Spring Cleaning Tips

In the spring, a lot of people take time to spruce things up around the house. We spoke with Cory Ermold at CarShop Chester Springs about what steps he’d suggest to improve the look and feel of your car this spring.

After a tough winter, my car is looking a little tired. Outside of going and buying a new one, do you have any practical suggestions?

Cory: There are a couple of companies out there that make solid spray wax products, which you can find at an auto parts store or at many big box retailers. After a quick wash, just spray the wax on, and it gets the car very clean—removing pollutants from your car’s surface and protects the paint a bit. The key is to use a clean, new, high–quality microfiber towel.

So not just the rags I usually use washing the car?

Cory: Using something that's been sitting in a bucket for six or eight months isn’t going to give you a great result. The other tip is to not use the same towel inside and out. Use it just on the exterior surface of the vehicle. Another thing I’d recommend is to clean the windows and mirrors—that’s really easy to do and can go a long way.

Any special tips on that?

Cory: There are streak–free window cleaners, and you can use a microfiber towel, but Windex and paper towels combined with a little elbow grease will do fine. After the winter, there’s usually a haze of salt on your windshield that you might not notice until you clean it off—and then just vacuuming out the salt and debris from the exterior doesn’t take a huge investment of money or time, but it can make a big difference.

Anything I should do outside of cosmetics?

Cory: The way your vehicle drives is highly dependent on the quality of your tires and how balanced they are. Get your tires rotated and balanced, and you’ll experience less road noise and less vibration. Your vehicle will drive straight and smooth. You’ll be surprised how much different it feels.

What about things like scuffs and interior stains?

Cory: CarShop offers a service called CARenu that not everybody knows about. You know how we recondition the used vehicles we sell to make them as close to new as we possibly can? We offer the same process on the car you already own, whether you bought it here or not. Part of the reason people tend to move on from a vehicle is because of little things—like a stain on the seat from a coffee you spilled two years back. It’s pretty easy to remove that kind of thing if you’re a pro, and we really do have pros here.

Sounds like a Father’s Day idea.

Cory: It can be a gift for your dad or just a gift to yourself. You just bring your vehicle in, and we’ll itemize all the things we’d suggest you do to bring it up to like–new condition. You don’t have to pick them all. We can do them a la carte—interior detail, exterior detail or even a full head–to–toe makeover.

Interested in seeing what CarShop can do to make your car look like new? Read more about CARenu on our service page.