Car Cleaning

Car Cleaning:
Keeping your pride and joy nice and clean and shiny, can be a bit of a challenge sometimes. From chrome finishes, alloys wheels, aluminium wheels, plastics, rubber, different paint finishes and much more, there's a number of products and techniques to keeping it all looking show worthy.

You can buy a lorry load of cleaning products for cleaning and transforming every part of the car, but one things for sure, you will need to use some elbow grease!

Group Car Cleaning

Interior:

• Clear out all the rubbish, mats etc
• Hoover up as much dirt as possible (if you need a long brush - use it) - don't forget to clean the mats
• Give all plastics a quick wipe over to remove surface dust and dirt
• Hoover up again as best as possible (roof, seats, shelves, dash, in between everywhere, then finally the floor again – under the seats as well
• Now using interior cleaners, clean all surfaces such as the dash, door handles etc with the appropriate cleaner. Note: don't use polishes on the steering wheel that will make it slippery
• If you have leather (seats/full interior), use leather conditioner on it
• Don't forget the boot, remove everything (spare tyre, tools, jack) then hoover it and, clean plastics/metal with a cloth
• Try WD40 for anything sticky like chewing gum on your cloth seats. Spray it on and leave for a few minutes, then get a stiff brush to brush it out. (WD40 can also be used on the sticky residue left by stickers on windows).

Bodywork:
Taking care of your cars bodywork, isn't just about giving it a good wax, but rust protection as well. Your cars body work gets lots of abuse from the elements, such as other cars fumes, salt laid down in winter, tar, rotten leaves, mud, bird poo, bugs, the sun and rain (acid, oxides and god knows what else).

A general wash of the cars bodywork once a fortnight/month can help get some of that grime off and a good wax every month or 2 will help protect it from those elements. Follow the instructions on any product.



Washing The Car:

• The first step (and one most people don't do) is to get a hose and rinse the underside of the car. All that salt from the road will eventually eat away at that metal and turn your car into a bucket of rust
• Next, make sure the sponge and cloths are free from trapped dirt that may scratch the bodywork
• Then start by washing the car with water to get rid of the loose surface dirt and grime. You can use a hose to get into those hard to get too places (under the car, inner arches etc). Warning: if using a pressure washer, be careful not to get too close to the paint work or you could end up removing some
• Now with a soapy sponge start cleaning from the top down (do one area at a time), then rinse the sponge in clean water and rinse the soap off the area you have just cleaned
• Then take a clean cloth and dry off any water from the bodywork
• Once you have done the whole car, carry on to the wheels

Wheels:
Brake dust can be a real pain to get off. Use a good quality wheel cleaner on your alloys. For Steel or aluminium, use a light metal cleaner abrasive – aluminium tends to oxidize and you will be surprised how black your cloths will end up.

Glass:
Don't use glass cleaner on the windscreen or rear window if fitted with wipers (otherwise they won't wipe over properly). Make sure you get under the wiper blades, as dirt trapped under them can scratch the windscreen. An old trick is to use newspaper to clean the glass area after you have washed the car, this really does get your glass nice and clean, try it.

Sticker removal: Heat up the sticker with a hairdryer (get the sticker nice and hot, but take care with the glass), then slowly peel the sticker off or use a scrapper if very stubborn. WD40 can be used on the sticky residue left by stickers.

Car Wax:

• When all is dry, apply wax if waxing (see the products instructions). Wax helps protect the paintwork from all those elements and repels water
• Best to do an area at a time in a circular motion, such as the bonnet, then buff off with a clean soft cloth
• For that unltimate shine, a good wax buffed over and over again will increase that gloss
• If you have an electric polisher, that can save some time, but I prefer to do it all by hand

Note: that some wax's are slightly abrasive (read the labels). Most will need to be applied to a cool surface and not in direct sunlight.

Scratches:
Depending on how deep the scratch is, you can do several things:
Firstly if it's a shallow scratch that's basically on the surface of the paint work, you can use an abrasive purposely made for getting scratches out of car paint. These abrasives can be bought for both metallic (less abrasive) and none metallic paint, something like t-cut. They help merge the paint work around the scratch to hide it. More serious scratches may require a bit of filling in with touch up paint, then blending in, or real deep scratches may even require total resprays of a whole panel or even whole side of a car.

Stone chips:
These can rust if deep enough and left untreated.
You can purchase touch up paint kits or using an aerosol, spray a little into the lid and use a toothpick to apply. Make sure the area is clean and dry. Apply the paint to the area and if necessary apply several coats allowing each coat to dry a little between application. If you have a steady hand you can build it up just proud of the bodywork and then using a very fine piece of sand paper, flatten the paint back to an even surface. Use an abbrasive, such as t-cut to finish the area off.

Smear Marks From Other Cars:
These can be gently rubbed away with an abbrasive like t-cut, be careful not to over do it however and end up going all the way through your own paint.

The owner of this car has a
lot of car cleaning to do

Car Cleaning Taken To Extremes!

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