There are a great many different preparations for car body and interior care that add shine and luster to both old and new cars. In movies and TV shows, you can often see how good-natured Americans or Europeans carefully polish their favorites to a mirror shine.
With our dirt on the roads, especially in the off-season, it would seem unreasonable to spend money on special shampoos and polishes and make the car shine, only to dirty it again in five minutes. Let's try to prove that we need car cosmetics no less, and even more, than in other countries. At least because it is not only sparkling cleanliness, it is, first of all, protection from external harmful effects, of which there are plenty in our climate zone: large temperature differences, a "salt cocktail" in winter, dust, sand, scratching paint like sandpaper, stones, leaving small cracks in enamel - in summer. Add to this the acid rain that has already become a reality, ultraviolet radiation, burning out color pigments from the paintwork and making your car faded and dull, poor quality of painting of domestic cars.
No one doubts the need for anti-corrosion treatment of the bottom and thresholds. And if you want to keep the appearance of the body and interior in its original form, you can't do without car cosmetics. This is especially true for new foreign cars. The enamels on some of them are made on a water basis - such a composition is less harmful in production (environmental requirement). However, they are not as durable as regular synthetic ones, and therefore more vulnerable. Car treatment begins with washing. It is unlikely that you will be able to remove all the ingrained dirt, oil stains or traces of tree resin with just clean water, although it is still worth rinsing with water to wash away small stones and sand that can scratch the paint. What to wash with? In no case with washing powder, soda or household detergents, for example, for cleaning tiles or dishes. They "eat" dirt perfectly, but at the same time they are no less active in destroying paint and, penetrating through cracks, cause corrosion of metal. So, you need to "bathe" your pet only with car shampoo and necessarily a special fine-pored sponge that retains grains of sand, preventing scratches on the surface of the body.
Remember, gentlemen, remember.
Car shampoos sold on the market can be divided into two groups: with low and high wax content. The former contain dissolved surfactants that "pull out" (extractive) from the surface of dirt. The shampoo is easily washed off with water, leaving a thin layer of wax. The second detergent composition includes a solvent, and the content of wax and polymers is an order of magnitude higher. In fact, this is a shampoo and polish "in one bottle". Such products are very popular in Scandinavian countries, they are especially convenient to use in late autumn, winter and early spring, when due to low temperatures it is difficult to apply a very thick polish - you wash the car and the body is already processed. However, ease of use inevitably affects the price - such shampoo is usually 2-5 times more expensive than usual.
To prevent stains from forming due to uneven drying and to polish the wax, it is recommended to wipe the body with a soft cloth, or better yet, with artificial suede, which is sold separately in a plastic case. It will serve you for many years. After washing, you can start processing the paintwork. If the car has not been processed for several years or never at all, then it probably makes sense to use the so-called color restorer. The fact is that as the enamel ages, the upper unprotected layer of paint softens and fades under the influence of the external environment. Color restorers contain finely dispersed abrasive powder with a cleaning composition, which gently removes the outer "dead" layer and at the same time slightly levels the surface, helping to clean old stains of ingrained dirt.
If, having finally washed the body, you suddenly discover traces of incipient corrosion, do not despair: small stains are easily removed with rust converters. They interact with rust, leaving a film resistant to further corrosion - passivate the metal and, as a rule, do not require special surface preparation. Although the conversion process occurs right before your eyes, everything depends on the size of the stain and the depth of corrosion penetration. For large stains, the treatment will have to be repeated several times with short breaks. After treatment, the damaged area will need to be touched up.
Now that the body is fully prepared, you can apply polish to give the car more shine, and most importantly, to protect the body from an aggressive external environment. What to polish with? The question is quite complicated, since this part of car cosmetics is the most widely represented. Polishes for the body, plastic trims and bumpers, for chrome and wheel disks, colorless and with a coloring effect, liquid and paste-like, with abrasives and without - for every taste and wallet size. Of course, there are universal polishes that give shine to painted panels, bumpers, chrome parts, glass and even tires. They are more likely to interest people who care primarily about the appearance of the car and their image. But the protective capabilities of such preparations cannot be very high, because the surface properties of different materials vary greatly. For ideal protection, each material requires treatment with "its" specific composition.
So, the body. For new or almost new cars, colorless polishes are ideal, they are relatively cheap and easy to use. Some of them contain Teflon and super-slip polymers, which form very smooth surfaces after polishing, preventing dirt from sticking. If the car has been driven a lot and its paint is covered with scratches from sand and stones or improper washing, colored polishes are preferable. They are thicker, a little more difficult to apply than colorless ones, but they fill in and mask small scratches and abrasions on the enamel well. However, do not forget that polish is not paint and, in the case of deep and wide scratches, it cannot replace it. Polishes enter into an electrochemical reaction with the paintwork, for their complete "hardening" it takes about a day, so they are applied in the garage or outdoors in warm weather and, of course, not in the rain.
And more about the usefulness of cosmetics in our harsh conditions. You must admit that dirty, cloudy after winter, wiper-scratched glass looks like an "eye sore" against the background of a shiny car body, and besides, driving with such glass is unsafe: it is difficult to see the road through them, especially at night or when driving towards the sun. One thorough wash will not remove the countless scratches left by sand, windshield wipers, and when raising and lowering the side windows. Waxes and silicones contained in conventional polishes can cause clouding, so it is better to use a special glass cleaner with a polishing and protective effect. It cleans the surface well and at the same time smooths out small scratches, making the glass more transparent. Well, if you treat the outer surface with a product from the "anti-rain" series, and splash an all-season cleaner into the washer reservoir, the world around you from the car's interior will appear in a completely different light.
There are other parts that change their original appearance over time and spoil the appearance of the car, such as bumpers and wheels. Black plastic bumpers soon turn gray, dirt easily penetrates the porous surface of the plastic, and no shampoos can get it out of there. A cleaner is produced especially for such cases, which returns the bumper to its "native" black color and at the same time covers it with a protective film.
For chrome and aluminum parts, there are products containing a small amount of abrasives and polishing compounds for adding shine. They can also be used to treat wheel disks, although special preparations have been developed for them. For special lovers, there are even products for tire care.
When starting such a "general cleaning", it would be a sin not to take care of the interior, because we do not drive on, but inside the car. One vacuum cleaner and a wet rag can achieve significant results, but everything has its limits. For example, the front panel, like black bumpers, has a tendency to fade and burn out in the sun and simply requires treatment with some kind of polish. You can wash fabric seats and napped upholstery with water and washing powder, of course, if you have the time and opportunity to wait a few days for them to dry without using the car. A good alternative to this can be aerosol upholstery cleaners. White foam is instantly absorbed, cleans the fabric and dries very quickly, leaving a transparent protective layer - accidentally spilled liquid is easy enough to wipe off. Perhaps the only drawback is the high consumption of the product and the correspondingly high cost of treatment.
Finally, a provocative question – is it worth it? Maybe it will do? Fortunately, the traffic police are not very picky about the appearance, and the cleanliness of the car has little effect on the technical parameters. But imagine that you have to sell the car. What will the buyer pay attention to first? That's right, he will look at the appearance, how is the body - is it "rotten"? It is worth spending 10-20 dollars a year on car cosmetics, so as not to worry about this, and, you must admit, driving in a clean, sparkling car is much more pleasant. By the way, according to statistics, such cars are less likely to get into accidents. Why - I don't know, but the fact remains a fact.