Cleaning Cars

Sorry the featured image I picked is not reflecting the true, less interesting nature of this post 🙂

I might be letting out a bit of a trade secret here, but a clean car will sell more quickly and most likely for a higher price than a dirty, poorly presented car.

Sometimes when I get callers from this website, they just want too much money for their cars and the advice I give them is to try their luck on CarSales or Gumtree or Carsguide then to give me a call back if they don’t meet success there.

Whether you sell your car to a licensed Brisbane motor dealer like myself, or to anyone else for that matter, it is a good idea to make the car look as good as it can to justify the price you want to achieve for it.

SO let’s start with a few basics.

Interior

First of all, if you haven’t cleaned your car in some time, there ius probably all sorts of crap wedged between gaps and plastic edges. Before you even plug your vacuum cleaner in, get an air compressor and a plastic tool (like an upholstery remover tool or similar with a semi-solid end) and get as much of this stuff loosened and removed from all the edges inside the car.

Then also backed up with compressed air, get a paint brush and vigorously get the bristles in all vents, radio parts, indicator assemblies, transmission cover and between any orifices you can find.

You will be amazed how nicely your car will come up later for the little bit of extra effort.

Then go through the entire car carefully with the vacuum cleaner using the edges extension.

Now get a product similar to Armourall and wipe down all the surfaces. I actually prefer to use silicon spray for a nicer and shinier finish. Spray a bit of silicone spray into a clean cloth, then apply as you go repeating the process.

And don’t forget to wipe down and clean all the door jams. This is one of the first impressions your buyer will get of the car before they climb in for the first time.

Underneath

This is a harder part of your car to clean.

But any discerning buyer will take extra care to inspect underneath.

You could use a degreaser and crawl underneath with either a hose or a high pressure water sprayer alone, but recently I have discovered an amazing extension which brings up underneath of most cars very well.

Look up an under car cleaning tool by Karcher.

You can get them at Bunnings for about $180, but they are excellent.

It is a round head unit which can be wheeled underneath and it sprays high-pressure water upwards via 3 rotating jets.

Yes it cleans very well, but if you don’t already have a Karcher high pressure washer, it is quite hard (but not impossible) to get you existing cleaner to fit.

Engine Bay

It is easier and quicker than you think to get a nicer looking engine bay.

Thoroughly spray degreaser and/or any industrial strength cleaner you choose.

Now get a sponge and thoroughly wipe over all bits you can access with this and soapy water.

Now with the engine running, use your high pressure water cleaner over the engine bay not forgetting the underside of the bonnet.

Take car around soft linings and the electrical components and you should be fine.

Even with the engine running and you still get water in where you shouldn’t have and the engine starts running very roughly, just leave the car with the bonnet up in the sun for a few hours.

Wash and Wax

Give your car a good wash with a quality product which has inbuilt wax.

And then use a quality chamois to wipe it down otherwise you will more than likely end up with water marks all over your clean car – especially if it is a darker coloured car you have for sale.

Finishing Touches

Get a few cans of cheap tyre shine from somewhere like Repco or Supercheap Auto.

Spray this stuff on your tyres for a nice shine – as well as the rubber and plastic pieces in your now nice and shiny clean engine bay.

Of course this will take you up to 3 or 4 hours which you might not have.

If not, I highly recommend spending a two or three hundred dollars and getting a professional detailer to do the job for you.

But of course, I buy cars in all conditions and I can see through the less-than-perfect appearance of any car.

Call me on 0411 362 229 and let us have a talk if you want to bypass the cleaning and just sell your car quickly in Brisbane for cash today.