Taking a good care of the car for some people it’s more of a chore rather than the necessity to make sure their vehicle tip-top condition. They do not care or overlook the fact that it’s not just to rinse the car and scrub down the few bird droppings that have been stuck on the car for few weeks. Your vehicle is taking care of your journey to work every day, at least take an hour of your day to wash it. We have gathered 5 things that you should NOT do when cleaning your car.
Take off any jewellery
Leave your watch and your rings at home, where possible, we don’t want to raise any alarms if your wife sees you removing your wedding ring, leaving it at home and riding off in your vehicle. That wouldn’t be a good idea, wearing protective gloves is, nylon or latex if you’re not allergic to them. Wearing jewellery can easily cause a deep scratch on your vehicles clear coat. This can result in a trip to your local detailing garage if you want it to get it removed. You won’t have to paint the car but, that’s an extra cost that can be simply avoided.
Don’t use kitchen sponge!
You might ask why would a kitchen sponge would do any harm to my car? It does look like an innocent soft sponge to us, but to the vehicles clear coat, it’s not! Even little pressure with the kitchen sponge will result in nasty swirls on your paint. If they’re not too deep, you might be in luck and they will remove with some polishing compound and microfiber towel. Otherwise, you’re on your trip to a garage to get it removed. Use a sponge designed for cars, or better not to use it at all, just get half a dozen of microfiber cloths, and use them of exterior and interior of the vehicle.
Dish wash – No!
Another item that’s found in every home, that you might also be considering of using, it’s dish soap. Using dish wash can deteriorate, dissolving your car’s clear coat. This will make your cars paint more prone to stone chips, easier to scratch, and even removal of the clear coat. Without clear coat your car is basically naked and will require an entire car respray to fix it. Driving with no clear coat, the paint of your vehicle will look faded and make it look so much older than it is. You can find in your local hardware store soap that’s meant to be used on cars and probably cheaper than the actual dish wash.
Leaving Your Car to dry under the sun
Now you have washed your car, don’t leave it to dry under the sun! Leaving the vehicle out, will develop water stains on your freshly washed car. To avoid this, go for a quick drive after you’re done cleaning it. Try to drive a bit faster than you usually would, not breaking the speed limit of course. This will remove most of the left-over water that’s built up on the car. After few minutes of driving, come back and give the car last wipe down with a dry microfiber cloth. If you’re cloth gets too wet, replace it.
Do not use alcohol wipes
When you’re cleaning interior of the car, some turn to using alcohol wipes since they have good cleaning abilities. In fact, that is correct, but it’s alcohol. Alcohol dries out any material you use it on, combined with daily heat from the sun. Your steering wheel, dashboard and leather seats will soon start to crack and blister. After that, there is no going back without having professional looking at it. Shops like woodensteeringwheels.com can help you out, they specialise in car interiors specifically dash boards and steering wheels. Professionals provide services like steering wheel refurbishment, restore ,repair and can customise, change your steering wheel permanently. But that’s a lot of money and time spent refurbishing your interior, when it can easily be avoided by using microfiber towel and water.