Fading Not Working

Hi all, I don't know why but the fading that I'm using doesn't really seem to work. The fade doesn't start when the object is created, it starts at the beginning and takes for ever to fade after it has been Instantiated. Anyone have any ideas? Here's the code:

 using UnityEngine;
 using System.Collections;
 
 public class Fade : MonoBehaviour
 {
     Color startColor;
     Color currentColor;
     Color endColor;
     bool shouldFade = false;
     float startTime;
     float endTime;
     public float seconds = 5.0f;
     float t;  
 
     void Start ()
     {
         startColor = gameObject.renderer.material.color;       
         endColor = new Color(startColor.r, startColor.g, startColor.b, 0.0f);      
     }
         
     void Update ()
     {
 
             shouldFade = true;
 
             startTime = Time.time;
 
             endTime = startTime + seconds;
 
         fade();
 
     }  
 
     void fade()
     {
 if ( shouldFade == true)
         {
             t = (Time.time / endTime);
 
             currentColor = Color.Lerp(startColor, endColor, t);        
 
             gameObject.renderer.material.SetColor("_Color", currentColor);         
 
             if ( currentColor == endColor )
             {
                 shouldFade = false;
                 startTime = 0.0f;
                 endTime = 0.0f;
                 t= 0.0f;
                 Destroy (gameObject);
             }
         }
     }
 }