23 A pilar plastic sticky?

I just noticed the other day that the plastic on both the driver and passenger side A pilars are (and this is the best way I can describe it) "dirty leather steering wheel sticky". It seems to be only where it faces the sun and not so much the interior most curve of the plastic. Almost as if the sun is breaking down the plastic. Is anyone else noticing this? I don't think I've cleaned my windows more than a handful of times in the 2 years of ownership using windex or a generic blue equivalent. My 18 year old Xterra's pilars are fine. I use a sun shield but I can't believe that should matter?

 

The Xterra is just built better

 

That's why sometimes I think I should have bought a Frontier.

 

UV rays break down plastics. UV stabilizers are the most expensive part of plastics, companies skimp as much as possible on them to save money. It's gotten worse in the past few years with ALL companies trying to save pennies. This is a very stupid place to save them.

It's also why tires are such wretched dreck nowadays. Since they weaseled such a short life span out of them politically, they all cut way back on carbon black which was a great UV stabilizer and kept rubber soft and supple. So..........they start getting micro cracks very quickly now as compared to the past.