior of the coach comfortable.

I have been looking into exterior shades for the outside front of the coach. Sunglasses, if you like, for our motorhome.

There are two models: one that is magnetic and one that clips on.

The magnetic ones look like this (although I think my friend forgot to link one of the magnets at the top right side of his windshield):

Magnets on the inside of the windshield connect with the magnets on the shades. Easy to install and no holes in the coach.

The shades that snap on look like this.

And like this.

Snaps are drilled into the outside of the coach and the shades are more challenging to install. You need a ladder and you have to snap them into place.

Both types of shades work well. They reduce the heat gain by trapping the light before it has entered the coach.

Magna Shade is the leader for magnetic sunshades. They are currently backlogged and it would take about two months to get the product making it challenging for us as we are on the move every month.

There is a local provider for snap-on sunshades that will come directly to our coach and custom manufacture the shades on our site. The company is called RV Sunshade. They could put it on our coach this week.

The cost is about the same for both. The online forums almost universally support magnetic shades. One of our friends here at Myakka just installed the snap-on sunshades. He prefers them as they provide a better fit and they do not add clutter to his windshield. And another of our friends here at Myakka has a Magna Shade sunshade. He would never put holes into his coach and prefers the ease of putting them up on his coach.

Decisions, decisions.