Having passed the half century a while back I suppose I should have something to write about my Skoda. Something to point out or comment on in a detailed fashion. Something about the car or customer service from my dealer. Well I do have something to comment on and it's a positive point - nothing has gone wrong. Sure, one of the kids put something in the rear power socket and it blew the fuse for both it and the front socket, but I can't blame the car for that. I have to say it is good to know that everything is working and no lights are up on the dash.
So why bother writing anything if I don't have any news? Well I do. I washed the Superb for the first time in months last weekend. It had about 2,000km of grime, dirt and salt caked onto it. On Monday I decide to give it a wash and only a wash, not a detail with waxing and tar removal or any polish or an interior clean up. Just a wash. The difference was massive and the effect was instant as you can see in the pictures.
A simple wash for me will have a couple of stages. Rinse off dirt, pre-treat very dirty areas (including the wheels), rinse, wash with two buckets, rinse and dry. So that's six steps. That's the bones of how I wash my car. If you want to know more read on or you can skip ahead or go out and clean your own car. If you have a question, use the Ask Us Anything page.
If you're water conscientious then use a pressure washer as you will use less water than a standard hose. When using two buckets one has your shampoo (that's for cars and not your hair or carpet) and the other is for rinsing your wash mitt or whatever you use. Most car shampoos now have some element of wax in it so with regular washing you should see some beading effect when you rinse the suds off. Using a soft wash mitt rather than a brush, cloth or sponge is important and will reduce the likelihood of scratching your paint. Wash the car from the top to the bottom and try and use lines say left to right and not up and down or in circles. It can be very easy to put swirls in your paint if you're not careful and they are more visible than straight line scratches. The more prep work you do the better the result so use the Ask Us Anything page, do some research and hit YouTube for more information on how tos.
I have used four products on the car in the pic. The shampoo is a non-specific mixture of some nearly used bottles I had sitting around. The Muc-off is for pre-treating and I will use it around the front bumper and bonnet, wheel arches and lower half of the car. IRON.X is for the wheels: don't leave it sit and use gloves. V07 is a spray to help protect the car and aid drying with a clean soft microfiber towel. I had a separate mitt for the wheels that was not used on the car. Some people find washing their car a relaxing way to spend an hour or just twenty minutes. Either way it's a good way of keeping an eye on any damage you might have picked up and how your brake pads and tyres and holding up.
Polishing and waxing are important too but they are too big a field to get into now. Dealing with tar, marker paint from the road and other contamination is all possible DIY. Look for products like IRON.X and Tardis but do some research first. If you want to machine polish your car great but do your research and get some practice before letting rip on your or someone else's paintwork.
If all of this sounds like too much hard work get someone else to do it. Try and avoid the machine washes or self-service brush wash machines. Keeping your paint work in good shape will help maintain the value of your car over the long run because first impressions make a difference when selling on or trading in.