Spring cleaning your car can pay off, big time
With the end of a very long and hard winter in sight, more than a few vehicle nuts are aching for warm Saturday mornings in the driveway or home garage, eager to tackle the task of scraping the Canadian winter grime off the daily driver.
It’s time to trade road-salt white for a more factory-intended hue, and while many look at this chore as a necessary evil, it can pay off in reduced maintenance and repair costs and improved trade-in or resale value.
To prove the latter point, UK auto-care product masters Autoglym sent their Canadian office’s brand manager, Dave Lambert, to Canadian Black Book (the leaders in auto market valuation) to complete a rejuvenation of a very tired 10-yearold Honda Civic.
Before and after appraisals were completed by an authorized Honda dealership. With only a few hours of tender loving care and a little elbow grease, the Civic’s value increased by almost 20 per cent, to $6,500.
Even if you’re not trading in the chariot, or a car nut, time spent in the driveway can earn you more than just the satisfaction of a job well done.
Lambert shared some of his company’s secrets, obtained from more than four decades in the business of keeping things bright.
Everyone knows about the importance of washing a vehicle’s exterior, but the most overlooked areas are the wheel wells. Any dirt and grime here has been blasted in place by tires rolling through and over endless miles of salt, sand, tar, and road grit. A pressure washer is the best way to tackle these regions.
Leaving layers of sand and grit on metal and cast suspension components is like leaving a rust magnet on your little red wagon. The dirt will hold moisture, which leads to corrosion and also attacks new equipment, taking up residence in the lower nooks and crannies, and on electronic sensors and wiring.
Lambert said when you’re done blasting and wiping, wipe your hand on the inner wheel wells to check your Mr. Clean abilities.
Cleaning and treating tires and rims can make a world of difference in appearance and it’s not always a winter-damage driven task. Many car owners have switched over to separate rims for snow-tire use, but a 12-month substance can put summer alloy wheels at risk if left to accumulate. That material is brake-lining dust.
This toner-black powder is corrosive and one of the top causes of alloy-wheel surface pitting and clear-coat peeling. By using a quality rim cleaning product and a soft bristled brush, it’s easy to remove these dark stains and extend the life of the rims and improve their appearance.
On the top side, Lambert said, polishing is the step that’s missed altogether, and this causes lessthan-stellar finishes. Between wash and wax, polishing painted surfaces does the “donkey work” — as Lambert put it — of removing stubborn stains and repairing imperfections to rejuvenate the paint. It takes only a few years of sun radiation and weathering to cause perceptible colour depth changes between body panels, with horizontal sheets such as hoods and roofs taking the biggest hit.
Failing to complete the polishing means your wax application will seal in your paint scars and colour differences rather than eliminate them. There is a marked difference between polishes and waxes on your auto-parts store shelves and it’s worth reading up on their application processes and intended uses before applying them to your vehicle.
Heading into the passenger cabin, vacuuming carpets and seats is the most time-consuming part of the job, but one of the most important to get odours out, along with the grit and sand. When you consider that the inside of your vehicle is where you spend a great deal of your day, making it the focus of your spring cleaning can make the commute much more bearable.
Lambert advises dealing with spills and stains as soon as possible to avoid the marks setting into fabrics. It helps to have good lighting for this job and if you want to know if you’re at the end of the job, slap your palm firmly on the carpets or seats under a strong light and look for grit popping up from the fabric.
Be careful when prodding a sharp or pointed vacuum cleaner attachment to avoid damaging plastic or hard vinyl trim parts. Pressure washers can make short work of salt stains on removable floor mats, but inside you need to use moisture sparingly and this job is best left to a good quality foam cleaner and rough-sided sponge.
When applying cleaners and treatments to vertical trim surfaces, work from the top down to avoid drip or run marks.
Lambert said he can’t stress enough the importance of treating interior vinyls and hard plastic surfaces with some type of UV protection to avoid colour fade and dry-cracking. And never use any product that leaves a gloss finish on the upper dash pad, as it will prove a serious distraction from a clear view ahead.
Under the hood is where many DIY car detailers get nervous dealing with all the electrical circuits and components or with rinsing oils and grease onto the ground and into storm drains. Lambert recommends staying away from pressure washers for this job, but suggest sticking with an effective machine and engine parts degreaser and cleaner.