Team-BHP - What is A-pillar, B-pillar, C-pillar?

When reading the an auto magazine I came across the term "A-pillar" and due to the bad design of it the frontal visibility is drastically reduced.....

What are these so called "pillars" ?

Like A-pillar, is there any other pillars and what effect does it have on a vehicle ?

A-Pillar is the foremost pillar of the car, the one that holds the windscreen.
B-Pillar is the pillar on both sides just behind the driver's seat.
C-Pillar is the 3rd pillar generally behind the passenger's seat.
Any pilllars behind that are named with the following letters.

Good/poor visibility as you know depends on the angle of the windscreen and how much the front pillar interferes with your visibility from the car. That's why the A-Pillar is very important to be at a proper angle.

(Hope I made sense).

I will try my hands too on explaining this :-)

A-Pillar: The pillar or the vertical bar which you see holding the windshield from sides, the right side A- pillar houses the Antenna in most of the cars.

B-Pillar: the pillor which is present in between the rear & the front door.

C-Pillar: this is where you rear window ends but on the body & not on the door.

The three mirrors can be vaguely be represented by the standing lines in following diagram

A---B---C
/___|___\

Hehe I have tried to make it resemble as close as possible :p

Why are the B & C pillars in some cars in a matt-black finish instead of the normal colour of the rest of the car?

Some one said that these are vinyl stickers any idea on the cost & where i can get this done in bombay?

From what I have observed all teh premium cars have black B pillars, C pillar is never Black instead the boundary on the rear door surrounding the glass is black. Notice any premium cars & you would notice this.

p.s. Baleno has it because Baleno was launched as a premium car at price of around 8 Lac initially.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ajalphonso

They are mostly on A and B pillars, never seen it on the C pillar though!. It serves no purpose, its just for ishtylelol: .

Yup, they are vinyl stripes and you can get it done at most car-accessories shop. I got the B pillars of my Esteem done up for 200 bucks in Milan Subway(MUmbai)

hi,

or else you could even get them neatly painted in matt (dull) black color from any reputed workshop. The entire 'B' pillar, and the narrow door borders (3 sides surrounding the glass windows) of both the doors.;)

az

Quote:

Originally Posted by autozealot

Guys what would u recomend getting my zen painted or going to milan subway, fyi my zen is miami gold colour.
Also where on milan subway did u get the work done for 200 bucks?

ajalphonso,
you can have the door frames and b pillar painted matt black as autoealot said, i'd done this on my M800 a couple of yers ago......cost me around 200-300 bucks at the friendly local garage
I should imagine that the paint will last longer/wear better than a vinyl sticker????

Quote:

Originally Posted by swale84

IMHO, its better to get the vinyl stickers on the pillars rather than painting them matt black. Cars like Swift come with vinyl stickers and are not pianted black. And also with vinyl stickers you can remove them at a latter stage if you don't like it anymore.

By painting the pillars, i am sorry to say but no matter how well its done, the paintjob will not match the original car paint in terms of smoothness and gloss and overall quality. Also its irreversable soo you will have to live with it or else get it painted again. I am one who is against using any sort of paint on the original coat of the car(unless its a high quality booth painting job).

The choice is yours :)

Peace!

very valid point there prince85.. i actually had the painting done on my 800 when it was being repainted anyway, so wasn't bothered about covering up the original paint!!!!didnt know the swift has vinyl stickers...in that case i guess as long as the guy whos installing them does a good jo, i.e no air bubbles etc, that should be perfectly fine.