Five products for washing your car without damaging the paintwork

If there is one thing we all have to do with our car, it is washing it. The bodywork can withstand almost anything, but it needs care when we wash it so that it stays as shiny as it was when we picked the car up from the dealership. There are specific products for cleaning the car and keeping the bodywork in good condition, but in our homes there are products that can be very useful for cleaning the bodywork and keeping it in good shape. Let’s look at some of these household products that can help you leave the car nice and clean and that you can find at home.

Oven cleaner foam

A product as common in the home as oven cleaner foam can be very useful for cleaning car wheels. Its degreasing action removes any type of dirt that has stuck to the wheels. Simply spray the wheels with oven cleaner foam and let it dissolve the dirt completely.

Dishwasher detergent

Dishwasher detergent is designed to remove ingrained dirt from plates and cutlery, so it can also be used to remove dirt from the bodywork. It is advisable to use it with a pressure washer, which sprays the dishwasher detergent solution over the entire surface of the bodywork. After leaving the dishwasher detergent to work for a while, rinse with water and you will have a clean and shiny bodywork.

White vinegar

White vinegar is a product that can be used in several ways to clean the car. White vinegar can be used to clean the wheels, as it is a powerful degreaser. Vinegar is also used in the home as a glass cleaner, diluted to 10% with water. To make it really effective, use newspaper, which prevents the glass from fogging up.

Another use for vinegar is cleaning plastics. The effect of vinegar allows dirt to be removed from plastics, using a cotton wool pad dampened in half a glass of water with two tablespoons of vinegar.

Toothpaste

Something as common for daily hygiene as toothpaste can be a good ally for cleaning the car. Specifically, toothpaste can be used to polish car headlights. You can spread toothpaste over the surface of the headlights and make small circular movements with a toothbrush. In any case, to get a good result when polishing headlights, I advise you to read this article, where we explain how to do it most efficiently.

Shoe polish

Shoe polish will not only give a new look to shoes, but can also be used to give a touch of black colour to car parts such as the bumper. You can use shoe polish to restore the black colour of a plastic bumper by applying a couple of coats of shoe polish. It can be spread with a sponge soaked in shoe polish, the kind sold in any supermarket, and you can achieve a fantastic result on the car.

All these little tricks for cleaning the car with household products work and can be very useful for leaving the car clean and perfect, but you should not experiment with just any product. Some of the products we have at home may be fine for cleaning almost anything, but can be harmful to the paintwork and bodywork. If we are not sure, it is better not to use a product we have doubts about and stick to what is proven to work.

There are also products that popular wisdom credits with miraculous cleaning properties but which do nothing, such as Coca-Cola, the subject of thousands of hoaxes and myths, which is nothing more than sugar water, or which can be harmful to the car’s paintwork. Be very careful, because although some things do work and can replace specific and expensive products without problems, others do not.