Car Hygiene and some other stuff

TechZ

Captain Internet
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Joined
Dec 19, 2004
Messages
4,344
Location
Singapore (Ex-Bahrain)
Car(s)
Audi TT '08 (Sold) S8 '02 (Sold)
How often do you get your car detailed? Assuming its brand new. Or let's hear if its an older car (over 3yrs).

Do you wash your car regularly, just water or something more.

What about things line getting the interior professionally cleaned, be it cloth or leather.

Detailing, I've never got it done on any of my cars, but the TT had a light fixture fall on its roof some time ago, got a horrible scratch there that could do with sorting out.

I wash the TT myself every other week, Meguiars/Mothers brand car wash soap; quick detailer spray; for the alloys and wheels their own sprays/cleaners. Takes me about 2-2.5hours for a proper job. Since I bought it new in Sept 2008, its got only 1 professional polish job in late 2009, planning on getting it done again this year towards December.

The S8...it needs a polish quite badly, its going for a service tomorrow though, so perhaps after that it'll get a professional polish and an interior clean.
 
I'm really bad. I might wash my cars once or twice a year. The only time I've spent hours cleaning a car's interior was when the heater core in my Mustang spilled coolant on the carpet.
 
Mine's beige. The dirt is an improvement.
 
Jason Plato said never wash your car... women bang guys with a dirty car.

Not exact quote obviously.
 
LOL
 
We clean the interior 3 or 4 times a year, but for the outside, my grandad expects the rain to do the job
 
Wash the interior? What for? I like the layer of grey dust that forms on the flat dash top, and the spiders that make webs between the seats and the doors, and the mud that covers the floor.

I cleaned the dust from the speedo dial with my finger a couple of weeks ago so I could see it properly, that's it.

The paint could do with a polish though to try and massage some of the bigger scuffs and scrapes out.
 
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I only fairly recently got an Autoglym car wash 'kit' (Shampoo, Polish, Wheel cleaner and Vinyl/Rubber care). Before that, basically it was a very rare occasion for the cars to be washed. The Kangoo probably hadn't been washed in around 3 years... But now I try and do it fairly often. I do much prefer having a clean car - makes me feel more special than any old 18 year old in a 10 year old van. :lol: But I wouldn't get them professionally detailled - its just not worth the cost really ('99 Kangoo and '05 V50 - combined worth of about ?8k?). Add to that that I find it much more satisfying knowing I've made it look that much better.

I took out some of the small scratches on the Renault with the polish, but so much of the paint is chipped/heavily scratched as the only coat of wax its ever had was the one it left the factory with (so probably none at all then), and the Volvo is silver and had one owner (probably old) since new. So the paintwork is immaculate anyway.
 
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My car is typically covered in dust, mud or different varieties of local flora.
 
I go to the car wash when I feel like it...

Other than that, the only time I actually really cleaned my old Fiesta was when it was time to sell it :-D I spent a good day detailing everything inside and outside, and it really made a difference in the eyes of the buyer, he even congratulated me for the job I did! :-D
 
I deal with the dirt when I feel like it. When I feel like it may mean a wash every month, or may mean a few months between washes. It's generally a few months when I'm feeling motivated or 6-12 months when not for exterior details (wash, strip, wax). The interior gets cleaned up a bit maybe every other wash. The interiors of my cars have never been properly detailed.

This is all done by hand, and it's the same whether the car has 2,000 miles or 120,000.
 
When it's not freakin' raining. :wall: That's the problem with where I live, it's a bug-infested dust bowl in summer and a mud bath in winter. The fact that I like to go for random drives on horrible rural tracks every other weekend doesn't help and I have no time during the week to do it - stupid class. I might wash it (properly, as opposed to just cleaning of nasty stuff like bug splatter on the front, tar or pollen that might damage the paint work) four or five times a year, and give it a good wax maybe twice a year.

Until recently I had to do the washing part at those coin car-wash places (not automated ones, they suck) but recently they've relaxed our water restrictions a bit so we're allowed to wash cars at home using a trigger hose - which I find works just as well as a high pressure washer if I'm thorough enough. As for interior cleaning, that's usually no more than a bit of a vacuum, a shake the floor mats and a bit of dashboard / air vent dusting. I've never had it properly detailed, it's only a boring Japanese four-banger student-mobile, and it's been scratched to hell in places by my cats jumping on it etc.
 
It gets washed the first of each season (or thereabouts), vacuumed, glass cleaned, and a wipe down of everything. Lots of dirt roads means lots of dust and mud. The driver's floor mat gets shaken out more regularly than that, otherwise I end up carrying around half a ton of gravel with me.

I did get a voucher for a full detail for my birthday (was told not to take offence or read anything into it by the person who gave it to me). I am yet to use it. But generally, I don't leave rubbish in the car, the boot does get hay and bags of feed in it and there's usually a bit of a mess, but a quick shake out of the mat mostly fixes that. As long as I can see out the windows and read the dash, I'm good. Though the paddock basher Maverick I'm using on the farm at present, I can do neither :lol: There's more wildlife on the inside of that thing than the outside.
 
Honestly, pretty similar to what equiraptor said- all cars of varying ages and types in my family get treated the same. The motorbikes do get special treatment though :lol:

Wash- when they "need it". This can mean once every couple of weeks to once every couple of months, depending on how often the car is driven and how dirty it gets. Generally just a good hand done scrub with a sponge and some brand of ar wash dad likes. The tyres and wheels do get scrubbed with a brush occasionally. If we are running short on time, we may rarely send a car through the auto-wash (but only if we absolutely have to)

Exterior detail- at least every 6 months the cars get a good polish. Did my car on Thursday (using Kitten's car polish no. 1 or whatever it is called), and they turn up great. My car actually has old polish stuck in the clear writing on the lights, mirrors, etc so it stands out now :lol:

Interior- again, as it needs doing. Just a good vacuum of the mats, floors, seats etc, clean the insides of the windows and some protectant and cleaner on the dash. We do have a $100 voucher for a hand car wash/clean centre however, so i may be sending my car in for a full interior detail soon :D

Other- leather we do with the cleaner and polish when it needs it again. Motorbikes get a scrub over with kerosene (as a degreaser and general muck remover) before a wash and chamois. I do my own car on my own most of the time, my dad does the bikes and our "family/main" car (a Subaru until recently, hopefully a Golf GTI soon) and my sister's car (because she is lazy :mad:). I help him out with those cars occasionally.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with the cleaning regime for my cars, although next year when I'm doing full time uni and work they may get neglected slightly (although dad may pick up the slack a bit :))
 
I wash my car about every 1-2 weeks. It's in dire need of a detail, I'm getting someone I met out in my car club to do a full, anal, nuts detail for me. I've tried polishing a few times, along with trying a clay bar, but have failed miserably! :lol:
 
Once a month I put the car outside, hose it down, then a sponge and some shampoo to tidy it up, rince and dry and that's it. I do want to get the seats detailed, lots of grime and stains from the previous owners, that I haven't had the opportunity to take care of. Otherwise I like to keep it clean, a mobile phone and a pair of sunglasses is all that's laying around, CD's and a pack of gums in glovebox and we're good to go. =)
 
It depends on which car.

The Escape, which is my daily driver gets washed once a month in the winter at the most. I don't bother to clean the inside because it's too damn cold. In the summer I wash it every 1-2 weeks and I detail the inside at the same time. I've only ever used it to practice polishing on as I've never cared enough to polish the entire car.

On the GTC and the Stealth I will detail them in and out at least once a month. They stay pretty clean as they don't get driven often and they don't go out at all during the winter. I've only ever polished the GTC for a show, but it's paint is pretty new. The Stealth has never been polished, but I might do that soon here even though the paint isn't in the best of shape and has defects that polishing won't help.

I just can't stand driving a dirty vehicle. Now, if I'm off roading then the dirtier the better.
 
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i used to clean my car like clockwork every sunday...... not anymore. no time, time better spent doing fun things.

it did used to feel like a clean car was a fast car.....somehow it just seemed to drive better. but more and more i like the road warrior look. my Superb is caked in road dirt, oil, grease, flies etc etc from my 75mi daily round trip to work. the wheels are actually black now. i think it looks good, the car looks used, its as if it could almost tell a story and it seems more apt for the cars uses.

ive done a complete 180 and now think dirty cars look better, cooler, than their clean counterparts. for instance a Le Mans racer looks stunning after the race, covered in grime, oil, bits of rubber, paint scuffs, pieces missing... its more interesting, theres a story behind it and that makes it infinitely more interesting than the gleaming machine it started as.

i would try keep the interior a bit spic n span though, i mean you spend your time there so its nice to have it clean.... especially when giving other people lifts.
 
I'm weird when it comes to keeping my personal areas clean. Here in my room I let things pile up and generally keep a system of organized chaos. But in the car I absolutely cannot stand anything being left out of place. I will go out of my way to make sure my car is clean before I leave it. This strange behavior isn't isolated to the car interior either. I've even been known to get out the the car, see that it's a little dirty outside, get back in it, and drive to the car wash.
 
I'm weird when it comes to keeping my personal areas clean. Here in my room I let things pile up and generally keep a system of organized chaos. But in the car I absolutely cannot stand anything being left out of place. I will go out of my way to make sure my car is clean before I leave it. This strange behavior isn't isolated to the car interior either. I've even been known to get out the the car, see that it's a little dirty outside, get back in it, and drive to the car wash.

That must of been hell when you owned your Disco. :p
 
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