We’ve all been there. You wash your car in the self-serve car wash, feeling mighty proud that you spent the extra time and effort to get a flawless, sparkly-clean vehicle, only to reveal a streaky disaster when you arrive at home.
We’re going to dish out some advice from our Auto Spa detailing experts on how to get that perfect clean vehicle, every time.
Tip #1 – Keep Your Vehicle Clean In Every Season
Don’t skip the winter car wash! It’s important to keep your vehicle clean – no matter what season it is. During the winter months, salt and sand can start to build-up on the exterior of your vehicle and if it’s left for too long, it can start causing damage like rust.
We recommend washing your vehicle at least once every month, depending on how much you drive, what conditions, and other factors. Rinsing your vehicle frequently will save you money in the long run by keeping the total value of your car from decreasing.
Tip #2 – Treat Your Vehicle To A Deep Clean
We’ve covered our bases on how often you should be washing your vehicle, now let’s talk about where. Our Auto Spa experts recommend bringing your vehicle to UCC at least ____ a year for a deep clean. Getting your vehicle professionally detailed from time to time gives it a perfect clean that sometimes you just can’t do yourself.
We have many products to choose from to remind you of that new car smell and throughout the year, it will be much easier to maintain and keep clean on your own.
To keep up with cleaning, take your vehicle to a self-serve car wash. You can get a much better clean using the wand and different soaps compared to taking the easy route and driving through an automatic wash. Countless times we’ve seen vehicles with the bottom half of their vehicle still dirty because the car wash sensors didn’t work properly. Or even worse, customers come in with broken mirrors or damage from these automatic washes.
Tip #3 – Navigating the Self-Serve Car Wash
- Begin by rinsing your vehicle with water from the pressure washer wand. Get the big chunks of dirt off
- Next, choose the pre-soak option which will also spray out of the same pressured water wand
- Then you’ll want to switch to the brush wand. Press the soap button and start from the TOP and work your way DOWN. We cannot stress this point enough. The top of your car is usually the cleanest so we don’t recommend starting at your dirty wheels that will inevitably smear dirt and small rocks all over the exterior of your car. Rookie mistake and we see people making it all the time.
- Once your car is lathered in soap, spray off the vehicle from the top down again using the “rinse” option (this should be the pressured water wand you started with).
- Final notes: Be sure to rinse near the undercarriage and walk around the vehicle at least twice so that you’re positive there is no soap residue. This is also a crucial step. If you quickly spray your vehicle then leave the car wash, we can guarantee you’ll have streaky soap marks when you return home.
Recap
We hope our advice will help you leave the car wash with a satisfactory clean. Remember to continue washing your vehicle during winter, skip the automatic car wash, and save yourself enough time to thoroughly rinse the soap from your vehicle.
If you wish to treat your vehicle to a deep clean at UCC’s Auto Spa, click here for our different package options.
