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Winter is coming – here’s how to get your car ready

It’s that time of year again, where it’s getting colder and darker by the day. This blog is aimed to help you prepare your vehicle for the winter as well as help maintain the correct cleaning methods to ensure your car’s protection lasts throughout the winter.

If you’re wanting to get your car prepared for the winter then here are a few tips.

 Pre-wash (non contact stage):

We all know that winter is the worst time of year for dirt, grit and salt clinging on to your vehicle. However, before you go straight in with the bucket and wash mitt for a contact wash, it’s important to consider some sort of pre-wash as part of your car cleaning routine.

 Scratches and swirls are caused by poor preparation and an improper contact wash. This is because without a good pre-wash you’re not removing the worst of the dirt sitting on the paintwork. Going straight into a contact wash will push all the heavy grime around the surface, causing this damage. A decent pre-wash procedure should vastly reduce the risk of scratching your paintwork since the majority of the surface contaminants (dirt, road salt etc) would be removed prior to using your wash mitt. 

 Apply your chosen pre-wash over the entire vehicle, paying extra attention to the lower parts! Leave the pre-wash to dwell for the recommended time, then thoroughly rinse from the bottom upwards.

 Washing (contact stage):

Once the non contact pre-wash stage is complete, it’s time to move on to the contact (hand wash) stage.

The most important thing here is to use a good quality wash mitt and ideally two buckets with grit guards at the bottom. One bucket will be used for clean, soapy water and the 2nd bucket is used to rinse your dirty wash mitt prior to plunging back into the bucket containing the clean, soapy water.

60ml of Concentrated Car Wash diluted into warm water and you’re set to go. Work from the top of your vehicle to the bottom, always working in straight lines a panel at a time. Make sure you’re also dunking your wash mitt regularly into the rinse bucket and then your wash bucket to help keep the wash mitt clean and well lubricated throughout the process.

Thoroughly rinse your vehicle with clean water to remove the shampoo. Then, depending on which protectant you wish to apply, the vehicle is ready for drying.

Protection:

If your chosen protection is a wax, ensure the vehicle is dry to the touch. We’d recommend using one of our Microfibre Drying Towels to swiftly achieve this. Then, apply your wax of choice over the vehicle’s painted panels. Before buffing, allow it to cure for the recommended time (this may vary depending on ambient temperatures). Once ready, buff the wax to leave a glossy, protected vehicle.

Snow Seal is a specially formulated coating to be used with a foam lance and pressure washer. It awards your vehicle with a durable hydrophobic coating that leads to remarkable water beading. If Snow Seal is your chosen protection method, this would be carried out after the contact wash prior to drying. Snow Seal requires 50ml to be mixed into your foam lance with 250ml of water. Then, simply spray the vehicle as you would with snow foam, but avoid glass as best as possible. Once applied, rinse immediately. Your vehicle is now ready for the drying process.

You can finish off by cleaning the glass and dressing the exterior trims and tyres as desired.

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