Car detailing tips · Looking after it

How often should you detail your car?

The honest answer is that it depends on where your car sleeps, not on a number somebody picked. Here is how to work out your own schedule in about two minutes.

The short version — how often to detail your car

Detail your car properly once or twice a year, and wash it every two to four weeks in between. That covers most cars in NW London.

But that range is wide for a reason, and which end you sit at has almost nothing to do with how much you drive. It is about what lands on the car while it is parked.

Four checks to work out how often to detail your car

Answer these four and you will know how often to detail your car without guessing. Add up the weeks.

Where does it sleep? Garage, add two weeks between washes. Open driveway, leave it as it is. Street under trees, take a week off — and if those trees are limes or planes, take two.

This is the one that matters most, and the single biggest factor in how often you should detail your car. Bird mess and tree sap are acidic and they work on a timer. Caught inside a week they come off in a normal wash. Left a fortnight in warm weather they etch into the lacquer, and an etch mark is a machine polishing job, not a washing one. That is the difference between a £65 wash and a £300 correction.

What colour is it? Black, dark blue and dark grey show everything, and they show swirl marks that lighter colours hide. Silver and white are far more forgiving. Dark car, take a week off.

Is the paint protected? Waxed or sealed paint holds dirt on the surface instead of letting it bond in, so it washes off more easily and more safely. Protected paint, add a week. Bare paint that has not been sealed in a year, take one off.

Who else uses it? Kids, dogs and a daily commute with food in it change the inside far faster than the outside. If that is your car, the interior is what will need attention first, and no amount of exterior washing will fix it.

Three worked examples

Same question — how often to detail your car — three very different answers.

Silver Golf, garage, no kids, sealed paint. Every four to five weeks is plenty, and one deep clean a year keeps it honest.

Black BMW, street parked under trees in Golders Green, two children. Every two weeks outside, and an interior deep clean twice a year. This car will look tired within a year on a monthly schedule, and the owner will blame the paint rather than the plane trees.

White Transit used for work, driveway. Every three weeks is fine for looks, but the inside and the door shuts are what actually date it. Worth a proper reset annually.

The mistake most people make

People detail your car thinking in terms of big occasional cleans. Washing rarely but thoroughly, instead of often and gently, is the error.

Dirt that sits on paint for two months does not just look bad, it bonds. By the time you get round to it, removing it takes more aggression, and more aggression is what puts swirl marks in. Then the car looks dull in sunlight, and people assume that is just age.

It usually is not age. If you only detail your car twice a year and let it sit filthy in between, that is the cause. It is the cumulative effect of a few heavy cleans instead of many light ones. A car washed properly every fortnight for five years will look dramatically better than one blasted at a hand wash four times a year — and it will cost you less over those five years.

This is the whole logic behind the car cleaning membership, incidentally. Not that regular is nicer, but that regular is genuinely cheaper once you count what neglect costs to undo.

When you need to properly detail your car, not just wash it

A wash cleans the surface. An interior deep clean uses steam, shampoo and hot-water extraction to pull dirt out of fabric rather than move it around. They are different jobs and neither replaces the other.

You need the deep clean when: the carpets have gone grey rather than dirty, there is a smell you have stopped noticing but visitors have not, something has been spilled and dried, or the car is going up for sale. If none of those apply, save your money.

On the outside, the equivalent moment is when a washed car still feels rough to the fingertips. That is bonded contamination — tar and iron particles embedded in the lacquer — and it needs chemical decontamination and a clay treatment, which is part of a Full Detail.

How often to detail your car in winter

Counter-intuitively, winter is when regular washing matters most and when most people do least. Road salt is corrosive and it collects in arches, sills and under the car — exactly the places you cannot see and would not think to check.

You do not need a full detail in January. You do need the salt off, particularly the underside and the arches, and you need protection on the paint going into the season rather than coming out of it.

The rule of thumb, if you want one number

Wash every two to three weeks for most NW London cars, because most of them are parked outside within reach of a tree. Then detail your car properly once a year — a deep clean if the inside is the problem, a full detail if it is the paint.

Still not sure how often to detail your car? Send me a photo and where you park and I will tell you straight — including if the answer is less often than you thought.