Caring for and maintaining your car is the most important factor in ensuring that it enjoys a long and healthy life.
Some repairs to your car are inevitable as it ages due to regular wear and tear. However, by caring for and maintaining your car properly, many repairs can be minimised or even eliminated altogether.
Your car’s external bodywork faces an everyday attack from numerous contaminants such as insect remains, dust and chemicals from the road surface.
These contaminants can be corrosive to the paint work on your car and by leaving your car unwashed for a long period of time, they will start to breakdown the protective clear coat on your paint work.
If left unchecked, these areas can then become susceptible to both discolouration and corrosion.
By washing the exterior of your car regularly, you stop the build up of these contaminants on your car’s paint work, helping it to remain blemish and corrosive free. Rust and corrosion are not as common a problem as it was in years gone by but it can still effect your car, so it is important to maintain your car’s paint work to a high standard.
Some car manufacturers offer extra rust protection on new vehicles and this is an option you may want to investigate further.
Cleaning the interior
It is also important to maintain and care for the interior of your car. Dust can contain grit and chemicals that can eat away at the surfaces of your car interior.
Like with the exterior of your car, with regular cleaning, you can stop the buildup of dust, helping your car’s interior remain in optimum condition.
Regularly vacuuming footwells and seats will ensure that dust does not build up. Dust will also collect on areas such as the dashboard but can be easily cleaned with hot water with detergent and a cloth.
If your vehicle has leather upholstery, then ensure that you treat the leather regularly so that it maintains its condition.
Underside cleaning and protection
It is important to also clean the underside of your car as this is where most contaminants accumulate, mainly from grit and salt on the road.
The underside of your car can easily be overlooked when cleaning but it is important to remember to clean this area. There are a number of cleaning tools on the market to help you undertake this job, such as lances that you can attach to your hose and slide underneath your car to clean the underside.
There are also specific cleaning formulas for the underside of your car, which help to breakdown the contaminants and dirt. New cars come with an under seal applied to their underside which will last for a number of months. There are a number of under seal products that you can purchase and apply to the underside of your car that can stop help the buildup of contaminants.
Cleaning the underside of your car is not required as often as cleaning your car’s exterior but it is important to build it into your car maintenance and care routine.
Engine cleaning
Cleaning your car’s engine may seem a daunting thought but with the correct materials and preparation it can be a worthwhile task.
By cleaning your engine regularly, you can ensure that grease and debris do not build up which can lead to problems such as corrosion, which in turn can lead to expensive repair bills. There are a number of cleaning products available for cleaning your engine and it is important to ensure that you research fully how to prepare and clean your car’s engine.
Your car’s engine contains a number of components that water should not touch or enter, so it is vital that you take the time and research fully the way in which you should prepare for and how you undertake a engine wash.
