Save Money, Save the Environment. Clean Your Car

Cars have fascinated me since the day I learned to drive. Every time I would use our car, I'd always make sure that it was sparkling clean. It became one of my morning routine as I wasn't satisfied whenever our maid did the cleaning. As I grew older, technology evolved and schedules became busier than my college life, car wash services sprouted all over the metro. These businesses became an instant hit, even commercial car parking spaces had mobile car washing services.

But with the rising cost of commodities and gas prices, I thought of saving some money by visiting the car wash less frequently. But being the car enthusiast that I am, I cannot stand going around with a dirty car. So, I decided to restore my old college habits of cleaning our car myself again. But this time I'll be doing it a twist. The eco friendly way.

And so I drove to the mall and shopped for the 2 things I'll need. A feather duster and a shammy. I bought a no namer from Ace Hardware, it was the cheapest one at 50 pesos. It was slightly smaller than the average size of the more popular chamois brands. After all this is just an evaluation to see if I can do this on a regular basis. I went to the car wash the following day and had the car cleaned really good (the last one for this month), and had it waxed and buffed to a pristine state.

Few days passed and whenever it got dusty after a days use, I would just dust it off in the morning. No biggie, dusting the car took only a few minutes to finish. But later in the afternoon it rained, this left watermarks all over the car the following day. This is where the real work starts, besides I needed to shed some fats. Think of it as a scheduled visit to the gym.

I prepared a small bucket of water and the shammy I just bought. First up is to think of several segments you would divide the cleaning sections. The Mitsubishi Adventure is like as small SUV, so I divided it into 10 sections :

1. Roof
2. Front Right Fender and Hood
3. Front Left Fender and Hood
4. Front Right Door
5. Front Left Door
6. Rear Right Door
7. Rear Left Door
8. Rear Right Back Panel and Rear Fender
9. Rear Left Back Panel and Rear Fender
10. Back Door

After that I did the cleaning starting from the roof, to avoid dirt going down on cleaned areas below. I've dipped the shammy in water, and wiped it on the roof, this is to loosen dirt formed in the water stains. Soon after the whole roof was wiped with a wet shammy, i wrung the shammy to dry it. This is now used to dry the wet areas of the roof. Same sequence was done to the rest of the car, keeping in mind the sections. It is important to clean by sections to avoid water drying up without being wiped dry, this will again leave water stains. The trick is to dry it before the sun does.

The wheels are the last ones to be cleaned because it is the dirtiest and all that cleaning left the water in the bucket murky. Surprisingly, the results were good. Not bad for cleaning a big car with a small bucket of water.

I remember a friend who advised me to go slow on car washing services because frequent water exposure of your car's underparts stimulates rust to form more quickly than the average. He was of course talking from experience, he lives near the coastlines of Manila bay and hes car didn't display rusting from the inside as compared to his neighbor's car of the same make and year model.

I was happy with the whole experience and looking forward to doing it again. After all I was not only able to save the environment but I also saved some bucks from the car wash and gym membership fees.