Tuesday 19 March 2024
LIFESTYLE

How to clean your car in winter

Washing your car is a chore for some, but, if you’re a car lover you’ll see it as more therapeutic. You follow the lines of the car, taking your time to admire and clean the design. You have a plan and you execute it methodically. It’s predictable and there are no surprises. That’s what makes it so calming.

On the other hand, cleaning your car in winter can be quite tricky. Hey, somebody’s gotta do it. In fact, if you don’t clean your car in winter it could degrade quicker. You never know what kind of issues you might find, caused by the winter. Cleaning your car keeps it healthy and safe from the bitter cold and all the gremlins that come with winter.

Frozen shut

When you clean your car normally, you’ll spray it down first. The water helps the lather the soap and helps it spread. However, you cannot do this in winter if you’re in freezing temperatures. The car will freeze shut. You can’t use hot water because it will lose so much moisture from the steam and sudden temperature change, that it will freeze quicker.

So get a bucket of cold water and use a sponge to go over the car without getting water in the seams such as the doors. Don’t have the sponge dripping, just enough that it can be transferred to the car’s exterior without causing drip marks. Clean the car with the watery sponge once and then apply a high-pressure soap that gets really frothy and foaming.

The unseen damage

Driving in the winter, you will be running over salted roads. The underside of the car will be getting smattered with salt crystals and pebbles. Pieces of salt grit will get stuck in the wheel arches and this can cause rust to develop, rapidly.

Using a pressure hose and hot water, spray the underside of your car thoroughly. You may have limited hot water so devise a plan which you can redo for each wheel arch. Take the tires off and spray the inside of the wheels and the backside of the brakes. Salt grit can hide anywhere and left alone, it can damage your car extensively.

Preventing cracking

Modern-day cars almost always have leather upholstery. In the winter, freezing temperatures can make leather seats crack. This won’t happen on their own, it will only occur when you sit down on the seat. The tight leather will stretch under your weight and this causes permanent cracks.

You can find relevant car cleaning products wholesale, such as the Carpride leather cleaning spray. It’s designed for all types of leather, it feeds, replenishes and cleans the material so it retains its natural flexibility and quality.

Clean and tighten

Everything of your car will contract and shrink in size as the cold temperatures grab a hold. Take off the nuts on your wheels and clean them from the inside and out. Then fit them back on tightly. The salt and snow get underneath the nuts as they shrink and can leave the door wide open for rust to enter.

It’s a tough job and nobody likes it, but cleaning your car in winter is essential. Be careful not to freeze up the car by hosing it down with water. Use a pressure hose on the underside of the car to get rid of the grit salt.

** This is a collaborative post

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