Autos Repair

When it comes to cleaning a car, there are certain tips that we can follow in order to do it properly. How often do we need to clean the car? Some of us clean them once a month. Other people wash them only when the car is dirty enough. Most car owners clean their vehicles on weekends. That is the only time available for us to clean the car because most of us do not work on weekends. Saturday and Sunday is usually spent with the family. Most of us do home chores like cleaning the house and cleaning the car.

It is a must for us to check the vehicle if they are clean or not. Do not wait until we see layers of crud before we decide to clean the car. Dirt materials like bird droppings and dead flies or bugs can strip the protective wax off the vehicle. If we let them as it is and do not clean them immediately, it may cause certain damage on the car’s paint. In that case, we might be spending more money instead of just cleaning them. Bird droppings have a certain acid that may ruin the car’s paint in time. If that happens, we need to sand and repaint the car again.

As we clean the car, it is notable not to use dishwashing agents, detergents, or even hand soap on the surface or car’s paint. Those substances were specifically designed for their own purpose. Hand soaps are for the hands, and detergents are for clothes alone. They will just rinse off the protective wax of the car. In cleaning or washing the car, we need to use a car- wash product that are often sold at car accessory centers. There are so many car-wash products that are mild enough not to remove the wax from the car.

Prior to retirement, I ran a mobile car washing and detailing company. I can recall many of our classic car customers wanted their cars washed and detailed, and a special detail prior to putting them into storage to protect them from the elements. Our franchisees dealing in colder climates gave each of their customer’s cars a complete full detail and wax prior to the owners putting a cover over them and storing them for the winter.

In areas such as Florida, Scottsdale, and the Palm Springs area, our franchisees would detail the cars in late spring, as the snowbirds went back home and then they would park the cars in a climate controlled facility. There was an interesting article the other day in the Palm Desert Sun which featured a small business owner that owns a climate controlled facility called; The Vault. The article appeared in the “It’s My Business” section and was titled; “Safe, Climate-Controlled Place to Store a Vehicle” by Cathy Strong.

The owner recommended that vehicles these stored at temperatures between 78 and 81 degrees at all times in a humidity-free environment, as this protects the leather, paint, and wood. Yes, that would be my experience as well, and by keeping it indoors, the tires would also be in good shape. And speaking of tires I can recommend that a car be put up on blocks, so it does even better, as does not to ruin the tires if they become deflated over the long storage period.

Just putting a vehicle in any type of storage can be a serious mistake especially in Arizona or the California desert where the interior temperatures of some storage units can heat up like ovens. Realize, that in some places in Arizona the temperature never gets below 100-degrees for weeks on end even in the middle of the night. An antique car just can’t handle that, and you’re liable to ruin the paint, the plastic, wood, and all the rubber inside the car, outside the car, and in the engine compartment.