Be it a hatchback or a luxury sedan, every one of us loves our car like our child. We certainly do not want to cause it any damage and taking care of the car includes washing it thoroughly from time to time. However, do you know that you might actually be causing more harm to your car unknowingly? Almost all of us make some common mistakes while cleaning. Let’s see them so that you do not repeat your mistakes again.
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Using normal cloth and detergent for cleaning – We think that liquid soap does not contain any harmful material for the paints as they are not granular. This leads us to believe that we can use all types of liquid detergents to clean our car. Most often than not, we tend to use the liquid dish washing soap for that purpose since they are cheap and almost always readily available. Some of us also use shampoo and other liquid based detergent. The fact is, this is causing much harm as well. The dish washing soap even in liquid form is quite harsh on the car paint. The same goes for shampoo. It is important that you get a proper car washing liquid soap and a cloth for the purpose. You can pick up the softest cotton you can lay your hands upon, but that will never do any good since even cotton clothes will leave fine scratch marks that will look like spider webs later. Microfiber clothes are the way to go. These clothes have the ability to lift the dirt off the body and clean it without scratching the paint a bit.
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Using the same cloth for all agents – You must wash the car in stages. Most of the time we use the same cloth for cleaning and then for drying and even for applying wax. That is a strict no-no. It will certainly leave an ugly smudge on the body as the dirt from before will stick to the cloth. Use different cloth for different materials and always keep them separate.
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Overuse of cleaning agent – Have you seen streaks all across the car’s body. It is a result of using too much cleaning liquid. One way to avoid making this mistake is if you are applying the liquid to the cleaning cloth and not directly on the car’s body. Make sure the cloth isn’t too wet, and you will not see a single streak left behind.
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Not starting from bottom up – This is one of the most common tendencies among most of us. We tend to clean the body of the car first and then move to the tires. The fact is that the wheels and mudguards are the dirtiest of all places and cleaning them at the end risks the chance of spraying mud on the car again and you are back to square one.
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Cleaning in direct sunlight – Unless you have got superpowers and can wipe your car clean faster than the sun dries the water you are effectively leaving water marks all over your car in the areas where the sun dries the water. If you cannot find a shady place, you must clean your car when the sun is not too high and bright.
You can always visit a professional car cleaner to get your job done. In addition to this, avoiding these common mistakes helps to keep your car swanky clean.