Spring clean your car – how to best wash your car!

Our top tips for easy spring cleaning

Take your car to the car wash

If you can, you should ideally wash your car at a car wash, petrol garage or do-it-yourself facility. This means you avoid releasing dirty water into the environment. When you wash your car, you free up oil and metal residues. The water and the pollution it contains then runs down into the nearest drain together with the cleaning products, which means the water from washing your car ultimately ends up in watercourses and, eventually, in the sea. At a do-it-yourself car wash facility, you also have access to a pressure washer.

If you have to wash your car at home, avoid doing it in the street or on your drive. Instead, do it on a lawn or gravel area, as the ground will to an extent collect and break down any pollution. Look closely at the cleaning products you use and make sure they're ecolabelled.

The right tools

If you're washing your car at home, it's an obvious advantage to have a good quality pressure washer, such as a Kärcher K5. If you have time, start by using a degreaser, which helps to dissolve the winter dirt. A popular choice is Turtle Wax Extreme Prewash-T. If you're washing the car with a pressure washer, rinse the car off thoroughly from the bottom up. Make sure you don’t get too close with the pressure washer, as you can damage the paint.

When you come to shampoo the car, you should use a quality car shampoo, such as Kärcher 3-in-1 or Sonax Gloss. Shampoo the car with a sponge. If you drop the sponge on the ground, use a clean one as it can easily pick up dirt that can scratch the paint. Use a dirt separator in your bucket. Rinse the car from the bottom up. After you've rinsed off the car, dry it with chamois leather or a microfibre cloth to avoid scale build up.

Wax on, wax off

Finish off by waxing and polishing your car, as this makes it easier to maintain and keep clean. Make sure you mask emblems and plastic parts to protect them. An orbital polisher is helpful – ideally a model with twin heads. But here too, you need to be careful. If you press too hard there’s a risk that you’ll go through the paint. After the polishing, it’s time for a final finish with a microfibre cloth, which you use to wipe over the whole car. Meguiar's Supreme Shine is a good choice.

For internal cleaning, you can vacuum the car effectively with a multi-purpose vacuum cleaner, which is the best option for getting up all the dirt and gravel. The Kärcher MV5 is a good choice here.

And now your car’s ready for spring and the open road. Happy cruising!