How to Clean Your Car Like a Professional

Winter is upon us, but before we say good bye to the warm weather we must give our cars a last once over before it's to cold to go outside.  There are several things all men need to know when they clean a car, especially when children are involved.  The first is your car can never be truly clean.  The best we can is cleaning keeping the worse from spilling and staining the carpets.  I believe in this system.  Scotch Guard once a year, Wax twice a year (Spring/Fall), Clean Out, Vacuum/Windex/Armour All every 4 months.  In the mean time keep plastic store bags in your car to contain the bulk of the trash in your car.  This is my system of going through a full Wash/Wax and Deep Clean with all the tricks I have learned throughout the years.  This is a basic layout.  You at times will need to shampoo your carpets and upholstery and if it's really bad you may have to take out everything and replace it.  Remember a decent looking car requires a continual routine, effort and time to achieve the results you want.    

Step 1: Find your tire cleaning corrosive.  Spray this on your tires and rims.  (If you have plastic hub caps I would apply this before step 8).  This way when you rinse your car right before washing most of the stains will be ready to be scrubbed out.



Step 2: Cleaning out the Car is awful but exciting too as you can usually find something you where missing the kids got a hold of when you weren't looking.  Take a Large bin or box and put everything that is not trash into it.  Jackets, shirts, towels, pens, unused napkins, toys, etc.  Once this is done take a garbage bag and clean out all the the trash and large pieces of dirt.   



Step 3: Take out the floor Mats.  If you use Rubber (which I recommend the heavy duty ones) put some water on them from the hose and allow to soak.  If you have carpet just put off to the side to be vacuumed and in most cases scrubbed with a hard brush with water.   When you take out the carpets leave the doors open. When you wash the car in step 8 you want to scrub your rubber mats, drain, place in the sun to dry and replace once dry (more than likely after you are done waxing the car)



Step 4: Using a bucket of plain water and a rag wipe down the car.  Start with the dash board and all the non cloth sections inside the car.  When this is done start wiping down the part where the doors seal against the frame.  All the metal and inbetween spaces dirt and grease like to build up.  If you have rain guards make sure to wipe underneath them.  Wipe the sides and underneath the doors.  Wipe the metal beam between the doors on the outside.  Rinse and change out your water regularly.  If this is the first time you have every done this you might need more than one rag.  You should be wiping down between the doors and the frame of the car at this point.  Once you have done this pop the gas plate and wipe that out too.  Believe me you will thank me.  When cleaning the car the small details are what make the car look good. 



Step 5: Vacuum the car from top to bottom, back to front and the trunk.  Make sure to move your front seats forward when vacuuming  the back seats and lift the seats in the back up to vacuum the floor for those lost Cheerios and gold fish.


Step 6: Detailing a car is a skill and with any good skill you have special tools to do the job right.  A good heavy duty butter knife (none of that cheep shit) you will use this to pop a few pieces of the interior off, a clean rag (torn up old shirts work great) and water.  Last but not least Q-Tips.  Yep that's right Q-Tips.  With the butter knife you will wrap the rung out rag around it and use it to get to those hard to reach places such as around the drive shaft, around the steering wheel.  With the Q-Tips you are going to wet and ring out in the small bucket.  Then use the tips to wipe out your vents and all those even harder to reach places. If you want to go hard core you can get the extra long Q-Tips from a pharmacy to reach back in the vents.  Take your time and be systematic about cleaning your car.  Remember to much water is bad.  You want damp to take up the dust and dirt, not wet to make mud.


Step 7: Time to protect and make everything shiny.  I'm a fan of Armour All due to family tradition but I'm not appose to turtle wax or any of the other boxed care packages I get every Christmas.  Spray and wipe using a rag all non carpeted, leather or glass surfaces.  Your car spends a lot of time in the sun and the sun will bleach the color out of everything.  The only way to keep your dash board from cracking is by applying this stuff or something similar to hydrate it.  If you have leather seats this concept applies as well.  Nothing looks worse than a crack dashboard are cracked leather.  Once you are done Windex all the windows inside and out using paper towels or old newspapers.  When done use the damp paper towels to wipe all the chrome in the interior, the dash display cover and the radio light up screen.  Now Scotch Guard the carpeting and Upholstery.  I recommend doing this during the fall waxing.     


Step 8: Close up the car, Rinse and wash your car.  Make sure you either use A) good soft sponge to prevent scratching or B) one of those car brushes with soft bristles.  Use a good degreaser soap.  I'm a big fan of Dawn, if they can take crude oil off of birds it's good enough for my car.  You don't need those high dollar soaps they will sell you.  If you get it for Christmas use it up, but I still haven't found one as good as Dawn.  Scrub the car down and rinse.


Step 9: With a hard bristle brush start scrubbing out the brake dust stains on your rims.  Don't be scared to put some elbow grease in there.  I find the ones that look like tooth brushes are the best as you are able to get into the corners.



Step 10: Wax your car.  In recent years they have come out with liquid wax.  If your car as a lot of scratches I don't recommend it and am still wary of them as the wax doesn't tend to last as long as the old school rub in and rub out ones do.  If you are on a schedule the liquids are good for when your in a hurry, but if your going to do it right old school is still the best school.  The key to waxing a car is doing it in the shade, do the work in sections (hood, door, trunk, etc) use a soft bath towel to take up the wax and do a minimum of 2 coats but no more than 4.  Once you are done clean up and go through the bin, replace the things you want in your car, the rest can go back to wherever it came from to make the long journey back to your now clean car.



Step 11: Keep the car as long as you can, like until your kids move out of your house.  Kids especially boys destroy everything they come in contact with.  It's just part of their nature.  I'm keeping my current car as long as I can and when I do get a new car I'm not letting my kids near it until after Middle School.  The biggest trick to reduce the time you spend on your quarterly cleaning is just keeping up with the crap your kids leave behind.  The deep cleaning is great but if you never picked up that spilled whatever you may have to spend some time with some carpet cleaner or have to replace the entire carpet.