The importance of cleaning your car

Why is it important to clean your car? 

When I first started driving, cleaning my car was not high on my priority list, in fact, for the first 3 years of driving I didn't spend much time or money in actually looking after my car properly.
You may not realise it, but cleaning your car both inside and out is so important. As important as getting a routine oil change and your yearly MOT & Service. Keeping your car clean preserves and maintains the exterior of the car from every day usage.

In the summer time I notice that my car gets covered in bird poo, dead bugs and other dirt from driving. I didn't realise that the acid in bird's poo and from dead bugs actually ruins the car's paintwork and takes a lot of washing and cleaning to get it all removed. After having to go through a drive through car wash 5 times and get my car hand cleaned I realised that next time my car gets pooed on I need to sort it out straight away, rather than leaving it for a few weeks.

Cleaning your car when it is raining? 

It isn't only in the summer time that it is important to get your car cleaned, but also in the rainy weather. Whenever it rains, I always think to myself, "oh that's good, my car needed a clean" but actually the acid rain and water kicked up by other cars can also damage the cars paint work and it isn't cleaning the car at all!

It isn't just the exterior of the car that needs to be cleaned, but the interior is just as important. The inside of the car can get dirty really quickly from dirty shoes, food crumbs and spilt drinks. I always notice that my car gets really dusty as well. You should be cleaning the inside of your car at least once a month to stop all the dirt from settling into the materials.

I've been reading a few articles online about this topic and a few surveys have been done which ask how often people get their car cleaned or clean it themselves. Every article showed in their statistics that men are more likely to keep their cars clean than women are. A survey which was created by a women's car insurance specialist "Diamond" showed that men are 34% more likely than women to keep their cars clean. 61% of men clean their car at least once a month, compared to 46% of women. Apparently one in eight women said that they were embarrassed by the state of the inside of their cars.

So next time your boyfriend/husband/father says that they don't want to clean up after dinner because they don't like cleaning, ask them how often they clean their cars. If they say they clean their cars regularly, on their own, then they have no excuse to not clean up after dinner!

One article did a survey that showed women care more about looking after themselves and their appearances rather than their cars, compared to men who spend more time making sure their car stays looking the same as when they bought it. I would have been one of those people who said that I care more about the way I look rather than the way my car looks, however, I now know that it is just as important to keep my car as clean and tidy as I am.

To help me clean my car I bought myself a pink feather duster and a coover (car hoover) I also have a car-bin for all my rubbish. I find that having these items in my car makes me clean it more regularly.