Tips to Maintain your Cars Shine and Elegance

Every car owner, irrespective of whether they own a small and simple hatchback or a sizzling hot supercar, wants to keep their beloved ride glittering as if it were bought the day before; nobody likes to drive around in a car that is covered in stains, with scratched paint and rust marks marring its entire surface. So, especially for those auto-aficionados who like to see even their decade-old cars shining and shimmering like brand new rides, here are some very useful tips and pointers that will go a long way in keeping them as well as their cherished cars perfectly happy and glowing.

Washing

In order to restore the original shine and shimmer of a car, the least that an owner can, and must, do is to give their car a thorough wash every 15 days or so. A good wash session always helps in removing the dirt, dust and salt deposits that tend to accumulate on the car’s surface over time, imparting the surface with a clean look and longer life.

Not only that, it is also very important to remove all the dust particles from the surface of a car before waxing or polishing it, otherwise deep scratches can appear on the car’s body if a dusty surface is buffed.

Following are a few simple pointers that need to be borne in mind whenever a car is taken out for a wash so that even with the least amount of effort, the best results can be obtained:

1. Flow/spray of water used to wet or wash the car’s surface should always be kept gentle.

2. Always a premium quality car wash detergent and wash mitt must be utilised. If needed, an expert’s opinion must be taken to know the most suitable type and grade of washing agent and equipment for the particular car.

3. To be on the safe side, the instructions mentioned on the washing agent’s bottle must be carefully read before it is actually applied on the car’s surface.

4. Moving the mitt dipped in car wash solution in a circular motion on the car’s body delivers the best results.

5. Before rinsing off the soap suds from the surface, the undercarriage, the interiors of the wheel arches and the wheels must also be washed thoroughly using high pressure water flow.

6. For different types of wheels (steel, chrome, aluminium etc.), different types of cleaning agents are available in the market, and it is very important to choose the one meant to serve one’s specific needs.

7. After a proper rinse, the car’s surface must be dried manually with a shammy instead of being left to air-dry if one wants to prevent water spots from appearing on the freshly washed body.

Claying

Although a thorough wash session is an extremely important step in the process of restoring the original gleam and glow of a car, there are always some contaminants that a simple wash cannot remove. Such are the situations where auto detailing clay comes into picture.

Meant to be used just after the wash, detailing clay helps in removing even the most strongly bonded contaminants from and filling in the minute imperfections on the car’s body, resulting in an utterly smooth, ready-to-polish surface and maximizing the effects of the wax-and-polish session that usually follows.

Polishing

To get an old car to shine and shimmer like a brand new ride, polishing is extremely important. It is the process of polishing that makes use of abrasive substances to remove an extremely thin film of paint, which is the topmost and hence the most damaged layer of paint, from the car’s surface, allowing the preserved layer of paint from underneath, along with its beautiful glimmer, to appear on top.

In order to ensure that the polishing session is a success and that the results obtained are exactly what one wanted, a few things need to be taken into consideration each time we set out to polish our car:

1. Before polishing a car, one needs to decide whether a good manual polishing would be enough to restore the original shine of the car or would it be necessary to make use of buffing machines, always keeping in mind that polishing machines generate a lot of heat, and hence the risk of damaging the paint is much higher while using them. So, only those people who have enough experience of working with these machines should be using them and that too only when it is absolutely unavoidable.

2. To get rid of deep scratches that can be felt by running one’s fingers on the car body, aggressive polishing is required that makes use of strong polishing compounds. However, it is always advised to avoid compounds that fall in the category of ‘too harsh’ as they can result in severe damage to the car’s paint job.

3. After one is done with the aggressive polishing, it is time to go for a finer polish of medium strength that would help get rid of the finer scratches and imperfections. The direction for this second coat of polish should be different than the one used for the first coat (if there was a first coat, that is) so as to prevent the polishing marks from deepening in one particular direction. Also, it must be remembered not to rub one specific area too hard or for too long, polishing should always be smooth and uniform.

4. Next comes the turn of a very fine and soft polish that is only meant to accentuate the shimmer obtained so far by the entire polishing process and act as the final coat right before the protective layer of wax is applied. For this final coat, it must be ensured that the directions along which it is applied are the ones along which the shine of the car will later be observed. For instance, the hood, boot lid and roof of the car should be polished along the front-to-back direction whereas the sides should be done in the top-to-bottom direction.

Waxing

To keep the shine that polishing restores intact for a longer duration of time, there is no better way than a good waxing session.

The solitary purpose of a car wax is to form a protective covering over the car’s well-polished, glittering surface and shield its shine from getting demeaned due to factors like exposure to direct sun rays, deposition of dust and grime, scratches, rains and snow amongst others.

Important pointers that need to be borne in mind during waxing are as follows:

1. Instead of making use of a ‘2-in-1’ product that claims to serve both as a polish as well as a wax, it is always better to use two different products meant to serve two different purposes each of which excels at what it does.

2. The best quality waxes available in the market are those that contain high grade carnauba wax as the main component.

3. For applying any wax or polish on a car’s surface, only those special sponges that are meant for such purposes and are usually made available for free with such products should be used for best results.

4. The amount of wax applied on surfaces should be kept under check, applying too much product does not impart a better finish, it only blocks the openings, gaps and keyholes present across the car’s body resulting in further problems.

5. It is usually better to wipe off the wax a few minutes after the application as it requires much less effort and results in much fewer streaks when the wax is not left on for long. Therefore, it is considered a better approach to wax only a small selected portion of a car at a time and wipe it off properly before heading to work on the next section. However, there are a few waxing agents available in the market that need to be left on for a longer period of time for good results and hence it is always good to go through the instructions mentioned on the wax bottles before actually using them.

6. To wipe the wax off the car’s surface, the best quality of cloth that can used is a pure 100% cotton polishing cloth. It is quite easily available in the market at considerably low prices and has been known to produce the best possible shines with no scratches or streaks left behind.

In order to keep the car’s glow intact and ensure that its paint job enjoys a longer and healthier lifetime, auto-experts recommend a proper wax and polish session to be repeated after every 3 or 4 fortnightly washes.

The Final Polish

After going through the entire routine that has been mentioned here, a final polish is a must to acquire that extra glowing look on the car’s surface that every car owner simply loves to see on their ride. For this final session, all that needs to be done is to go over the whole surface with a clean polishing cloth, rubbing the surface all along and diminishing the effects of visible lines and streaks. It is only after this ultimate step that a car can truly attain the same high-gloss shine that it flaunted when it walked out of the dealer’s showroom for the first time.