Clearing out one’s car can be either a pleasurable experience or a nightmare! Regardless of your personal opinion, it will need to be done eventually! People who dislike the work can take the easy out, and have it done professionally. This costs a fortune and if you are this type of person then this article happy go lucky article is not for you…

Ok, if your still with me… yes you like to occasionally clean out your car but true, not many of us actually enjoy it. For this reason we all use the car wash fairly regularly. A basic car wash with your fuel purchase is cheap and easy. No one is going to give you flack for that! It is the detailing and interior cleaning that gets crazy expensive to have done professionally and so that is really what I am advocating we do ourselves!

Getting down to business: The Interior!

• Make sure you have some time available! You can do a quick clean in less than an hour but a major clean can take a lot more time.

• Be patient and prepared. Get your hands on a vacuum cleaner, ideally a wet-dry so that you can shampoo your carpets and seats. Make sure your vacuum has a crevice tool and is fairly powerful. Have a bunch of rags available and get your cleaning chemicals. Household stuff is usually good enough but it may be useful to get things like armor-all and other protectants. Shampoo/upholstery cleaner is also a must. For serious cleaners do not use household stuff, there are specialized products available that do a better job.

• Take care with what chemicals you use! Make sure you will not be wrecking your leather or vinyl! Some cleaners will make them dry out and crack.

• Take everything out of the car that you can, including the seats if possible. This makes it much easier to see everything and to clean the floors.

• I usually dry vacuum the car first and then do the plastics and vinyl afterwards. I rarely shampoo my vehicle as so far I have managed not to stain anything too badly.

• Don’t forget your side pockets, glove box and ashtray!

• Clean your floor mats outside of the vehicle! Make sure they are dry before you replace them into the vehicle. Often these can be soaked for a while to loosen any dirt.

• Windows too!

• The Dash can be difficult because of all the creases. Use a small brush and be patient.

• Most odors will have been removed by a through cleaning, is some remains get one of those stinky trees or other such product. Personal I detest them and swear they give you brain cancer but hey, it is your car, do as you please!!

• Cleaning the outside

• Use lots of water.

• Never use plain detergent as your soap. It destroys your wax!

• Switch you rags, use cotton or something non-abrasive.

• If you need to fix scratches read up on how to! It is a pain in the butt. Basically you get an abrasive solution to rub out small surface scratches. If your car’s paint has major damage your going to have a hell of a time in fixing it. Don’t believe anyone who tells you it is going to be easy.

• Use a good wax, and no, despite the fact that they advertise it will last a year... it will not! Try getting your car waxed fully at least once a year and get it mini-waxed a couple of times. A real waxing takes a long time! Driving though the car wash and getting it ‘waxed’ via a spray does not count.

• Cleaning the Engine

Be careful about cleaning your engine compartment. Though it is really satisfying to see all that grime/oil removed you need to take extreme care here.

For goodness sake don’t just pop the hood and hose it down….

To clean an engine properly you need clean it while it is warm, but not hot

Cover all areas that do not take well to water, it battery distributor air intake etc.

Cover these areas with plastic. Secure them with rubber bands or the like.

Spay the motor and engine bay with degreaser. Use a good, high quality one that is not too bad for the environment. (best are biodegradable products)

Let the degreaser do its thing for a while and then spay it off. Sometime you will need to repeat the degreasing process.

I recommend against using high pressure water in the engine bay. Sure you get faster results but you also run a greater risk of spaying water into areas were you shouldn’t get any.

Oh, important! Clean the bay in an area where the drippings will be caught and decontaminated. Don’t just dump all that oil into the ground!