Fishing Frenzy

A lot of people detail or clean their car for aesthetic reasons and that is all very well, but there are far more essential reasons for detailing one's car. Most people spend roughly the same percentage of their money on a car. I mean that as people get a better career, they tend to purchase a better car. Therefore a car is a considerable investment for most people.

It makes sense to safeguard one's investments and even if you cannot make your car increase in value, you can at least take every measure in your power to reduce the speed of its decline. One of the foremost methods of doing this is by frequent maintenance and detailing a car should be seen as part of your standard maintenance routine.

Car detailing as part of a maintenance programme also has a safety aspect. You assume that if your brakes are not serviced in the correct manner that there is a greater chance that they may fail one day and you ought to expect that if you do not take proper care of your car's bodywork that it might rust and be less protective in case of a crash.

So having said that here are a couple of tips to help you safeguard your investment and maybe even your life.

Windscreen wipers should be kept spotless and unworn at all times. Have you ever been in a car with bad windscreen wipers when it is raining? It is very scary. If it has not rained for a while, then you will not have observed the dust and grit building up under the windscreen wiper blades.

This abrasive dirt will soon scratch your windscreen, especially if someone accidentally switches them on when it is not raining. A scratched windscreen is bad enough, but if the blades are tatty, they will not wipe away the rain sufficiently for you to see clearly either.

You should make a point or regularly lifting the blades from the windscreen and inspecting and cleaning them. You will soon see if the rubber is starting to perish or fray and you will also see a line of solidified dust (or worse) on the glass. Wet both the wipers and the glass before trying to wash them in order to soften up the dirt.

Use a sponge or chamois leather on the glass, but use an old rag on the rubber blades, because they can devastate a new sponge or costly chamois leather. Use this rag for cleaning other abrasive parts of the car like the wheels, number plates and bumpers.

While you are cleaning the windows of your car, it is a useful idea to get into the habit of finishing the cleaning of the outside with vertical strokes and the inside with horizontal ones (or vice versa, if you like). This way you will know which side those maddening, and often distracting, smears are.

While we are on the subject, it is not a clever idea to obstruct your vision by having furry dice or anything else hanging from your rear-view mirror. These symbols are meant to bring good luck and safety, but they are the exact opposite. Likewise nodding dogs and large speakers on the rear shelf are obstructive and window stickers of any size are silly. Transparent glass is meant to be seen through not looked at.