Your car has been treated with a high quality wax or sealant.  It is tough and durable but needs treating with some care to maximise its lifespan. 

The following will diminish, or even remove entirely, your protective coating:

• Automatic car washes
• TFR (Traffic Film Remover) is a very effective cleaner but will remove protection as well as dirt - often used during dealership courtesy valets
• High temperature pressure washing – often used during dealership courtesy valets
• Polish - often used by well meaning customers!

The following will not harm your protective coating:

• Pressure washing
• Luke-warm water
• Wash and wax products
• Other waxes providing they are not solvent based or cleaner waxes

To wash your vehicle you will need:

• A pressure washer (or hose pipe)
• 1-2 deep buckets
• A lambswool wash mitt – not a sponge!
• A Hozelock or similar sprayer (2 litre size is ideal)
• A purpose made car drying towel
• Throwaway cloth or kitchen towel
• High quality car shampoo with or without wax additives
• Car specific glass cleaner

The process:

• If possible wash the car out of direct sunlight
• Mix a weak solution of shampoo in the Hozelock sprayer
• Following the directions on the bottle and mix a shampoo solution in your deep bucket
• If you have a second bucket fill it with clean water
• Wet the entire car and keep it wet throughout the entire process – do not allow shampoo or water droplets to dry on the car
• Soak the lower half of the car with the mixture in the Hozelock sprayer and allow to dwell for a minute or two
• Pressure wash any loosened dirt from the lower half of the car
• Wash the top (including bonnet and boot) of the car using the lambswool mitt and wash solution in the bucket
• Dunk the lambswool mitt frequently in the wash solution – immerse it gently into the top of the bucket only
• If you have a second bucket use this to rinse the dirtied mitt before inserting it back into the wash solution
• Rinse the top of the car with the pressure washer
• Repeat the process on the bottom of the car
• Use an old mitt or sponge to wash the wheels with the wash solution
• Use a throwaway cloth or kitchen towel soaked in wash solution to gently wipe the wheel arch lips
• Rinse the wheels and wheel arch lips with  the pressure washer
• Dampen the drying towel (it will not work otherwise) and dry the car
• Clean all glass with the glass cleaner
• Voila! – one clean car

Please note: do not attempt to wash off bird strikes, see the appropriate care article.

Bird strikes contain a double whammy of ingredients harmful to paint.  Acid from the birds gut and hard seed husks.  The acid will quickly burn into the clearcoat layer of your paint creating tell-tale sunken patches.  The husks lay in wait to scratch the surface of the paint if dealt with improperly.

The damage caused by bird strikes being left on the paintwork too long or being scrubbed off is removable.  It is a skilled time consuming process and will cost in the region of £15-30 per strike to properly remove.  The following process will keep you richer and us poorer!

• Deal with bird strikes as soon as you spot them
• Never agitate or scrub a bird strike
• Lay an old flannel soaked in luke-warm shampoo solution on the strike and leave 10 minutes
• Remove the flannel and rinse off with your pressure washer or hose
• Repeat as often as required
• Avoid kitchen scourers at all costs – it happens!

Please note that fabric roofs are easily damaged by bird strikes.  Areas underneath bird strikes often fade and can require a complete re-dye of the roof to rectify.

The title lists the 3 main culprits working against you in the battle to keep your car looking great.  Listed with the main culprit first, your lovely offspring closely following and Garfield & Co a distant third.

Dogs.  We love them and have a large one ourselves.  However, unless you have a Defender to lug them around in you are on to a hiding to nothing with these car-wreckers.  Here’s what they do:

• They drool into fabric seats as they hang their heads over them from the load bay compartment – very nice!
• Leather tastes nice (very similar to a rawhide treat) and we look after several cars where Mutley has nibbled the back of headrests etc
• In the battle for favouritism vs your offspring they will partially chew through rear seatbelts – think about that and you’ll realise how devious Fido is!
• Greasy heads foul head-linings – yuk!
• A quick shake and you have slobber, dirty rainwater and nose mucous everywhere
• And then you have the smell, say no more!

As we have already said we love dogs and recognise that they are a part of your transportation equation and, therefore, need to use your car.

The best advice we can give you is to equip your car with a vehicle specific dog guard, a vehicle specific hard plastic load bay liner (the deeper the better) and have us regularly valet the car for you.  Or get a Defender as a second car!

Children.  On their own, a child in a car is fine.  But equip them with sweets or pens and you have a different proposition on your hands.

Sweets first.  The imagination of a child knows no bounds.  We have found sweets in the obvious places such as down the sides of seats, mashed into the undersides of armrests and cleverly inserted into rear vent grills.  Less obvious places (to us, not the children) are seatbelt plug-ins, seatbelt retractors and more recently empty Isofix sockets where, over what must have been a long period of time, many types of sweet, a small ball, a tiny car and an eraser had been lovingly inserted.  It took us an age to get most of the objects out, although one dissolved sweet remains as a challenge for another day!

The problem with sweets is that they melt and when they melt they are very difficult to remove, especially in confined spaces.  They also dye carpets, leather and fabrics.  Often these dyes cannot be removed.  We can assure you that a BMW 5 series with beige leather seats and touches of Smarties here and there is not a great resale proposition.

Now pens (and crayons).  Great for marking seats and dropping onto carpets.  Most marks do not come out.  Enough said.  Pens are also good for digging into any soft trim within range.

You’ve been warned!  You probably know what the solutions are as well.

Cats.  A cat sitting on the bonnet of your car is cute.  The scratches they leave behind are not.  Typical cat scratches are long and deep and consist of three or four scratches radiating away from a single point – presumably the result of a sliding Tiddles spreading his claws out for greater traction in his quest to stop sliding off.

We have no magic answers to this problem, just be aware.  Oh by the way, shoo-ing is ok but please don’t throw stones; you might dent your car!

One dog + one parcel shelf + five minutes free time = this!

Whilst working on a 3 Series Touring today, we noticed the rather nice smell of bubble gum which was emanating from a liquid dispenser clipped into a centre air vent. 

Just a quick word of warning; around two years ago one of our customers had a similar device fitted and it leaked.  The car (Subaru Impreza WRX) needed a new dash + ancillary controls etc as they were badly marked by the dripping liquid.

It may be a one-in-a-million fault but we thought we would share it with you anyway.

Your car will look better longer if you follow these tips:

• If scratches irritate you, then avoid black and choose silver or another light metallic colour which to an extent mask scratches
• If your budget permits, specify leather upholstery as fabrics tend to look shabby after a year or two of wear
• Light grey and fawn carpets look great in the showroom but are totally impractical here in the very wet Lake District
• If vehicle specific rubber mats and load bay liners are available then specify them, they will save a great deal of wear and tear on your carpets
• Specify simple alloy wheels, complex multi-spoke wheels hold dirt more easily and we cannot clean the interiors due to lack of access (we can do a wheels-off clean but this is fairly expensive)
• Side steps; they do look cool but every single one of them looks shabby very quickly, alloys corrode, rubber and plastics fade, most get knocked and damaged, maybe best avoided!
• Do buy dog guards and load bay liners for your Pooch
• Avoid over-priced dealer sealants

But the very best tip of all, is to have your new car valeted regularly from new!

Every once in a while one of the cars we care for blooms with handprints.  Our customers are often mystified but the explanation is usually very simple.  Chief causes being:

• Oily handprints from the mechanic who serviced your car (far and away the biggest cause)
• Acidic handprints from your offspring’s sticky Coke, lolly or sweet covered hands
• You’ve been wisely protecting yourself with SPF50 but the residue on your hands is now on your car

All the above products ‘burn’ into the clear-coat layer of your car’s paintwork.  If you are lucky we can take these marks out with a quick hand polish at zero charge.  However, most cases require machine polishing to remove the marks properly.

Please take care not to touch your cars paintwork if you have been handling these, or similar, products.