How do you clean your pride and joy?

[Vicki]

So, how do you clean your car? We have three, due to different people having to be in different places at different times. The Kangoo and Ka just get a wash at home and a polish. Nothing special really. My mum's 206 is the same usually, but occasionally we wash it at the Tesco Jet Wash. And by we I mean both of us. It's like our mother/daughter thing. I did the wheels, foamed the bonnet and pressed all the buttons. She did the rest because I'm very meticulous and the money was ticking. As for the insides, we hoover occasionally and that's about it. So, how do you do it, and are my family a bunch of amiteurs? (spelling?)
Happy car cleaning,
Vicki

[graham bahr]

thats simple i bascally don't maybe once a year if it needs it or not???!!!!

[Mackmot]

I clean my pride and joy with Mint Source shower gel, it leaves it all refreshed.

[TerryC]

I try to clean the car at least once a week depending on usage, and by handwash only, don't trust those paint damaging machines at local supermarkets/carwashes. There's really no need to clean it more often than that.

[garcon]

Maybe two or three times a ... year ... I take it to a hand car wash where I hand over a fiver or so and poor people clean it for me*. If I feel it needs a bit of pampering, I occasionally stretch to a mini-valet.

* A while ago I was at a friend's. His black 911 was looking - dare I say - a little shabby, so I said "You need to clean your car", he replied, "I don't clean my car! I pay poor people to do that!"

[mjolnir]

clean?... when it rains, i leave it out on the street...

[Sharky]

I don't. The car is under some kind of curse (and I'm not joking). Every time I come home from the auto wash it starts to rain. I haven't been able to make the wash last for at least a week. And since the paint is pretty much ruined anyway I spend that money on other more "worthy" activities.

Garcon LOL!!

[SALEEN S7R]

I normally clean my car once a week, and give it a polish around once a month with a electronic hand buffer and ocassionaly a t cut. Normally find a good wash is enough though. Tend not to do it so much in the winter though for obvious reasons.

[Gnomex]

Well, since you asked.... Car washing goes something like this:-

1. Rinse all over to loosen dirt.
2. Clean alloy wheels using a specialist spray suitable for the wheel type (this includes the part of the wheel behind the spokes.
3. Rinse wheels.
4. Using warm (not hot) water with a suitable shampoo, clean car from roof downwards, rinsing sponge frequently. If sponge is dropped, immediately replace with new one (the old one will have grains of grit now embedded in it). Use sponge in straight lines, not circles.
5. Rinse down with hose.
6. Using small damp cloth, go gently around wheel arches.
7. Rinse again with hose.
8. Using a leather (which has been soaking in a bucket of water to soften it) dry the bodywork carefully. Also, clean dirt off windscreen wiper blades.
9. Open car doors and wipe around door openings and cills.
10. Vacuum interior and dust (if time permits).
11. Dry off alloy wheels with soft cloth.
12. Using new cloth, spray wheels with protector fluid and buff off.
13. Using moist cloth onto which tyre dressing has been applied, run cloth over tyre walls, ensuring the cloth is moist enough to allow the liquid to penetrate the crevices, etc.
14. Check all tyre pressures.
15. Err - that's it!
16. Collapse in small heap.......

Actually, most of the above is taken from an excellent video that Autoglym sell. By the way, all this takes only around an hour and a half after a bit of practice!!

[bella]

i don't wash my car. that's why it rains.

[chezza]

I occasionally wash the car if I can be bothered...i washed it about 3 weeks ago...before that the last time it was cleaned was last may!!

Usually its wash with shampoo stuff and then rinse and dry with leather and I have some funky stuff to do the windows so they're all nice and clean and not smudgy!

[beefy]

Next door on both sides clean theirs often enough that I let the reflected glow from theirs make mine seem all the cleaner. I wish!

[rdjones]

Mine goes to one of those hand car wash places, where someone does it for me. Saying that it went for a service yesterday and Harretts Renault washed it and the vac'd the inside for me, wasn't that nice of them.....

[Mathias]

Originally Posted by Mackmot

I clean my pride and joy with Mint Source shower gel, it leaves it all refreshed.

Drat! I was hoping to do the innuendo here.

What the heck, I'll do it anyway...,

"As fast as I like."

[Mathias]

Originally Posted by bella

i don't wash my car. that's why it rains.

Bella, you obviously don't live somewhere with birds like around my way. Their excrement can dissolve car paint - you have to get it off, and rain just doesn't do the trick.

[Bluebottle]

My cars get cleaned before taking them to shows, and that's about it. The Granada hasn't been taken to a show since 1998....