How to Add Years to Your Car’s Life — Avoid the Crazy Expense of New Cars

In our region’s winter months, simply visit a full service car wash. One that has a good underbody cleaning system to flush out road salt. Even after melted snow and rain have seemingly rinsed the smooth panels of your car’s visible exterior, the undercarriage, the parts you don’t see, are still trapping salt, sand, mud, and moisture.

In the warm months, it’s important to protect your car from the sun and heat, inside and out. All the more if your car is dark in color. Black cars with a dark interior can be as much as 15° hotter sitting in the sun than an identical white car with a light color interior. Summer heat works against your paint and against your upholstery, especially leather and vinyl components. A full service car wash can regularly apply protective coatings to your paint and interior surfaces. Find one that uses quality automotive products.

In today’s car market, where both new and used vehicles are 20 to 50% more expense than in pre-COVID days, it makes sense to hold onto your car and make it last longer. Believe it or not, merely visiting your local car wash, one that has a good underbody cleaning system, is the most cost effective way to keep your car going. How often? Weekly in the salt-laden winter months. In these northern climates with salt on winter roads, your machine can rust out before it wears out. There’s a simple and cost effective way to prevent premature rust. Even with rust-proofing, if you don’t pay for periodic re-applications, your vehicle will rust. Not just wheel well and rocker panel rust. Structural and safety components rust away. That means brakes and brake lines, fuel lines and tanks, frames and unibody subframes, hubs, suspension, and even wheels. Rust makes maintenance more difficult and more expensive and sometimes impossible.

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