Logical Car Care Tips
If you take
good care of a car, it will keep looking new for a long time, and the compliments
will keep on coming long after the warranty expires. Here are some tips which
border on severe anal retentiveness:
Washing
If you love
your car, there is only one way to wash your car—the right way:
If there is only one thing that you remember from reading this
page, make it this: Sand is bad for paint! Avoid rubbing it in when
washing. I found this out the hard way on my two month old car! I thought I
was going to kill myself when I saw the two foot long scratch on my car!
(Okay, it wasn't that bad)
If you have a car bra (car hood mask, or whatever you want to call
them), take it off before washing the car to prevent major accumulations of
dirt underneath, leading to worn and dulled paint. The morons who are paid to
wash cars on used car parking lots never seem to do this seemingly simple
procedure.
Don't use car wash products which claim to have waxes in them, as
many cause annoying streaking when the windshield wipers are on. You can't
expect an all-in-one product to perform two totally different tasks as well as
two separate products could. It's like saying that you can buy a food product
that you can eat and once you're done, you can wash the dishes with it
as well! Yummy!
Don't wear watches, jewelry, or clothing with buckles or buttons
which could scratch the paint if you accidentally rub against the car.
When pre-rinsing your car, it's a good idea to hose out the wheel
wells where sand and winter road salt collect. Rust bad!
When pre-rinsing your car, be the most thorough in small crevices
because that's where sand collects. These crevices consist of places like:
between the bodyside moldings and the sheet metal of the door, the seam between
the bumper and the car body (especially if the seam runs along to the wheel
well).
When pre-rinsing along the bottom section of the side of your car,
use your hand to wipe off any excessive loose dirt while hosing it down. Two
reasons: 1) it'll keep your wash bucket water cleaner for a longer time, and 2)
if there is some sand, you'll feel it with your hands and know when to stop
rubbing (whereas with a wash mitt or sponge, the sand may start scratching the
car's finish and you don't even know it).
Use a wool mitt to wash your car because cloths and sponges can
allow sand to collect at their surfaces, leading to scratches. Wool fibers
twist around the sand particles, making the sand relatively harmless. Of
course, you should check the mitt for sand once in a while.
Before buying a wash mitt, test how well it's made by pulling at
the wool. If a lot pulls out with only moderate pressure, don't buy it—it's
complete garbage. The first mitt I bought lasted only a year or two before
being able to see my fingers through it; the second one is about 4 years old
and it is still as good as new.
Don't let the wash mitt fall to the ground. Duhh... there's a lot
of sand there!
When switching between washing with the mitt and rinsing with the
hose, rinse your hands off before grabbing the mitt again. You'd be surprised
how much sand collects on the hose while it's on the ground!
When washing your car, it should also involve washing the wheels.
Some people don't seem to realize this and drive their shiny and expensive
luxury cars around with their aluminum wheels caked with brake dust. You don't
have to buy that stuff in an aerosol can to clean them; using the leftover wash
bucket water after the rest of the car is cleaned works just fine.
It's a good idea to dry your car off after you've finished washing
it—especially if you live in an area with hard water. Otherwise you get white,
stain outlines on your paint.
After washing your car, use a pail of plain water and a clean
cloth to wipe down inside your door jambs. Do the same for the trunk opening
where dirt loves to collect. It's surprising how much cleaner a car feels when
you do this simple task.
Whatever you do, don't use the foaming brush at coin-operated hand
car wash places because you never know what kind of crap is in those brushes!
I've even been told a story where sliding a car wash hose along a car's paint
left very noticeable scratches on it. (Danger, Danger, Will Robinson!)
Sorry kids: If you don't want your car "sanded", don't
take it to a high school (or other organization) car wash fundraising event.
Who knows what kind of sand and dirt is in their sponges. Also, when you have 5
people washing the same car, nobody knows who has washed what part, which
results in a car with numerous spots that weren't cleaned.
If you see bird droppings on your car, clean them off right away
as they can stain your paint—this is especially true in the hot sun on a dark
colored car (speaking from experience: washing the droppings off a dark car
after about an hour on a hot day left some sort of stain in the
paint/clearcoat. Weird.).
If the bird stain is dried on, dab the spot with a wet cloth,
allow it to soak, and dab the droppings away. Do not start rubbing like a mad man
on dried bird crap; strawberry or raspberry seeds in it act just like the
dreaded sand!
Is the following true or false: When cleaning and detailing a car,
the idea is to make the car look as close as possible to looking brand new. You
probably said "yes" to that question. So then, why do people smear
all that shiny Armor-All slime all over their tires, which originally came from
the factory with a dull matte finish? Perhaps because they have the mental
capacity of toddlers that are attracted to shiny objects? The same seems to be
for car interiors; some people can't stop at the vinyl dashboard; they glob
Armor-all onto hard plastics such as door handles which are supposed to have a
dull matte finish, the steering wheel which isn't supposed to be slippery, and
even heater and stereo controls. I've even seen heard a story about someone
Armor-Alling his windows!
Waxing
Don't you just
love that feeling of when you touch a freshly-waxed car? The human body's
release of endorphins is pure opulence! Anyway, here are a few tips when it
comes to waxing your car, besides washing the car first and applying it in the
shade, as indicated on all wax packages:
Whatever you do, don't be a complete retard and proceed to
sloppily apply wax to every exposed surface of the car, especially places such
as rubber moldings around the windows, and black unpainted plastic with a rough
texture (the stuff that some bumpers are made of). Good luck getting it off
those surfaces even before it dries, buddy. I've seen plenty people who made
this near-fatal error, and drive a four-wheeled horror show to show for it.
Apparently, you can buy a product to remove the unwanted wax mistakes...
Use masking tape to mask off door lock holes, emblems, and the
dreaded black rough-textured plastic mentioned above to prevent getting wax
(both wet and the resulting dry buffed-off powder) into and onto these
surfaces. If you're extra anal retentive, tape up the gap between the side
windows and the rubber squeegee thing at the bottom of them; wax powder seems
to love to collect there while buffing off wax.
As when washing a car, don't drop the buffing cloths on the ground
as they may pick up sand which can scratch paint.
Parking
There is more
to keeping a car scratch- and dent- free than just parking it far away from
other cars. It's so frustrating when so much effort to maintain a car's
like-new appearance is ruined by the ignorance of others. Oh well...
Most people don't notice, but many parking lots have high and low
spots. My advice: park in the high spots, in case some useless individual
chooses not to take his/her shopping cart into the cart return area, and the
cart all of a sudden "decides" to start rolling after the useless
individual is long gone.
Usually, when cars park in a standard 90-degree angle parking lot,
the fronts of the cars usually face each other, and the trunks are towards the
roadway. However, to make it easier to drive away afterwards, sometimes people
pull through the one parking stall, and park with their front end towards the
road. If you choose to park up close behind someone parked like this, you run
the chance of the owner of the other car being a careless slob and banging or
scratching the front end of your car while loading up his/her trunk.
When parallel parking on the street, try to find a space for only
one or two cars in a row. That way, there is no change of you or somebody else
getting hemmed into a tight parking spot in front or behind you, and bashing or
scraping your bumper while trying to get out.
Avoid parking on the street in residential areas where children
may play. I've had an experience where a brain-dead kid used his bicycle to
bash my brother's car bumper—two times in a row. And not by accident. He was
going slowly. He was playing "bash the bumper". As I said: brain-dead
kid.
Some people like to park under the shade of trees. I don't because
I don't enjoy washing tree sap off my car.
Day-to-Day Handling
And here are
some simple, zero effort things that you can do to preserve your car's
appearance:
When opening your door, don't let your 1-inch fingernails hit the
paint of the car.
When unlocking your door, don't let the other keys on your key
chain jingle around and scratch the paint on your car.
When using your air conditioning, turn it off for about 5 minutes
before end of your trip as it will give the fan time to dry off the condenser.
Otherwise, mold and other stuff will start to grow there—leading to exotic
mushroom smells coming out your air vents.
Use rubber mats for the rainy or snowy season to cut down on the
water and sand getting on and in your carpets.
If you use your block heater during the winter, tuck the dangling
plug away after cold weather is gone because the plug will eventually rub
through the paint on your bumper and it will look like crap.
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