Small practical guide to wash and clean your car externally

Taking care of your car during summer requires some best practices

When the good season comes we increase our motivation to keep our car washed and clean. It’s because we have more opportunities to use the car for fun, so we like to have it very polished. It’s also because we are less discouraged by the bad season rains.

Especially in summer under the sun, it’s important to follow a few suggestions to get a very good and professional result. Independently by the season, it’s recommended not to wait so much time between car washings. In average a car should be washed not less than once every 2 months in order to avoid dirty to crust hardly. Moreover washing a less dirty car we reduce also our efforts.

Materials you need:

• Water and water hose
• 2 plastic buckets of about 10 lt. capacity each
• 1 clean soft sponge (no hard sponges or double-sided sponges)
• 1 clean plastic brush
• Liquid soap specific for car washing (don’t use generic soap or worst soap for dishes)
• Soft microfiber rags and soft cotton rags
• Polish cream

Park your car under the shadow in order to avoid that the sun dries the car body too quickly leaving undesired stains, and check that all the doors and windows are closed. Put the wipers in a vertical position, not in contact with glasses.

Then fill the 2 buckets with clean water. In one of them add the soap only when it’s full of water, not before, to avoid to have too much foam inside. In the other one leave clean water only.

Wet the car with low-pressure water to remove powder that could damage body paint or windows glasses.

Consider to divide the car body into the following areas:

• Roof
• Front glass
• Front side windows
• Rear side windows
• Rear glass
• Engine bonnet
• Right body side (fenders, doors and right wheels)
• Left body side (fenders, doors and right wheels)
• Rear side

We have to wash one by one each area in order to avoid to let the water dries with soap while we’re washing another area.

For each area, starting from the top, put the sponge into the soapy water and wash the car without putting too much pressure. Massage softly the area with the sponge several times if it’s very dirty, especially on the lower areas of the car body. The lower part of the body and the wheels are usually the dirtiest, so wash them as the last ones. The sponge must be rinsed very often into the clean water bucket without soap. In this way, you remove the dirt from the sponge and you avoid to have it inside the soapy water bucket.

If we see that an area is going to dry, wet it again with clean water.

For the tires is recommended not to use the sponge but a plastic brush that is more aggressive. In this way, you also don’t get the sponge dirty by tires. Read more about how to clean car tire.

Wash the soap foam away with clean water from the water hose. The most important is to be careful about not leaving any soap residuals. Area by area, dry with a soft microfiber rag, removing the water by leaving the rag absorbs it as much as possible without massaging the area too much. Only when most of the water has been absorbed and the rag is well wet, the area can be massaged to have it shiny.

As the car is completely dry, it’s recommended to apply a special polish cream on the metal car body. Put the cream on a soft cotton rag and massage the body. The cream dries very quickly leaving on the car a sort of white powder layer. As the cream is completely dry, massage the powder layer away with a clean cotton rag leaving the metal body area very shiny. Also, the polishing is recommended to be done area by area on small surfaces each time. Avoid putting the polish cream on glasses, plastic and rubber parts. Cream polishing is recommended twice per year. IN this way we also protect the metal body from being attacked by dirty.

The glasses are usually well cleaned with the washing, rinsing and drying steps explained. In case of additional cleaning required it’s recommended to clean them specifically with alcohol and newspaper sheet.

The final result is very good and you can enjoy your shiny car!