Winter Car Cleaning: Some tips on getting your car ready for Winter

For some regions of the country (including ours here in Central, OH), pumpkins on the doorstep remind us that Winter is coming. Preparing for the occasionally dark days of Winter doesn’t have to be a long, drawn out day of unpleasant work. Here’s a couple of suggestions. If you’re going to store your vehicle for the Winter or live in a climate where Winter doesn’t abuse your vehicle and psyche, we’ve got something for you too at the end of this article: My car won’t be seeing Winter this year!

Exterior

Paint

You’ll want to continue with your wash regimen up until you can’t; for me that’s about 50 degrees Fahrenheit. Oh, of course there were times in my younger days when I’d wash if it would be above freezing for the next day (and night…don’t want any residual water freezing over the nighttime hours if the temperature drops) but those days are gone. And even 50 degrees gives me pause these days!

When you do get the opportunity to wash, always a good idea to top up your wax or sealant with a complimentary product like POLISHANGEL Rapidwaxx and, if your car is coated, treat it to a nice application of Kamikaze Over Coat Liquid or POLISHANGEL Cosmic Spritz; you don’t know when you’ll get another chance so strike while the iron is hot (or at least moderately warm). Once Winter hits there’s usually a warm day or two throughout the season, always a good time to get out and and give the car a good cleaning.

Check out our article “A Brief Respite From Winter, Time To Wash Your Salty Car” for some tips on mid-Winter ‘Sanity Washes’, i.e. “I just can’t take it anymore…” washes.

“I need (want) just a bit more to weather the storms…or to entertain myself before detailing season ends“

If your car is ceramic coated and you’d like to add an extra layer of protection (or your protection is flagging but a re-do is a Springtime project), dropping a coat of Gyeon CanCoat or Kamikaze Over Coat Ceramic can be just the ticket. A little easy prep goes a long way in adding some extra muscle for the Winter ahead:

1. First, a thorough wash: PRO Car Washing From Home
2. A quick once-over with Kamikaze KMKZ Cleansing
3. An final wipedown with Panel Wipe never hurts…
4. Apply the extra protection!
5. As for myself, even when my Kamikaze ISM & Miyabi coatings were prepped and ready for Winter, I’d often drop a coat of Kamikaze Infinity Wax on ’em. Waxing a car on a nice, Autumn day is it’s own reward and the extra protection, look & feel don’t hurt either!

Glass

Now would be a great time to apply a glass coating to your windshield and other exterior glass surfaces. While it won’t totally eliminate the need for windshield wipers when the snow and sleet flys, it does make driving easier overall and certainly makes cleaning easier and more effective. There’s really two ways to go with this and it partially depends on just how bad your Winter gets and what your driving environment is like:

• Winter is absolutely horrible and my wipers & washers are constantly cleaning salt residue and other slop off of my windshield: This is pretty much where I fit in when I lived in Cleveland near the Lake (Erie) and drove 40 miles on the freeway to and from work. Even in moderate of conditions, my wipers were constantly swingin’ and I was going through windshield washer fluid by the gallons each month; it wasn’t really so much the weather but the slurry & grime other vehicles kicked up on the freeway. Friction (such as wiper use) is the enemy of any coating and glass coatings are no different. It became more efficient and functional for me to use a shorter-term, easier to use glass solution as opposed to a long-term glass coating. Gyeon’s Quick View fit in here perfectly and any time it gets warm enough to wash, I’m quickly hitting at least the windshield with it to keep things nice all winter long, albeit w/ more frequent applications. A quick hit with the ESOTERIC Maintenance Spray also helps after each was. Yes, it works well on glass too for short-term hydrophobic goodness!
• Winter isn’t that bad and I’m not doing a lot of heavy freeway driving. My wipers usually come on in intermittent mode for short times: If this is the case, grab a more permanent glass coating like Gyeon View or Kamikaze Window Coat and apply before it gets too cold. While I use the more frequent application of Gyeon Quick View in the Winter, once Spring hits I’m all in on the more permanent coating which gets me through the Spring & Summer.

Interior

• Carpeted Floor Mats: They’re going to get nasty…salt encrusted, white & chalky. They’ll be easier to clean if you apply something like Gyeon Fabric Coat to them before they start being abused. Check out the video on the product page and apply as directed in a location that is WELL-VENTILATED. Id did it in my basement once and I was “persona-non-grata” after that poor decision, something that quite frankly I get used to. My wife is a woman of infinite patience despite living with a litany of “Seemed like a good idea t the time” escapades. Some of us like to learn by doing…experience is the best teacher, after all.
• Rubber & All-Weather Floor Mats: A great brush for scrubbing these is a tire brush like the Detail Factory Tire Brush. Couple it with ESOTERIC APC or Sonax Engine Cleaner (yes, engine cleaner…think of all the rubber & plastic in a modern engine compartment) and they’ll clean right up. Please don’t dress/finish them with any topcoat though; slickness in the footwell is not a good way to go!
• Nearly every other surface in your interior: ESOTERIC Interior Detailer, available in both a larger kit as well as one to keep in your car for quick cleanup…such as when you roll your window down just a tiny bit and a snowplow comes steamin’ on by kicking up slush into your interior. Or does that kind of stuff only happen to me?

A few other tips if your vehicle lives outside:

Even in the finest weather the best way to keep your paint at in great shape is not to touch it: Video – Car Paint is Delicate – Don’t Touch It. That said, Mother Nature has a cruel sense of humor (Example: Birds being drawn to freshly washed cars) so eventually you’re left staring at a car with a few inches of snow piled up on it. Don’t be one of those people who clears a 6″ area of the widnsheild and then immediately hits the freeway; nobody appreciates the moving blizzard you become and obviously, not a safe way to go given the limited visibility.

• Use snow brushes VERY CAREFULLY to clear snow; brushes will scratch your paint and sometimes, cause irreversible damage.
• DO NOT use ice scrapers on painted surfaces. Ice scrapers are for glass only!

My car won’t be seeing Winter this year!

Well, lucky you! Your planning and logistical forethought with regards to Winter residency or vehicle storage makes for an easier Winter!

If storage is your thing, don’t forget these few items:

• Increase the air pressure in your tires to account for lowering temperatures (air pressure drops along with temperature…OK, nitrogen being the exception somewhat!) as well as helping to eliminate potential flat spotting of tires. While flat spotting is largely a thing of the past, you can take an added precaution by using Race Ramps Flatstoppers. Regardless, a few extra PSI over normal never hurts when the vehicle sits for quite a while.
• A bit of your favorite fuel stabilizer in the tank never hurts either. Although it’s only a few months, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure! As Fram used to say, way back in the 1970’s “You can pay me now or pay me later” although admittedly they were talking about oil filters and not storage preparation. Still, it was a fun throwback, no?
• Attach a battery maintainer (We use CTEK’s in the shop) to keep your battery up to snuff; no need to be jump-starting a vehicle in the Spring, especially given all of the somewhat cantankerous electronic modules in modern vehicles.
• While opinions vary, in general don’t start your vehicle when in storage just to “warm it up or move it around a bit”. Unless you’ll be getting the engine up to normal operating temperature for 30 minutes or so, starting it when it’s not going to be driven is either a) doing more harm than good or b) providing no benefit.
• Car cover? Well, better dusty than scratched by a cover moving around, no? And you did wash your car before storing it, correct?

Anyway, just a few tips on storage; like detailing itself there’s many ways to approach it; the previous are a few that have worked well as we have stored at least one car with success each Winter for the past 20 years.

Storage?!? No way…Winter is the most pleasant time of the year where I live:

• Continue on as normal, you’re quite fortunate in your residency choices! Still, check the pressure in your tires as temperature drops can affect it even in moderate climates.

Drive it, store it, sun or snow…

…hopefully some of these tips give a few ideas on keeping things running smoothly through the Winter!