Off to a clean start
SUMMER was a golden time for spontaneous sojourns and major road trips. As we now begin to welcome the rainy season and start slowing down on our epic explorations, it may be a good time to start cleaning the car for real, and picking up the clutter and melange of morsels from those wild weekends that always kept us too busy to do so.
For starters, we can begin with properly vacuuming our cars. There are so many fine particles of dust and pollution that regularly surround us, and even if we don’t really see them, you can trust that they accumulate over time – and eventually become the source of allergies and skin reactions. If you enjoy taking your pets around for a stroll, then it is even more reason to vacuum more frequently. Even our very own skin cells that we shed day by day, eventually pile up into microscopic mounds that dust mites like to feed on. Having said that, it is imperative to use vacuum cleaners that have the capability to suck in even the tiniest and finest of particles.
In last week’s episode of Wheels, we showed you a demonstration of how to thoroughly vacuum your car. We chose to demonstrate using the Dyson V8 Carbon Fibre – the brand’s latest addition to their range of cordless vacuum cleaners – mainly because it is lightweight (and ergonomically balanced), powerful, and free of the hassles of any cord entanglements. It also comes with an array of suction tips and attachments, which makes a huge difference when cleaning varying types of surfaces.
The soft roller cleaner head can suck up large debris from hard floors, while the direct drive cleaner head is especially useful for some deeper carpet cleaning. Carpets tend to trap so much fine dust within their fuzzy layers, and these are extremely difficult to completely remove, despite heavy brushing or the traditional “pagpag.”
The mattress tool is a more passive head that can pick up fine dirt from delicate fabrics and upholstery – and is perfect for your seat covers. Meanwhile, the combination tool can quickly transform into a more gentle brush tip, to enable dusting without the risk of scratching any surfaces.
But perhaps the most challenging part of vacuuming a car is effectively cleaning the hard-to-reach nooks and crannies. The crevice tool is convenient for tight gaps and narrow spaces, while the flexi crevice tool allows for even more flexibility by being soft enough to bend into the shape and orientation of deep, tunneling nooks. Furthermore, an extension hose is also available for reaching deep, tight spaces such as under the car seats, where a lot of particles and morsels tend to pile.
Another important detail that many people forget is that you also have to make sure that the vacuum cleaner you use is competently sealed. In the Dyson V8 Carbon Fibre, 15 cyclones that work parallel to each other are arranged in two tiers to increase airflow, and to capture all the fine dust from the airflow. The system that traps these impurities is very well sealed – to the point that the air that comes out of the machine’s exhaust is actually cleaner than the regular air we breathe around here! What an interesting technological feat.
Happy cleaning!