Regardless of whether you live close to the coast, in the desert, or in tropical areas, the climate can affect your car in various ways. For instance, your car can start aging prematurely especially for those living in coastal areas, in humid areas, or snowy areas.
This means that you’ll have to spend a lot of money on paint repair jobs. During winter, most states will use salt to help combat icy roads not to forget the efforts it takes to scrape off ice from your ride.
Ultimately, this can leave your car with scratches or corrosion. Good car cleaning habits will leave your car looking shiny and admirable. To help you out, below are tips for keeping your car clean this winter.
1. Wash Your Car Frequently
In the cold winter season, it’s ideal to wash your car every 8 to 10 days. But you want to do this when the temperatures are about 40 degrees or more.
This should be done during the day to allow for drying and before night time when temperatures are expected to drop. For the best experience, you might want to check these cleaning tips out as they’ll help to provide you with insights on the tools to use, detergents, and how to dry your car.
In addition to this, they’ll help to keep your car interiors clean in matters of carpets and upholstery. They include:
- Pressure washing – If you’re looking for a fast way to clean your car during winter, consider using pressure washers. But it’s important to ensure that the machine used is suitable for car uses. You don’t want the pressure to peel off your paint. Pressure washing is a great way to get rid of all the muck and dirt that accumulates from roadside snow.
- Use snow foam – It’s most likely that you haven’t heard of snow foam. This is a thick viscous soap that helps to remove all the grime and muck that accumulates on your car during adverse weather conditions. Applying this foam before rinsing will help to remove sticky debris that sticks on your car when it snows. Consider waxing your car before using the snow foam for the best results.
- Drying tips – Drying your car in winter can seem like a daunting task. To help you out, use microfiber cleaning cloths and use wax for continual protection. This will help to prevent the windows and door locks from freezing.
2. Storage
How you park your car during winter is critical if you want to ensure that your ride remains clean and functional. Functional in the sense that you don’t want to wake up one morning and find your car frozen to death, literally.
The cold winter season will not only affect your car’s efficiency but cleanliness as well. In a nutshell, you’ll be hitting two birds with one stone by ensuring that your car is well stored.
Now, if you decide to park your car in the garage, you’ll have to ensure that your garage is as cold as the outside temperatures. Parking outside will ensure that the salty slash remains frozen.
This will help to minimize the rate of corrosion. Either way, you’ll need to find a strategy that helps keep your car clean. But parking in sheltered places will help to limit the amount of ice forming on your windows.
3. Drive Carefully
Before we get to driving safely and carefully, if you own a 4X4, the first thing you want to do is ensure that you’ve invested in mad flaps. This will help prevent splashing muck and dirty snow on your car windows and side panels.
Slow driving during winter will help prevent iced snow from splashing on your car.
In addition to this, you also want to keep a safe distance from trucks and bigger vehicles as it will help prevent muck and grit kicked by their wheels from splashing on to your car.
Finally, investing in the right sealant can help in protecting your car during the winter and in addition to this, help the exterior of your car remain clean. With such products, you won’t need to clean your car as often.
Most importantly, how you drive your car during the winter will determine the frequency of the need to clean your car. But ensuring that your car remains clean during the winter months will help prevent additional repair costs.
