With the winter season rapidly approaching, it’s important to prepare your car for the cold weather. This is why the Cargiant experts put together this Winter Car Care Guide on how to keep your car clean during winter.
It isn’t just for cosmetic and upkeep purposes that you need to keep your car clean this season. Safeguarding it against the natural elements will ensure the car stays in its best shape possible.
As the rainy days and longer nights arrive, it will make cleaning your car the last thing you want to do. It's all about working smart, not hard.
So here are our 6 top tips to keep your car clean during winter:
1. Frequently Wash Your Car
Washing your car is more than just a mere formality, dirt that is left unwashed off the surface of your car can scratch your paint. Furthermore, dirt left to rot on your car wears the protective coat off and can fade your colour.
Frequently washing your car will go a long way to preventing this and help protect its resale value.
2. Snow Foam
A big part of winter car care is finding the products that can deliver great results and save you time. Snow foam is right on top of the list of the best products to get as the cold months approach.
This viscous soap is worth using as it’s the best way to get the worst grime and salt off your paint. You just cover the car in a thick layer of soap, let it soak in and do its thing, and then wash it off. It’s a good idea to do it before you do a full wash as it’ll make sure there’s no abrasive road grit left on your car that could damage your paintwork when rubbing it.
3. Pressure Wash to Make Cleaning Quicker and Easier
Our third tip on how to keep your car clean during winter is to invest in an efficient pressure washer. Washing your car, especially in the cold can be very tedious. However, a good pressure washer, like the Karcher K2 Compact, makes ridding your car of all the dirt and grime very easy.
Not only is a pressure washer far quicker than using a hose, but you will also be able to get to those hard to reach spaces without bending over backwards, ensuring your car stays protected.
4. Wax Car to Add Extra Protection
Prevention is often better than cure and with all of the extra dirt that comes with winter driving, your car’s paintwork needs all the protection it can get. Regular waxing will help protect the paint as the clear coat on your car acts as a barrier against harmful elements. It also slows the oxidation process which is heightened in the winter months.
5. Replace Fabric Floor Mats With Rubber Ones
The inside of our cars is often a welcome sanctuary from the blistering cold of the winter months. We spend more time in our cars during the winter so keeping the car’s cabin clean from wet and dirty footwear is important.
With this in mind, consider swapping your fabric floor mats for rubber ones. Rather than getting wet from your footwear (and a welcome ground for bacteria and mould), you’ll simply be able to wipe them down.
6. Cover The Car
Storing your car in a garage is a thing of the past for most people. But this doesn’t mean you can’t protect your car from nighttime frost when you’re not using it – the answer is a car cover.
Not only will a car cover help keep your car looking new for longer, but also the time it takes to put the car cover on will more than make up for not having to defrost the car in the morning.
There you have it, our Winter Car Care Guide on how to keep your car clean during winter. Make sure to read through our post on the 5 essential winter car checks before you hit the road again. We’ve also put together a guide to winter tyres if you are considering purchasing some, we cover everything from costs to storage. Check it out!