The Best Car Cleaning Techniques

Page 1

Best Car Cleaning For A Showroom Look It is one thing to get a brand new hot gleaming car from the showroom, and another to possess one after it has run through rough roads over thousands of miles. This lies in cleaning your car regularly both externally and internally, the best time being in the evening to avoid smears all over the body of the car when the water dries. Start your car cleaning exercise with standard tap water, making sure to never use a sponge that picks up grit and dirt and transfers it to other car parts of the car. A highpressure hose or hose pipe with a strong jet works best to shift the grit and dirt. Allow the dirt to soak as you work on the car’s interior. Start off with picking up paper and car park stickers, then go on to the vacuuming and wiping down the dashboard, console and all the other plastic with a damp cloth using mild detergent for soiled areas. Not using products with silicon avoids a greasy residue. Making sure the exterior is still wet, use a very soft sponge to gently remove grit particles, making sure to not scrub tar or mud deposits. Start off with the car top, working in circles and finishing off with generally the dirtiest and most gritty areas - the sills and bumpers. Then start the pre-wash procedure equipped with a bucket of clean water and a car pre-wash that neither bubbles nor foams easily like Autoglym car shampoo, however avoid use of shampoo with built in polish because it makes your task harder and the windows hazy. The use of a tar and bug removal spray helps soften stubborn stains. The main wash requires use of a quality car shampoo with a slightly harder sponge or cotton-cleaning pad, the procedure being similar to the pre-wash. The scrub pad removes tough stains on the sills and lower front bumper. Lastly work on the wheels and tyres; make sure you wear gloves as you work on cleaning off grit like brake dust and alloy wheel cleaner and removing hard brake dust contain harsh chemicals. Next comes rinsing that is best accomplished with fresh clean water from a watering can. Some have found excellent result starting with the roof, using two buckets and avoid contaminating the water with grit. Give your car the royal drying treatment with a slightly damp chamois leather that works like a wiper blade creating a thin film of water that evaporates easily. Clean and polish the glass with a proper automotive glass cleaner and a piece of washed Hessian cloth. Polishing is the last step required; use an electronic buffer to cut polishing time. Working in straight lines with one cloth to apply the polish and another to buff it off you will achieve a showroom finish. A jet wash could help polish quickly. This is done by adding polish to a liter of water and rubbing it into the paint work, but avoiding the windows. Rinse it off and squirt clean water with a windscreen washer. Then set the wipers to work fast to dry the windscreen faster. Finally, buff off the damp polish residue with the chamois leather to achieve the showroom shine.


Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on lots of subjects, but is now concerned with car detailing calgary. If you want some suggestions on detailing cars come over to our website now at Detailing Car Interiors.


Turn static files into dynamic content formats.

Create a flipbook
Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.