1. Clean the cabin
A cleaner cabin means a more relaxing drive, so it’s important to have it looking great when the increasing daylight shows your vehicle interior’s true state – and after a winter of neglect it could be a sorry sight.
Start cleaning surfaces with a soft, fine-bristled brush, to remove dust from the dash and the instrument display.
Using a cloth with some high-quality interior polish, spruce up your car’s surfaces and give it a new-found finery by applying across the dash, interior handles, instruments around the car’s central console, and its instrument display.
To give your car interior the shine it always needed, use CarPlan’s Interior Dash Valet polish.
2. Get at those mats and carpets
Remove the foot mats from the interior of the car (they usually ‘pop’ out from their button fixing) and using a hard brush remove any dry dirt, leaves or grass from them, and if you’d like them to be sparkling, take some warm, soapy water and a clean cloth or rag, and wash them thoroughly, before leaving to dry in the sun and fresh air.
Then, take a hand-held vacuum cleaner to the seating areas, or the nozzle of a vacuum cleaner connected to an extension cable plugged in to a household socket, and remove any tiny pieces of dirt like food morsels, from the gaps between seats and the gearstick and handbrake area, as well as the stitching and seams of both cloth and leather seating.
For top-class vacuum cleaning, look no further than Karcher.
3. Wash those tired tyres
Washing the visible side of your tyres including the alloys or wheel trims with a sponge and warm soapy water, followed by a rinse with cold water, will leave them looking fantastic, especially after the build-up of dust and silt from the travails of winter driving. Snow, muddy slush and the salt from road gritters can leave the parts of your car closest to the road, including the tyres, with a generally dirty coating. A thorough wash on a dry day will let your once-proud chrome alloys find their shine again.
Take care of car-washing duties for tyres and alloys of all sizes with our expanding sponge and microfibre cloth combo pack.
4. Hand-wash the exterior
Using a car-cleaning solution and washing your car by hand will help take care of your car’s prized paintwork that using a powerful jet cleaner for the job could harm.
By taking that little more time you’ll also be able to see any grime and dirt close-up with the naked eye, meaning you can achieve a greater shine with the satisfaction of a hand-made touch.
For the full car-cleaning experience, inside and out, grab the CarPlan Demon valeting gift pack.
5. Glass? Leave it gleaming
When all other areas of your vehicle have been given a seasonal clean, make sure your glasswork doesn’t miss out in the midst of all that vacuuming and polishing.
After washing your front and rear wipers with a clean cloth and warm soapy water – as well as the glass they rest upon when not used - grab a glass cleaner and spray onto windscreens, wing mirrors, and rear view mirror (leaving the windows open for ventilation when applying in a closed space) and spread using a microfibre cloth to leave your car’s glass surfaces looking perfect, whether gazing into or out of your car.
One last tip is to roll down your windows and with that glass cleaner and microfibre cloth, remove the grime that can collect at the top of the glass.
Find a glass cleaner that’s kind on car windows.
For a range of fantastic tools and accessories for all kinds of automotive job, visit Arnold Clark Autoparts’ Products section.
