Winter is most definitely here. With the bitterly cold frosty mornings, salted roads and the constant wet weather it can be a real chore to keep your car looking clean and presentable. Thankfully, here at Black River Details, we offer winter car detailing services that can ensure your vehicle looks its best even in the worst of driving conditions.
In this week’s blog, I’m sharing some handy tips and tricks to keep your car gleaming throughout the winter months.
Winter car detailing and how to stay shiny through the bleak mid-winter:
Preparation is key:
Firstly, always ensure that your vehicle is adequately prepared for winter; this is the key to ensuring that washing and maintenance is a breeze. We recommend a pre-winter detail. At Black River Details, we carry out a full wash and decontamination to ensure all the exterior surfaces are perfectly clean. After this preparatory work, we use a sealant, such as Kamikaze Collection’s Overcoat, to protect from the elements.
Additionally, this product offers the all-important self-cleaning effect. In other words, it repels the majority of dirt and grime while making sure contaminants don’t bond with the paint. This makes washing far quicker, easier and safer for the paint.
An extra coat for the elements:
Of course, the best way to protect your vehicle is to apply a ceramic coat using a professional-grade coating, like Kamikaze Collection’s Zipang coat. We include this type of coating as standard on most of our paint correction packages. This coating will provide unbeatable levels of protection from the salt, dirt and road grime. Additionally, it will make it super quick and easy to wash your car on the weekend. As a bonus, this level of protection can easily last up to three years with proper care and maintenance. That means you can enjoy the ease of care for years to come. Finally, as all of our paint correction packages include glass coating as standard you can say goodbye to scraping the ice of your windows with numb fingers. These coatings prevent water from freezing on the glass.
Maintenance in the mucky months:
Lastly, always make sure you properly maintain your vehicle finish. A regular cleaning schedule is vital during the mucky winter months. We recommend washing every week, but if you can’t stick to that schedule, the minimum should be every two weeks.
If your car is ceramic coated, then all it requires is a good rinse with a pressure washer to remove the majority of the dirt before carrying out a safe 2 bucket wash. Drying it will be a super quick affair thanks to the coating. You should be able to wash and dry the car in about half an hour!
However, if your car has no ceramic coating, any grime will have a much stronger bond to the paint. So, in turn, you’ll need to take some extra steps to remove it all properly. Start with a pre cleanser, like Bilt Hamber’s Surfex HD. Spray this product all over the entire car to break up and loosen the dirt. You’ll find it’s easier to rinse away with the pressure washer. After this, snow foam the vehicle before moving onto the 2 bucket wash process. This washing process can take around an hour and a half in most cases. It takes longer because the unprotected paint holds on to any contaminates. Additionally, your vehicle will take longer to dry without a ceramic coating.
At Black River Details we can still help you and your car survive winter. Talk to us about our winter car detailing options. Contact us HERE.
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