It doesn’t all come out in the wash ...

Washing a car is easy. Cleaning a car is not. 

And once in a while your car needs a lot more than the daily wipe, the weekly brush, the monthly vacuum cleaning, or the quarterly polish. It needs a “Valet” service.  That’s not a highfalutin version of what your regular washing does. It’s a focus on what routine washing does not do. 

In most of Europe, professional Valet Service is a major branch of the motor business and, to give you an idea how popular, important and thorough it is, the most sophisticated job can cost Sh50,000! In Kenya, we  don’t have damp and musty winters that demand an annual  “spring clean” blitz, and most of us don’t have that kind of money! 

But we do have dirt.   The good news is that care and hard work are good substitutes for cash. The process best starts with the most greasy and grimy parts – the engine and underpan and inside the wheel arches and wheel hubs. Professional pressure/steam cleaning is the best way. 

Once the main and most stubborn dirt has been removed with this mechanical aid of a high-pressure and high temperature jetstream of solvents, detergents and water, you can have the enjoyable job of  “detailing” the finishing touches; getting into the nooks and crannies with effort and ingenuity – a toothbrush and a green (non metallic) scouring pad also help. 

SUPER CLEAN

The next phase is an inside job – the passenger compartment and boot. 

Start with a good general clean and then get down to detail. Brush, vacuum clean and wipe, followed by a carpet and upholstery shampooing. The best results come if all the easily detachable parts are removed and cleaned as separate items (floor mats, the back seat squab) and then get inside and behind all the things that are normally covered up (like door panels, spare wheel wells etc).   

Finally, when it’s all super clean by ordinary daily standards, tackle all the fiddly little bits in minute detail. It’s the removal of dirt from joints and corners (eg in dashboard vents, around buttons and knobs) that lifts the final result to a wow level. An artist’s brush (fairly stiff, oil-painting type) dipped in water and shaken virtually dry is amazingly good at getting dust out of corners. 

On outside bodywork, wash and polish deals with all the main surfaces, but the car is not, and does not look, really clean because of dirt and stains in the seams around door handles and trim strips and mirrors and light mountings; between the louvres of the radiator grille, along windscreen and window seals, behind number plates, in every seam and fold of every panel. 

The detailed cleaning concentrates on overlooked stains in awkward places, but it makes all the difference to the final result. Attention to detail for cleaning purposes automatically forces close attention to the condition of each part, so Valet also takes the opportunity to tighten loose screws, replace missing drainage plugs, repair broken retainer clips, replace perished seals, free and lightly lubricate stiff and squeaky mechanisms, separate cables and pipes that may be chaffing against each other… 

Done properly, a Valet Service puts all sorts of things right and gives the whole vehicle a close look and a fresh start. As professional car dealers well know, it also increases buyer appeal and sale value.